This Is Not A Photo Opportunity

Seja + Otouto @ The Troubadour 22-04-2010

Somewhat strangely Seja chooses a Thursday night for the hometown launch of her debut solo album, We Have Secrets But Nobody Cares, at The Troubadour, with Adelaide and Melbourne shows having happened the previous weekend and the Sydney launch happening the day after Brisbane.   It’s not quite a sell out but is fairly busy by the time she starts her headline set, accompanied by ex-Rational Academy guitarist Meredith McHugh and ex-Gazoonga Attack drummer Renae Collett and with I Heart Hiroshima’s Cameron Hawes guesting on Between A Slur.

Although the sound is dominated by Seja’s layered vintage synths, the addition of guitars and drums to the live mix give it a slightly different feel.  At times as an overall performance it’s a bit disjointed, as surprisingly there are several sound problems over the course of the night, something I never really expected from keyboards (as opposed to guitars), and there are a number of longer-than-expected between song interludes whilst the problems are fixed.  When the sound issues are resolved the songs are great, with the current single, I’ll Get To You, being the obvious highlight and a song (can’t remember which one) that had some great guitar work from Meredith in the outro.

Otouto, a band I heard about via the overwhelming praise on the Mess+Noise message boards, support tonight and are deserving of the reputation that has preceded them.  Drummer Kishore Ryan also plays with Kid Sam, who played at The Troubadour in April, but whilst the drumming on that night almost seemed like an add-on extra, almost gimmicky, tonight it’s such an integral part of the sound that it really takes the songs to a different level.  Or maybe the difference is that Otouto have the songs, whereas I found Kid Sam’s to be fairly uninteresting, even with their recent Australian Music Prize nomination.

The album has been on heavy rotation in the last month and is still mesmerising me.  It’s hard to even describe it; it’s like a minimal math rock/abrasive trip hop/new wave mix, percussion courtesy of a random selection of pots and pans and then with such sweet female harmonies over the top of it all.  There’s nothing unique in music but this is probably as close as you get these days.  I’d like to think it would be up there for next year’s Australian Music Prize, but they’ve got form, and having given it to a female this year I think next year’s award has probably already been ear marked for a male singer songwriter; after all it’s yet to be won by one and I think that’s how the award works, doesn’t it?

Some more photos on Flickr.

Seja

Otouto

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 3rd, 2010 at 11:47 pm. It is filed under Music Photography and tagged with Brisbane, Justin Edwards, Otouto, Rave Magazine, Seja, Sony a700, The Troubadour. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.