Live Review: Seja, Keep On Dancin's, Scraps

Laura Hill's Scraps is an ideal opener for tonight's headliner. Walking a fine line between pure '80s pop and deconstructionist lo-fi electronics, she's a kindred spirit to the headliner's blend of vintage synths and understated pop melody. Unfortunately, a poor sound job makes it harder to appreciate Hill's balancing act. Her vocals and lead synths are largely buried in the mix – leaving only her old-school drum-machine rhythms and squelching basslines to shape the set. Still enjoyable, her performance is nevertheless a shadow of its potential.

Keep On Dancin's, by contrast, don't appear to fit with tonight's program of electronic pop – but manage to deliver an exceptional performance, courtesy, in part, of a stand-out sound job. The band's reverb-heavy, doom-laden rock is almost disgustingly contemporary (albeit more in regards to American alt-rock trends, as opposed to Australian), but their competence makes such factors irrelevant. Their musicianship is remarkably tight for a band with such a willfully ramshackle sound and their songwriting is consistently stellar. It's hard to figure out why they're playing alongside either headliner or opener, but their performance is the arguable standout of the evening.

Seja is launching her second solo album, All Our Wires, tonight. In celebration, she's assembled a fully-fledged band to flesh out her work – admitting between songs that this is the first show the band have played together. Initially, such an approach doesn't seem to really work for her music. Seja's waifish vocals and pretty, interlocking melodies get somewhat trampled by her crowded line-up (incorporating guitars, synths, backing vocalists, live drums and more). Even when she strips her work down to its absolute fundamentals with an acoustic number, a raucous crowd tend to drown out the details of her songwriting.

As the set progresses, she and her band find their feet. It's clear Seja is still struggling to figure out how to reconcile her affection for vintage synths – sounding as oddly vintage futuristic as ever – with the energy of a live band but, when all the elements lock together, it's dazzling. When a series of spiralling synth-lines and breathy vocals are crash-tackled by a punishing electric guitar, it's breathtaking. And, when Seja then strips back down to more minimal instrumentation for German ballad Die Wolken, it's captivating, not overwhelmed. It isn't hard to see the potential of Seja's new band approach. By the time they encore with a Justin Bieber cover, it's hard to imagine the Brisbane musician doing anything else.