Live Review: Slanted & Enchanted

Last weekend, the revered selectors from Life Is Noise presented the first instalment of perhaps the most appropriately titled music event to hit Perth shores: Slanted And Enchanted. Customers were overwhelmed with choice here, with the option of exploring The Astor Theatre's promising offerings of indie-rock, pop and noise, or alternatively sink their teeth into some authentic alternative hip hop, experimental and glitch rhythms over at The Bakery. A safe assumption of an eclectic taste in music could be made for those that purchased the holy dual ticket: a point of entry for both shows.
Over at The Astor Theatre, Perth brought their unique and playful style of experimental pop to signal the start of the night. Those with an extremely good ear might recognise the unorthodox sampled percussion of twisted beer cans and Chinese meditation balls, but for the slightly less perceptive, the pleasures of Perth's diverse soundscapes remained very much intact on the night.
Chicago-based four-piece psychedelic rockers Cave came to the stage with their ever-so-familiar stretching riffs of repetition indicative of their seven-year career span. The performance centred primarily on new material that found a pleasant intermediate point between droning atmospheres and explosive energy. Meanwhile, the Cool Perth Nights Room upstairs sported some kind of trippy underwater world vibe with handcrafted mermaids and jellyfish hanging from the blue-lit roof. Cow Parade Cow stayed true to the weirdness of it all with a passionate and untamed performance full of reverb-drenched ballads and playful percussion. This was the first time Toronto trio METZ had toured Australia, bringing their post-hardcore sludge-punk in full force. Based strictly on appearance, the fierce and tormented energy that comes out of these three youthful lads is particularly unexpected . METZ combine screechy guitars and thundering drums to create a kind of beleaguered presence that just can't be ignored. Deerhunter describe themselves as ambient punk, although you certainly wouldn't be mistaken if you heard elements of post-punk, shoegaze and even noise rock distributed liberally throughout their discography. Their new album, Monomania, forgoes almost all signs of ambience though, trading in the dreamy, surrealist tones of albums like Microcastle for straight-out raw garage rock. An extended version of Nothing Ever Happened served as a definite crowd highlight, but couldn't match Bradford Cox's particularly sexual encounter with his own guitar at the end of the performance - forever imprinted in the minds of the unknowing attendees.
A convenient shuttle bus ride later, and you found yourself in a completely different world. The promoters nailed the timing to a tee, having all the international acts at The Bakery start a generous 20 minutes after the termination of the headliners over at the Astor. Establishing a nice balance between melodious structures and wonky beats, UK-based Kelpe kept the crowd entranced with a diversity in both genre and BPM. Incorporating analogue synths and an MPC into his live performance, Kelpe kept the crowd on the tips of toes for its entire duration.
Vivacious and (very) openly homosexual NYC rapper Le1f exposed us to an eccentric and fresh style of hip hop. Sporting an animé shirt and thigh-high woollen socks, Le1f bounced around the stage while spitting out bar after bar over his bouncy and infectious trap rap beats. London-based electronic producer, Jon Hopkins renders a distinctive amalgamation of ambient techno that manages to harness a somewhat rare glimpse of beauty within dance music. His new album, Immunity, dashes back and forth between dark and bright environments, while maintaining a real sense of direction and coherence. The performance felt nothing short of euphoric, with the darting and textural sounds of Open Eye Signal serving as a real highlight for the crowd. Hopkins delicately concluded the major double event sensation in the early hours, topping off an evening that, if it's anything to go by for next year, will be another extravaganza not to miss.