Live Review: The RAah Project, DJ Lazer Ferrari

You know you are at a pre-show at the Playhouse when the supporting act greets you in the foyer’s deeply plush surrounds. Our feet sink into the acreage of blush-hued carpet and patrons murmur in clipped tones at the champagne bar. Every surface is trimmed in cushioned velvet and DJ Lazer Ferrari (Thomas W Butt) further amplifies the comfort factor with his spin of rhythmic grooves and subterranean beats. Unobtrusive, eclectic and seamlessly edited, his offerings provide a welcoming prelude to the full assemblage awaiting us inside the auditorium.

Vocalist Ryan Ritchie and violinist Tamil Rogeon helm an impressive 20-member orchestra, with generous emphasis on the string, rhythm, brass, woodwind and horn sections. Their piano player does admirable double duty on the mixer and a classical baby grand, and a recently added percussionist also dabbles in electronic beats. A trio of female back-up vocalists completes the ensemble. The RAah Project open their Take Me Elsewhere album launch with the first single to be lifted from it, Kill Me In The Summer. The eerie sawing of violins, an underlying thump-thumping of drums (to simulate a heart beating in fear) and a syncopating soundscape combine to create a slightly menacing, disorienting backdrop.  Ritchie alternates between rapping his lyrics in half time and drawing them out in triumphant exultations.

Fire Where I Been – with its sweeping orchestral opening reminiscent of Guns ‘N Roses’ November Rain – and the Chicago-skirting harmonies of Nothing Matters take us further into an aural journey that transcends time and place. Ritchie’s hip hop background, honed through more than ten years fronting True Live, adds edginess to the spoken words, even though there are long instrumental interludes that mimic freestyle jazz improvisations.  Hurricane Of You – in which Rogeon also plays a dizzying drum solo – and the melancholy All Of Your Things are perfect examples of this. 

“We had this idea that orchestras are not just places for Mozart, Beethoven and heaps of dead white guys from Europe,” Ritchie says. It is not exactly rarefied territory. The Australian Chamber Orchestra, for example, illustrated this with their Timeline program last year when they teamed up with The Presets live on stage. However, The RAah Project prove that this no mere passion project on the side.  At its best moments – and there are plenty of them tonight – their soundscapes are incredibly vibrant, immersive and richly exotic, with astute arrangements from Ritchie and Rogeon. Every element is held back and refined instead of running amok and collapsing under the strain of cacophony. And, like all journeys, part of the pleasure is the unexpected encounters: a swish of turntable scratching, the tinkling of a triangle, a wail of the saxophone and unpredictable but controlled tempos. Blink and you’ll miss them, but their echoes linger on long after. Like anything featuring an orchestra, The RAah Project is best experienced live.  Be prepared for a journey unlike any other.