Live Review: Poliça & Polographia

Sydney duo Polographia's squelchy sounds are dispersed around the scarce crowd early on in the evening. Working with a sample pad and acoustic drums, their trip hop, electronic offerings rolled off the stage with ease, as they bounced around in sync to their music. Their set would have excelled further with the use of live vocals instead of samples and by notching up the volume a little higher.

Hailing from Minneapolis, Poliça's first trip to Australia saw them draw a large crowd, as lead singer Channy Leanagh noted “It would've been sad if no one came”. The entire evening was speckled with her dry-humoured banter, which opened the audience up to her loveable personality.

Kicking off with Happy Be Fine, Leanagh brought a looser, more freestyle approach to the melodies of each verse, which became a common feature of their live performance as their set progressed. These new arrangements saw her abandon the smooth ribbon-like melodies as heard on their debut Give You The Ghost. Instead, she produced jagged and broken up melodies, in some ways similar to rap. This rawness only further showcased her incredible vocal control as she hit extreme heights with ease. Leanagh, also in control of triggering the vocal effects, seamlessly modulated from heavy doses of reverb to Auto-Tune and back, adding further fragmentation and distortion. The overall performance was grittier and grungier than the slick, glistening production of the record, which was somewhat refreshing.

Their live set up included Leanagh on vocals, a bass guitarist and two drummers. The marvelous percussive trickery was executed well with the duelling rhythm keepers providing heady drums at the most intense moments of the set coupled nicely with the jittery and all-important bass – one of the drummers even lost a stick during Leading To Death. It was relieving to hear Leanagh's vocals were strong enough to cut through and sit above the concoction of sound produced on stage.

Closer, Fist, Teeth, Money, was undoubtedly the highlight as the quartet pushed themselves to the brink of a sonic mess filled with loose rhythms and screaming synths. It was hypnotic watching them hold it all together.