Live Review: Cone Of Confusion

It feels like we’re coming out of hibernation. And what better place to clean off the cobwebs than long-time staple of the Sydney underground scene, Hibernian House? The front door’s rattle welcomes you in as you leave behind the slew of gentrified bistros and pubs and bars. Here is a hive of activity: part-house, part-party space, part-hang-out, all myth. Graffiti clings to the building’s bowels, sweats from every pore; there's whispers and ghosts and screams behind every door.

Four floors up: the space. A ping pong table is pushed to the room’s recesses by stacked-up fixies and a Psycon Fest merch table glints with the night’s promise. The headliners’ eponymous album, Cone Of Confusion is an experimental tour de force, pushing through space, across genres, in chaotic unison to generate a transportative aural feast. And it’s the first thing to catch your eye. Then the beers, kindly provided by Yulli’s Brews.

Toque sets up the night’s eclecticism. The dynamic duo converge like waves: Jenny’s sultry ballads swim with theatricality; her keys drip with an avant-garde musicality as she flips amber locks, while Lachie’s drums crash with intermittent headbanging and hi-hats trinkling. There’s great promise in this lo-fi exchange, room to expand and amplify. For now, this unlikely pair’s vivacity is more than enough. You can catch them for their final show at the Con on 26 April as they embrace the weird for a last hurrah.

Anoesis start surreptitiously with members of the quintet-cum-quartet spilling onto the stage. Then a clicking count-in from tenor saxophonist, Alistair Johnston coaxes the crowd forward. Here is a blend of swinging drums, meandering post-bop hooks and slow to frenetic movements. Discerning listeners ride the nuance of these changes while others mingle under fairy lights. What they lose from Greg Stopic’s absent sax, the band make up for in fervour - particularly as the set progresses and bassist Tomas Ford’s grin widens as his fingers tour his instrument at break-neck speed.

As Cone Of Confusion takes the stage, the living room’s casualness melts away. Visuals from Mariana Calzada propel the now-standing crowd into a reverie, buoyed by the transcendental music – a mix of impromptu yet dextrous jamming and more polished studio-developed tracks like High Tide. As with all of Cone’s music, this track builds towards a climax, forged in a realm somewhere between West Africa and deep space. Bandleader Rémi Marchand’s guitar is shiver-inducing and adds to bassist Jay Woo's “mellow but complicated” broken beat. 

Amidst the five's dreamlike harmony, the bustle of the drums and the extraterrestrial keys, the sunny call of the brass, comes the root chords of the song the band is launching. The Last Dystopian’s strange choral sounds hit like the call to prayer off the mountains of Morocco. The guitar is pure desert. The heat of the tribalistic thud meshes with the heat of the concrete-covered chamber. The keys add a lighter touch, replaced by the steamy crooning of the horns. Juan Carlos’ percussive floor grounds the piece, allowing Rémi Marchand's flair to emerge. This is a band ready for lift-off, a band to look out for and to get along to because with The Last Dystopian ironically the first single launched on Psycon Fest Records and Cone's second LP, Hominid to be released imminently, it’s only to infinity and beyond.

Special shout out to the always enticing DJ Elchino who kept the night kinetic with a smattering of disco, world, funk and more.