Live Review: City Calm Down, Olympic Ayres, Gnome

Gnomes are treasure-seeking wizards in Old World lore and, although they aren't swimming in treasure (they're musicians, remember) and they're both far from short, Freya and Elias Berkhout did kinda sound a little like wizards. The brother and sister dream pop duo lathered the cinematic synths on thick and pitch-perfect harmonies swooped around the room. Their musicality is solid, massaging us with looping passages and breaking it up with neat key changes or percussion development. It was a shame they played to an empty room. Apparently they just scored the theme song to the Sydney Festival, so don't feel too sad for them. Kudos, Gnome!

Olympic Ayres are a young Sydney group that failed to ignite. Their Balearic-influenced sound was propulsive and bright, but the arrangements felt same-same and had no real texture. The vocals were competent but muted and lacked direction. Each song started up and finished with no real dynamic energy, no push/pull and no guts. It wasn't bad music, just bland.

Quite a few things hit you on hearing City Calm Down. Post punk, Madchester, electro and dance punk all compete for space and just to watch frontman Jack Bourke wrestle with them is half the fun. Heavy bass locked down the groove while retro-futuristic synth shapes formed and crumbled around them. The vocals were great, with Bourke's voice switching deceptively easily from an Ian Curtis drone to that of a jittery pop singer. The versatility of their sound seems to be the key to their success, if they find it. Hopefully they capitalise on their natural chameleonic abilities and keep us on our toes, delivering sets like this one. Tempo changes, diverse instrumentation and dynamism kept them exciting and unpredictable. Watch this space.