Live Review: Basenji, Body Promise

The ladies from FBi's Body Promise (Mealo and Amelia Jenner) took to the stage playing high energy electro-infused jungle beats, warming up the already intoxicated, overwhelmingly male, teen crowd for the last show of Basenji's Trackpad tour.

It was a sold out event, and as an audience member attempting to navigate through the crowd, you could definitely feel the difference. There was little room to move or dance and by the time Basenji (real name Sebastian Carlos), hopped on stage just after 1am, the floor was covered in alcohol and the venue reeked of cheap beer, hormones and body odour all around.

Basenji walked up to the decks — a towering beacon of light, dressed in an oversized plain white tee with the basenji dog logo as visuals on either side of him, and white strobe lights in the background — and graciously announced, "Thank you so much for coming down, this means the world to me." Close to halfway through his set he premiered one of his latest songs, Air, the perfect embodiment of gentle, whispery electronica. He followed through with the eclectic, uplifting crowd favourite Dawn, and the soft, mellow track About You, featuring Melbourne artist Oscar Key Sung.

During the Sydney producer's 60-minute set, he played everything from trap to hip hop, to happy indie-electronic music, but weaved in and out of each track so rapidly there was little time to recognise and savour each one of them. He ended with another crowd favourite, Petals, just after 2am, and announced 'surprise guest' Wave Racer up on stage for a b2b set. It was very much still a room at capacity, but the walls had started to drip with sweat and the humidity, chaos and grime had become a little too overbearing to stay for the following performance.