Live Review: BV, Shouse, Lossless, EnV

A late addition to the bill, EnV kicks off the night and holds back no punches making itself known from the get-go as the real bastard child between electronica and hip hop. Although it is early days, the half-packed room of punters are unashamedly in love with this act and lap up every minute.

One of the projects to have an eye on tonight and within Melbourne's music scene in general, Lossless is the new collaborative project between Oscar Key Sung and rapper HTMLflowers and the results are kinda fragmented. Even though the project is young, it feels as if these two veterans of the scene could have delivered a little more. The interplay between the two is the drawcard, rarely do they use their unique vocal styles in collaboration and it feels like a number of tracks are lost opportunities. They are unarguably best at their loudest and trappiest, giving the PA and the dancefloor a solid workout. But this project shows great potential — it just needs to be looked at again from the drawing board.

Shouse is another collaborative project, this time between Ed Service of IO and Jack Madin of The Harpoons and the results are the closest to 'da club' we have come all night. The set is very traditional in its composition and doesn't exactly push too many boundaries, but nor does it need to as it's simply catchy and enjoyable at its core. Towards the tail-end, the guys from Habits make onstage appearances for Support Structure and the fuller, fleshed out sound is unquestionably the set highlight.

The artist formerly known as Black Vanilla, BV take the stage and the Sydney-based group really just let the packed room have it. The dirty, electronic hip hop sound is fully capitalised on within the mix and the set plays out like a drunken house party. At the midpoint, they expand with live sax and bass. From that point on, the stage becomes a stomping ground for almost anyone who wants it with cameos aplenty. The audience loves it and the band constantly tease their last song for a few tracks. When they finally do reach their closer, they make sure it's heard. BV go out of their way to deliver tonight and the proof is evident on audience faces.