Live Review: Tash Sultana

Tash Sultana captivated the people of Adelaide at her sold-out Uni Bar performance, engaging a huge audience for the venue. The focus on improvisation and expression resulted in a show that swelled slowly and broodingly to soaring heights, in a repeated crescendo akin to waves building and breaking on the coast. The use of both guitar and synth looping would typically set the tone, as ear-coaxing guitar licks would dot the arrangement, along with animalistic croons and uninhibited wails that would emit from Sultana herself.

One of Sultana's greatest strengths is being true to her individuality, and stylistically not giving a fuck. For instance, her go-to guitar tone is a cliched stadium rock sound - something you would hear in a loading screen for Guitar Hero - but when she's paused between moments of audience interaction to let fly a few bars of shredding, you'll instantly be won over. When producing live beats to loop by hand, they are not always in time to a tee, but a disregard for of perfection isn't everything that makes Sultana so relatable and likeable. Of course not to be glanced over is her immense talent on keys as well as guitar. Although Sultana's guitar work is heartfelt, off the wall and unpredictable, it was the keyboarding which in fact stole the show on Saturday night. Her fingers seemingly gliding over the notes as she exemplified a tune with some neo-soul and jazz influenced keyboard stylings that would melt even the hardiest Meshuggah fan.

While stylistically similar to such acts as Xavier Rudd, the pace of Sultana's show and the amount of instrumentation she keeps up on the go as a solo performer is commendable. Laying down popular single Jungle as her penultimate song, she came back with a heart-touching and stripped down encore song that utilised the style of finger-tapping popular with many Australian buskers. Sultana is already on the path to becoming one of Australia's finest musical exports, and her playful yet divisive style will mark her out amongst the pack for time to come.