Live Review: Carmouflage Rose, CXLOE, Midas Gold, Xavier Mayne

Sensing the weight of the stacked line-up at Northcote Social Club tonight, the room is already part way filling up as first opener Xavier Mayne hits the stage right around doors. Sharing the same management as the headliner, it's obvious how he’s been brought into the fold. Mayne sounds like the last five years of club rap distilled in a clinking glass of caipirinha. His debut show in Melbourne, his vocals are yearning, bright and melt through your system. It’s hard to get any crowd moving this early, but he squeezes the most out of fans, finishing with sure-fire, druggy debut single, Shleepin’. 

Running a little behind the tight schedule, air horns from Midas. Gold’s DJ signal the start of a baptismal set from the Brisbane MC. Backpacks, soccer shirts and rimless glasses are Gold’s vibe tonight; his Melbourne-based vocalist and hype man Yabby looking like ASAP Yams and sounding like Davey Havoc from AFI if he grew up on Lil Peep. Gold runs a multifaceted set, weaving his way through brutal bars, post-reggaeton backbeats and endless references to money, all the while dodging the mass of tangled mic leads on stage. Too kind for thugging, too lyrically talented to not, he turns up when needed, carving out the first circle pit this reviewer's ever seen in Northcote Social Club. Main hits 000000 and $$$ are ticked near set's end and he brings his whole crew to mob the stage.

CXLOE brings a well-deserved change of pace from all the wall-rattling sub-bass of the past two hours, drawing out a different vibe from the diverse demographic here tonight. Combating the current glut of whispering, broken-voiced singers, it’s refreshing to see a pop artist sing so full-heartedly and belt so high. Second track and biggest current single Show You gets a full-force rendition and the audience feeds that energy right back. Running her whole show with a pre-programmed backing track, her set's done in under 25 scintillating minutes. Last song and brutal single Tough Love hits that dark, sugary pleasure centre in our brains and she’s gone all too soon.

This show was already insanely buzzed, but as Brisbane’s newest top-shelf rapper Carmouflage Rose hits the stage around 11:30 the room gets sent into overdrive. Rolling subs test the foundations on the band room, strobes flash, and a heady, sweaty menace washes across the room. “She don’t like relationships/She just wanna fuck”, as the lyrics go, with Rose setting the tone for his short pulsating set. Not quite a sex icon yet, he does make sure to reference ‘the ladies’ in almost all ad-libs, and by fourth song Wildflowers people are grinding and moving. 

Most of the material from his debut 2018 EP Taste is covered tonight, and its self-titled single is given a bouncy run-through. Rose is like Brisbane’s hip hop answer to Sean Paul, seamlessly able to flit between all genres that fit under ‘club music’ and still make bodies move. Following a high point in a set of high points, the circle pit gets opened up again as Rose’s DJ pivots from a super-heavy EDM/trap hybrid track to a cut of Sheck Wes’s wheelchair mobbin’ hit, Mo Bamba. At this point this shit is insane. A minuscule interlude proceeds before a short encore, and Rose takes some time to get everyone’s phone lights up for his debut breakout smash, Late Nights. Showing gratitude and platitudes, Rose delivers a foundational set, putting any doubts to rest about the ascendency of this new wave of artists sweeping the east coast. Straight fire.