Time, they say, only exists so everything doesn’t happen at once. Melbourne duo Client Liaison have been in an ostensible stasis in the past year, cultivating a slow-burning adoration solely through the medium of live performance – including a grandstanding primetime showing at Golden Plains earlier in 2013. The brilliant Australiana pastiche that is the End Of The Earth YouTube clip, uploaded in April 2012, remains the only instance of studio-forged output. As such, the track is placed within setlists as a greatest hit of sorts. It’s an effective salvo, as demonstrated upstairs tonight at a bustling Laundry Bar.
But it wasn’t just End Of The Earth that instigated a sense of familiarity from the audience. Though unreleased in any tangible form, the Client Liaison arsenal of tracks are overwhelmingly emboldened by an innate classic pop savvy, with at least one prior live sighting proving enough to provide melodic and lyrical retention.
In terms of performance from an unsigned act with scant released material, tonight was a fair triumph. In terms of a Client Liaison performance, it was perhaps the weakest I’ve seen them. Singer Monte Morgan declared he was still shaking off the dregs of a days-long crook spell and keyboardist Harvey Miller was only slightly successful in his requests for the house mix to be turned up to an acceptable volume. The lack of live supports gave an air of the perfunctory rather than that of ceremony. Still, everybody got their money’s worth tonight.
Things in the music industry, on any level, take time. The compulsion is to wish for an alignment with the prolific end of the spectrum, capitalising on the zeitgeist for a supernova-bright burst of greatness. I have good faith that Client Liaison do encompass, or at least aspire to, a realised and levelled iteration of the executive-class acumen they lampoon within their nostalgic aesthetic. If they pull it off come album/EP/whatever launch time, which I’m positively sure they will, greatness will ensue. Their Golden Plains debut will be the makings of lore. Tonight’s performance, however, will be but a footnote.
BY LACHLAN KANONIUK
LOVED: The deft Treaty tribute.
HATED: The underwhelming mix.
DRANK: A cold Fosters. Not really. But just imagine I did ok.
