Emma Davis, Atluk @ The Front,Canberra (3/12/11)

Mon 5th Dec, 2011 in Gig Reviews

Atluk – a band who could easily end up in a sticky, sweet mess of indie pop, pull together and create a beautifully unique folk sound to bop along to over a drink or two. On Saturday night that’s exactly what the patrons of The Front were privy to.
Melbourne based, with most members originating from Canberra, they seemed pleased to be home. An executive decision was made to cut their usual seven-piece act to just four, for intimacy reasons. If you had seven band members in The Front, where would you put the crowd?

Highlights of their set included two tracks from their self-titled EP – pop ditty Who’s Bitten You?, which was recently played on Triple J’s Roots N’ All and inspired by vocalist Hannah Petocz’s brother, as well as the sweet lullaby-esque tune, Baby Doll. Petocz wowed the audience when she put a new spin on an old classic, turning ABBA’s Suzy Hang Around into a catchy tune from the point of view of Suzy herself in Benny Hang Around.
By the time the support act wound up their set the venue was packed to the brim and they finished up on a high note with brand new piece, Caterpillar.

With every ending comes a new beginning, and what a shiny beginning it was. Emma Davis kicked off her set with her brand new film clip for single, Feel A Thing. Showed to the audience on a projector screen, the clip was hardly in high definition, yet it all seemed to add to the ambience of the track. The video showed life, from the most mundane point of view and fit the song like a glove.

Emma Davis writes and sings about those moments in life that you can really relate to, songs about lovers, friends and life; she is raw, honest and simple. She gives a unique feel that hasn’t been heard before, a singer-songwriter who throws in heart, free of charge.
Stand out tracks of her set were All of This, Someone Like Me and Losing Faith, all seeming to have a very similar feel, a goodbye to a great love perhaps. And although these were highlights, it is very hard to fault anything from Davis’ debut album.

Davis has a way of taking covers and making them sound as though the way she plays them is how they were always supposed to sound. She did exactly this with Sugar Ray’s Every Morning. She turned the major pop hit into a simple tune that captured hearts and turned the feeling on its head.
Finishing as spectacularly as she begun, Davis showcased the song she travelled all this way to play – this was after all, the Feel A Thing single launch. With some of the sweetest crowd participation around, the audience showed their support by temporarily playing the part of backup singers and surprisingly, sounding great.

Although Davis politely asked the crowd not to request an encore, they weren’t letting her out of it that easily. They hollered and roared until the shy songstress picked up her guitar again and took them away with another spectacular cover in the form of Ida Maria’s I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked.

Both acts took the genre of folk to all new level, with such unique sounds they won’t be forgotten in a hurry. Knowing their limits is probably both ladies’ greatest strength, and keeping things simple adds so much more to their sound. Both acts have only just set out in this journey but if they keep it up, they have a long and joyful road ahead.