The ambiance when I walk into the bandroom at Workers Club is certainly cave-like. The fog machines are working on overdrive, pumping dense plumes into the equally-dense crowd who, not yet limber and loosened-up for dancing, line the floor like spooky stalactites. JPS is on decks, playing from the back of the room as covertly as only a master Operative can. He’s laying down some really cool natural-sounding tunes: dense waterfall-walls of sound and lush forest beats. It’s not quite music for dancing; instead we’re being prepared for Holy Other’s thick waves of witch-bass.
I’m looking forward to it. After a slightly disappointing Laneway appearance on Sunday — the result of an ambivalent crowd and weather that was inappropriately sunny for cave music — it’ll be good to see what kind of show H.O. can put on when he’s a bit more in his element.
H.O. comes onstage amidst scattered whoops and cheers. There’s no onslaught of applause or anything — he’s quite a small man and doesn’t exactly swagger on bursting with stage presence. He begins with a few songs from 2011’s breakthrough EP With U — first the title track, then Know Where and Yr Love. As a quick aside — it’s definitely a thing in witch house 2 spell yr track names in text-speak (see also: any track by How to Dress Well).
Next up is Held, from last year’s album of the same name. It sounds like H.O. is playing things slightly pitched down, and his already super-slo-mo vocal samples become even more stretched and languid as a result. Around me, the crowd is starting to find a groove. Dancing to this stuff isn’t obvious — couples seem to have it the easiest, melting into each others’ arms as if during a high-school social slow dance number. The rest of us just kinda sway and rock gently back and forth. By now the fog is everywhere and it’s hard to see the person next to you.
H.O. works through a few more tracks on Held, including Inpouring, Tense Past and possibly Past Tension. I’m astutely taking notes but there are times when I lose track (pardon the pun). It all fits together very well — H.O. makes his segues with huge slabs of drifting tundra bass or keening eldritch wails. He gets a big cheer dropping Touch, although it’s too slowed down for my liking and lacks the punch of the album version. He also throws some choir-like chimes into the mix, but they make things a little too crowded. Nonetheless, it’s a great track and the audience respond well.
He closes with a track that I have noted down merely as “COCONUT PERCUSSION SOUNDS”; I’m unable to shed any further light on the matter. Then he leaves the stage with as little fuss as he entered, while we whistle and applaud heartily. The token chant for an encore is short-lived but a guy up the front echoes my sentiments when he yells, “Seven more songs!” But the stage is quiet and we all slowly exit the foggy cave of the Workers Club bandroom.
BY MORGAN RICHARDS
LOVED: Cave vibes.
HATED: Soundsystem was suffering a little by the end of the night.
DRANK: Two pots of Carlton.
