Live Review: Clag, Blood Relative, Kitchen's Floor, Scraps

Sporting her now-iconic tinsel wig, Scraps launches into her cracked pop world. Unfortunately she initially has issues with her mic, and the vocals remain buried deep in the mix, making her heavily-reverbed vocals indiscernible, emanating from the bowels of a chewed cassette. Nevertheless the basic Casio sounds and tinny drum machine mirrors John Maus in her penchant for warped freak-pop, each glitch and blip playful yet played with intent. Despite the mishaps, Scraps is growing in strength and stature, and deserves support.

Matt Kennedy is armed with his acoustic and a stool as Kitchen's Floor delves into the quieter corners of their grubby kitchen-sink tales of woe. 116 kicks things off, and Kennedy and his cronies stick predominantly in this vein, with Downed It, Regrets and Twenty-Four being particularly effective. Some of the discordant nihilism is bleached from these rusted classics, Kennedy's voice is stronger to fill the gaps, and the end result is much sturdier than it probably should be, like the first recordings he put out back in 2008. Finishing with brilliant older number Twenty-Two, the tempered format lends considerable weight to the weary gravity of these songs.

It's always a pleasure to have former Midget Chris Moller on stage, and he warms up the sizable crowd with a trio of tracks under his new moniker Blood Relative. He starts Oh Fire on his own before another guitarist joins him, then they rush through Current Affairs (“I hope you aren't having any, but if you are, hey, that's life”) and Picture Perfect. It's a nice preamble before the main act, and great to see Moller once more.

It is finally time for Clag to take the stage, playing a rare show to promote the launch of their Pasted Youth retrospective. With green and yellow pennants adorning the front of the stage, the keyboard set up on milk crates, and the various members “done up” in garbage bags, it's quintessentially Clag from the get-go. Opening with Goldfish, the girls are joined by Greg Brady on drums, before Moller comes out again to join the band for Broken Brain and a few other numbers. Bek Moore is in perfect sing-song form, shaking the maracas, blowing the kazoo and being typically irreverent – but it's a time of celebration, with added trombone as Nicole Thibault proves to be a highlight. The set is cut short due to time constraints, so the band keep things simple and to the point, focusing on “classics” Security Man, their loopy cover of Sonic Youth's My Friend Goo, and perennial favourite Chips & Gravy. It's sloppy, haphazard, and goofy – Clag wouldn't have it any other way. Another show please?