Live Review: Willow Beats, Oisima, Firs

Willow Beats delivered an absolute audio-visual feast for Rocket Bar Friday, equipped with live props and dressed in ominous black robes eerily, standing statue-still as they clutched at dimly-lit lamp posts positioned either side of the uncle-niece duo’s musical workspace. Not that a decent portion of the audience would have noticed in their intoxicated state, but Willow Beats guided the more sober members of the audience into an Indian-inspired, dream-like euphoria, with Kalyani Mumtaz’s soothing vocal weaving itself through a myriad of dubbed-out, glitched and beautiful electronica produced by her uncle Narayana Johnson. Obviously drawing heavy influence from the mystical side of nature and the spiritual world, Willow Beats are fresh, exciting and hastily establishing themselves as a unique act within Australia’s electronic community.

Preceding them however, Firs had taken the stage and given the audience ‘80s-inspired synth-pop moments that included a cover of Berlin’s 1986 pop-culture classic, Take My Breath Away, which Firs himself likening the delivery as more of a karaoke number. Though not strong vocally, Firs’ instrumental and production was admirable, his heavy use of filtered soaring leads layered over a persistent pulsating staccato synth heard in the tune, Sweet Nothings, deserving special mention. A DJ set from local Oisima was the main support and got the crowd into party mode with an eclectic mash-up of songs from a variety of genres heavily centred around the 100bpm (ish) mark.

Yet it was Willow Beats that truly commanded the Rocket Bar stage. Their newest single, released earlier this year (and being the reason for their national tour), Merewif, is a testament to their gradual progression as songwriters. This single was used to end their first run of songs, which had been crafted to transition seamlessly from tune to tune. Aside from a great rendition of Merewif, the most elegant moments from this first mini-set took the forms of Elemental and Blue, the latter of the two songs giving Johnson a chance to step forward to take control of the microphone. After a brief silence to thank their audience, Willow Beats slayed the audience with heavy, drop-happy dubstep before arriving at the conclusion of their set with Alchemy. This song, consisting of drops, environmental soundscapes and everything else quintessential to the duo’s sound, was magical and definitely proved a fitting end to a hypnotic performance.