Live Review: Unsound: Kara-Lis Coverdale

Kara-Lis Coverdale brought her minimalist electronic sound to the Adelaide stage as part of the Unsound Festival.

When her set began with low drone-like sounds, the audience gathered in closer and the lights lowered on the empty space of the theatre, made even eerier by a thin layer of smoke.

The venue soon proved itself to be ideal for Coverdale's style, the sound travelling easily through the wooden floors up the sole of shoes and vibrating through the body, making the experience all-immersive. The auditory effect of the long, drawn-out low-frequency sounds coupled with sparse high-pitched sampled sounds could be described as finding oneself in a post-apocalyptic zombie movie soundtrack, with the added benefit of suggestive visual and tactile sensations.

As soon as one settled in this desolate world of sound, Coverdale introduced what could be seen as the biggest contradiction of all — or a turn familiar even to the most cynical of movie characters — to lean in moments of distress on the sacred, represented here through organ pads, which immediately created an interesting connection with church imagery.

Coverdale explored real-life sounds and modern technology, samples were looped to pulsate under a wash of voices and sampled vocals, which were then manipulated and often played like notes on a keyboard. The interesting palette of tones and samples was used cyclically and sketched out a structure, which became quite predictable. A sound or a brief motif (melodic idea) would be introduced, looped, then drone or organ-like sounds would underpin a certain atmospheric mood. Quite often development presented itself noticeably as a steady increase of decibels until the sound was loud and in your face.

The set engulfed the audience for the best part of an hour with few moments that resembled a pause in the music. Overall a great experience, and, in an era where music is often jumping incessantly from one idea to the next and crammed in a few bars, it's a pleasant change to find one's attention drawn to the details of small moments extended in time.