Live Review: Total Giovanni, Edd Fisher, Dreems

There are no signs of life on the dancefloor when Dreems crank up their machines to drop a sprawling set of electronic music that moves in a multitude of stylistic directions ranging from broken beats to house and even reflective ambient moments. It’s an unpredictable set that delivers a thick, uneasy glug of electronic noise. It’s consumed impassively by the few punters sipping alcoholic beverages upstairs. 

Edd Fisher lifts the mood as he smoothly mixes up cheerfully camp disco tunes for the punters who are now starting to pack the place out.

Enjoying hometown success, on the back of a handful of tunes, Total Giovanni sold out The Gasometer Hotel for four nights running and an excitable Friday night crowd is clearly in the mood to party the night away in Giovanni’s room. Kickstarting their set, Human Animal unleashes mayhem in the room as it sets the crowd off in booty-shaking motion. It feels like long-lost Talking Heads hooking up with the LCD Soundsystem in a sleazy New York discotheque in the late ‘70s. The band themselves front up looking like disco fashion casualties of the era. Total Giovanni play with an infectious energy that causes the crowd to lose themselves while getting down to the boogie.

Disappointed that they are down a member, the remaining four more than compensate for it with a high-voltage performance. The mix does sound a little stripped-back and seems to be missing some layers of synths. Eventually the punk-funk disco jams give way to loved-up, warm and fuzzy feel-good house tunes that have the crowd bouncing out of control. The outfit seem to have quickly attracted something of a cult following. Can’t Control My Love has the crowd loudly singing along and they continue when the band teasingly stops playing to let them get on with it.

Erring on the side of kitsch and camp rather than cool, it’s amusing to watch indie hipster types liberating their masculinity and losing it to songs that sometimes suggest amyl and drag queens. Bromance flourishes as shirtless dudes ride their mates’ shoulders and we head to the bacchanalian delights of the disco. The new single Paradise blossoms like an exotic flower under the inviting neon lights. Total Giovanni are to be congratulated for harnessing the enduring power of disco (not EDM) to brilliant effect. Their set is short but Edd Fisher keeps the party going well into the night with the irrepressible thump of obscure disco classics.