Live Review: BadBadNotGood, Boy Prince, Kit Pop

To state the obvious, masked rave revivalist Zomby is never far away from some deeply rooted controversy, with a reputation tarnished through plagiarism disputes. Most notably among these is the Soundcloud loop debacle surrounding 2011's Natalia's Song, which eventually saw to a necessary co-accreditation to Reark, the man behind the original sample, through the 4AD label. Zomby has also developed notoriety for his publicised commitment issues. As you might have guessed already, Zomby pulled a particularly characteristic no show for the Australian leg of his tour. Adding to his almost 20K tweet pool, the gold-faced man of anonymity lacked any signs of remorse, instead choosing to patronise his perpetually disappointed fan base through social media: “I can hear u groan from here”.

Regardless, the show went forward, with a slightly tweaked supporting line-up, as well as the experimental jazz three-piece BadBadNotGood choosing to maintain their loyalty to the bill. Boy Prince stepped up to the plate with an assorted mix bag of goodies that floated around the 140 BPM sweet spot, playing an impressive selection from everything grime to R&B. A set full of feel-good instrumental hip hop numbers from Kit Pop delighted the crowd and included tracks from Ta-Ku's early catalogue, before changing both genre and tempo with the likes of Shlohmo. Fans of the mellow trap and contemporary R&B movement would be ignorant to look past Kit Pop's impressive new album, Seams, which is currently available as a free download on his Bandcamp.

The kind of sound that BadBadNotGood produces has been described as “spastic, sonorous, genre-fucking rap covers” by NOW magazine, which is probably as accurate a description one could come up with. The Toronto boys explored exhaustive jazz renditions of tunes that ranged from artists such as Flying Lotus and TNGHT, and at times had you contemplating whether the whole concept is pure genius or wondering whether they're just another cover band. An energetic and impromptu Happy Birthday chant from the audience in celebration of keyboard player Matthew Tavares' 23rd birthday was a nice touch to the night's proceedings. The trio finished their performance with their ambitious cover combination of Tyler the Creator's Bastard and Gucci Mane's Lemonade. Keep your eyes out for BadBadNotGood's new LP that will be dropping later this year. Expect covers!