Live Review: The Bamboos, Pink Matter

There's a fitting symmetry to the line-up at The Triffid tonight, with Brisbane neo-soul band Pink Matter performing as the opening act for this evening's legendary headliners. Melbourne band The Bamboos have been making soul and funk music together for almost 20 years, and the four young members of Pink Matter seem symbolically representative of the ways that the soul music genre has grown and evolved as it has been passed down through the generations.

Perhaps a useful analogy to describe the differences between the two band's approaches to soul music would be to consider The Bamboos' revivalist brand of soul as structuralist, and Pink Matter's neo-soul as post-structuralist. Although perhaps it doesn't really matter, as it doesn't get us any closer to understanding what either of these bands actually sounds like. The point of all this is simply to say that Pink Matter's music is characterised by jazzy inflexions and nimble micro-rhythms that produce simultaneously the senses of perception and intoxication. At its best, it feels like a challenging and refreshing subversion of established forms. At its worst, one feels they need a jazz degree to engage with what's going on.

Thankfully, while dancing to Pink Matter's music occasionally involves a more sophisticated knowledge of syncopation than most possess, all four band members seem perfectly content to lead the way, exhibiting what seems to be a sincere enjoyment of their music, which quickly becomes contagious. Singer Kerry Raywood's dance moves are particularly helpful in this respect, as Libby Scott's drumming flirts with unorthodox time signatures.

The Bamboos are a peerless band in many respects, and their position within the musical landscape feels particularly accentuated since the recent passing of contemporary American soul performers Charles Bradley and Sharon Jones. Bandleader Lance Ferguson, resplendent in a golden suit jacket, hails singer and frontwoman Kylie Auldist as the "goddess of soul" and the "jewel of the South Pacific" and he's not wrong. However, the band's song selections occasionally resemble each other to the extent where they begin to become indistinguishable. The karaoke-quality projections onto the backdrop behind them do nothing to assist with this problem (You're better than this, Bamboos!) and it's at these points that singer Ella Thompson's presence as a vocalist is sorely missed.

Nonetheless, there's plenty of highlights throughout the set, with new songs Lit Up, Golden Ticket, and Stranded faring particularly well — Graeme Pogson's drumming on the latter recalling the frenetic breakbeat rhythms of English drum and bass band Rudimental.

The band's Thompson-era work doesn't get much of a look-in, with the setlist favouring Ferguson-Auldist compositions, making their covers of James Blake's The Wilhelm Scream and The Easybeat's terrifyingly insistent I'll Make You Happy seem like missed opportunities to showcase more of the band's underappreciated recordings.

Of course, it wouldn't be a Bamboos show without an excess of solos throughout the night ("Everything in moderation, including moderation," Ferguson says at one point), with percussionist Phil Binotto's tambourine solo reaching new heights with the instrument.

They strip things back for an encore performance of I Don't Wanna Stop as Ferguson and Auldist share the stage, and it's moments like these that create a more dynamic experience, so that when the band does return to the stage to finish with The Truth, the audience is ready for another wall of high fidelity sound.