Live Review: Sugar Mountain

Irresistibly sweet and impossibly high, Sugar Mountain is billed as a festival but is more of a delightful frolic about the Forum as a bunch of quirky indie bands give the place a decent a shake-up. There was a buzz of excitement about last year's edition of the festival, which felt like a proper happening as a range of acts led an evening of riotous experimental music and rock'n'roll. This year the festival moves with similar intent but feels more like a romp about Hanging Rock than an exhilarating ascent to the top of this mystical peak.

Phantôscopia greets us at base camp with short hypnotic movies by Anita Spooner accompanied by mysterious and evocative soundtrack music. Led by members of Midnight Juggernauts, it all smacks a little of the recent Thematica support for Italian band Goblin that also featured members of the Juggernauts. With an accent on the occult they seamlessly drift between dreams and nightmare into a strange twilight zone.

Leaving the Forum for a quick dinner break we return to catch Woods in full flight. The alternative folk rockers from Brooklyn play songs from last year's Bend Beyond album to create a light, breezy and almost pastoral vibe that gently rocks the main stage. Singer Jeremy Earl's audience-dividing vocal falsetto is either extremely irritating or sublimely magnificent depending on your point of view.

As Woods' set draws to a finish, it seems that almost everyone has gone upstairs to see Kirin J Callinan and Kris Moyes' set. A seven-piece band waits in darkness for Callinan and Moyes who eventually turn up to play the creepy but compelling video for Way To War, without audio. We are then told that the show they had been rehearsing had not been given the green light from the Festival organisers at the last minute. It seems that they had plans to plant someone who suffers from epilepsy in the audience and give him a strobe-induced fit just to see how members of the audience would react. They talk for ages before a woman stands up and screams her dissatisfaction that first they subject her to pornographic images and then seek to exploit someone with epilepsy for their own amusement when in fact they should be playing some music. It's hard to know if she was planted in the audience too but it's all quickly turning into a bit of a yawn. Surprisingly, when they do get to playing a song it sounds amazing, in a way that should make Callinan's forthcoming album hotly anticipated. Driving dissonant rock in the vein of acts like Galleon Drink and The Bad Seeds with Callinan sweating it front and centre, tense and angsty with a distinctly Aussie accent proves to be exactly what the doctor ordered. As the song draws to a close a Muscle Mary in a singlet and satin short shorts stage invades. He takes a photo with Callinan and after taking off his top lifts Callinan up and perches him on his shoulder. It starts to feel like we were not going to hear Callinan play too much music tonight as security drags the buff dude off stage. “I wanted tonight to be special,” says Callinan, “but now I just feel freaked out.” “That's because you are a fucking dickhead, mate,” yells an unimpressed punter. Lost for words, Callinan couldn't think of a quick come back. Instead he starts tossing off, well figuratively speaking, with a laidback tune about masturbation. It's building to a climax but before things get even messier than they already are we decide to leave.

Downstairs Hunx & His Punx, are set to get down and dirty with the crowd. Hunx, aka Seth Bogart, starts with asking us if we are feeling horny and after getting a rather lame response decides that no one in the crowd is particularly in the mood. Speaking to a small audience at Sugar Mountain, Hunx & His Punx offer up a twisted camp take on '50s rock and roll that effortlessly has the crowd jumping and jiving. There is even the occasional ballad that squeezes a soulful doo wop out of the group. Meanwhile the larger than life and very delinquent Hunx drops lascivious lyrics and amusing rude banter in between songs. Who knows what's going through the photographers minds when Hunx, sounding mildly irritated, points to them and says he wouldn't mind face fucking all of them. It's hard not to think of Lux Interior as Hunx tosses aside his leather jacket, strips off his light-blue lycra leotard to shimmy and shake about the stage in black stockings and a g-string. As freaky as it all is, tunes like Don't Call Me Fabulous and Teardrops On My Telephone offer a dirty party vibe that's light weight and lacking the deranged intensity of The Cramps. Just don't be surprised if Hunx one day manages to produce a xxx-rated gay prequel to the musical Grease.

It's a pity that there's no place to dance in the seats-only auditorium when Forces drop a set of electro that resonates with proto industrial edge and EBM influences. Chunky Moves' Anthony Hamilton and a troupe of male dancers do their best to match Forces' advanced robotics with some pretty funky moves in amongst gigantic white shards of polystyrene.

New York's no wave legends ESG transport us back to the early '80s and rock the Forum down to its very foundations with their deep and sparse drum'n'bass grooves and plenty of attitude. Classics like UFO, Moody and Tiny Sticks have everyone on the dance floor bumping and grinding with wild abandon. ESG charm our pants off and deliver one of the most joyous moments of this year's Sugar Mountain.

It seems strange that Peanut Butter Wolf should be spinning Maureen Steele's hi-nrg Boys Will Be Boys as we again head upstairs to check out local electro punk outfit HTRK. Nigel Yang and Jonnine Standish deal a deeply narcotic set of swirling electronic and guitar textures, accompanied by Standish's hypnotic vocals. As we sink deep into our seats HTRK's set is immersive and offers a tranquil moment. Those still feeling hyperactive are burning off plenty of energy as Mr Wolf continues to play them a mix of '80s-styled electro funk with just a little hip hop thrown in for good measure.

Dirty Projectors are waiting for us high on top of Sugar Mountain with a set mainly comprising material from Swing Lo Magellan. The group's approach is simple, honest and unpretentious. They deal in pop songs that teem with influences as diverse as folk, rock, country, R&B and West African polyrhythms. Seemingly devoted to their songwriting craft plenty of thought has been put into the complex arrangements that soar around us. The softer tone of their set serves as a comedown to round the night off.

Fast becoming an institution on Melbourne's festival calendar, the 2013 edition of Sugar Mountain offers up plenty of quirky hipster cool, good music and fun times.