Live Review: Jakob, The Seaport & The Airport, We Lost The Sea

Police sirens rang loud and thick to open the set at an empty Hermann’s bar. The only crime was the poor attendance for the opening act, who stalled as long as he could before finally having to go on.

The Seaport & The Airport is a man with an Akai pad bank and an intense stage presence stemming from his refusal to acknowledge the crowd. This isn’t a slander. Oscar Wuts carved out an intense, pulsating drum’n’bass fusion set, chocked with the aforementioned police siren samples. The set worked well because it kept high frequencies at a premium, churning out long, dystopian drones. When he finally rewarded the melodically inclined with an intense, modulated high-pitched synth melody, it didn’t feel cheap or easy.

We Lost The Sea were the absolute highlights of the night. A statement so bold wouldn’t generally come so early in a review, usually electing to lull the reader into some sort of suspense before finally reasoning that the support act ultimately trumped the headliner. Too bad. This band was really exciting. Post-rock bands probably hate being compared to others in their field, a criticism that’s hardly fair based on how intricate the arrangements are. We’ll go with this then: It started with crystal clean Explosions In The Sky guitars that grew – as the set did – into something entirely different. A beautiful audio snippet was a highlight, distorted just enough that you know what the person’s saying is important, but can’t make out the words.

This kind of restraint is what post-rock is all about. The band would build and build, beautiful cacophonies, the instruments sounding as if they were being amplified in the darkest cave. Nine times out of ten these intense builds would grow to the point where you could anticipate the second where shit got real. Then, suddenly, the song would trail off. It’s that one pounding moment, when they’ve finally made you think that they’re not that kind of band, that all hell breaks loose. When We Lost The Sea is firing on all cylinders the music is searing, hot to the touch.

Jakob emerged to a suddenly chock-full room of dedicated followers. The three-piece laid down a tight, faithful set. Jakob excels in giving their mixes room to breathe, free of the burden of vocals. The result is clarity. Never have you heard a kick drum so pounding or a snare drum so crisp. The crowd was on board from the get-go. The band having been out of commission for far too long, nothing but a ‘cover all bases’ set would have sufficed. They were mostly successful.

The set started with some brilliant slow builds, working in tandem with the chatters and rumbles of the pumped-up crowd. The music makes the entire room part of the performance, a living and breathing space. As the set wore on there was that feeling of the itch to break too early. Too often they’d resort for the epic cymbal smashing mayhem in favour of a more varied offering. This was fine on the night. Nobody gets angry at a massive wall of intensity, heard as much in the music as it is painted on the band’s faces. It does however mean the band sits just outside the upper echelon of post-rock luminaries, such as Godspeed You! Black Emperor or Mogwai in their early years.