Live Review: Listen Out

Despite the $6 bottles of water, multitude of grinding jaws and inner-city sound restrictions, Listen Out delivers a day jam packed with hard-hitting electronic music, proving that boutique festivals are better than ever and here to stay.

Kicking the festivities off is the fresh-faced, much talked about Brisbane producer UV boi. Navigating seamlessly through trap, hip hop and electro seems to be no challenge for the heavy-hitting 18-year-old. Although he’s got the tough task of playing immediately as the gates open, it doesn’t take long to lure in the numbers and rile the crowd up into a (literal dust) storm. Throughout the set, there is a heavy reliance on pre-programmed beats generated from his laptop, but the crowd don’t seem to mind; everyone’s getting down and obviously keen to make a day of it.

Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs. Pic by Freya Lamont.

With the 909 stage hidden in smoke, Young Fathers run through a sequence of downbeat cuts early on, drawing from recent albums Dead and Tape Two. The addition of a live drummer adds a great intensity to the music, and songs that were already good in their recorded versions are outstanding live. Get Up pushes the tempo way up, and with Kayus Bankole leading the dancing from on stage, the crowd responds, even in the afternoon heat. A perfect version of I’m Heard wraps things up, throbbing bass and stomping beats running under pretty vocal harmonies, before it all collapses into delightfully noisy drone as the band leaves the stage.

Shlohmo struggles early with the mix and the space: the bass overwhelms the more intricate elements, and too much of the music feels lost into the air. It’s still good, but generically so, without the distinctly woozy bass and skittering snare-hits that make him such an identifiable producer. Once the mix settles though, several tracks from the No More EP and his remix of Lianne La Havas’ Forget make for an impressive highlight reel. The best moments are almost straight versions of the recorded tracks, but the quality of the music stands up well live.

The 909 stage is set in a fairly narrow alleyway, and Ta-ku’s audience overwhelms the space, pushing back far beyond the space the sound can cope with: even at the midway point of that crush, the music is quiet and lacking potency. Ta-ku seems to be running a DJ set rather than a live show, and draws heavily on other people’s work. There’s a groove and enough of a beat to keep people moving, but there’s nothing interesting about most of the tracks: bludgeoningly simple pieces, solely reliant on kick and bass.

With his effortlessly cool reputation preceding him, Chet Faker, the one-man electronic dynamo takes to the stage, and judging by the multitude of crooning girls (man crushes are also aplenty), he’s obviously living up to the hype. The set is full of crowd-pleasing hits; highlights include Drop The Game, 1998 and an introspective crowd sing-along of Talk Is Cheap. What separates Faker, however, from the abundance of electronic artists around today is the live performance aspect of his show. It really seems like he’s immersed in the music and playing it live, which gives a huge amount of authenticity and realism to his set.

Schoolboy Q draws an even bigger crowd to the 909 and has them chanting along from his first lines. His flow is tight, his stage persona charismatic, and the energy throughout the set is high. Collard Greens and What They Want are greeted with rapturous cheers, and Man Of The Year has everyone bouncing to the beats. But while the themes of weed, booze and casual objectification seem to resonate with much of the audience, the lyrics make it hard for this reviewer to enjoy the show.

Flume. Pic by Freya Lamont.

The anonymous producer ZHU wastes no time in winning over the crowd at the Atari stage, opening with Faded, a seductively crafted song that has quickly turned into one of 2014’s biggest electronic anthems. He’s clearly no one-trick pony either, keeping the momentum throughout the duration of the set with the deliciously infectious Paradise Awaits and edgy Superfriends. What is perhaps even more memorable however are the impressive visuals that are accompanying the music. The illuminated screen the DJ is playing is captivating, often providing a warped kind of narrative; the audience are enthralled by it.

Four Tet is easily the best thing on the 909 stage since Young Fathers, and his set is the first time today that the stage has felt like it was connecting back to the roots of the dance scene.  His mix has the repetition and propulsive force required for dancing, but there’s enough gradual change to make the music interesting as well as rhythmic and after the last few hours, it’s a welcome return to subtlety. Swelling pads interrupt the rhythms, before he kicks back in with a harsh and glitchy beat, then eases the discordance out with a sweet melody. Still there are several awkward transitions and even pauses between the tracks, stripping it of the polish expected of a headliner.

Dubbed as an electronic wunderkind, Flume has been kicking goals of late; ticking off many musical bucket lists – most recently selling out a run of shows in NYC at Terminal 5. The 22-year-old producer from Sydney takes to the stage amongst fireworks, backing visuals, an interactive LED lit prism and it’s clear from the opening that his stage show has dramatically evolved. The set never really skips a beat from the outset and offers an abundance of bangers the crowd are craving, interspersed with darker, grittier beats, which may indicate the direction of the musician’s highly anticipated sophomore album.