Bah, five acts doesn’t constitute a festival! But hey, with such an enticing line-up I wasn’t exactly going to quibble about the semantics. I could, however, quibble long and hard about the rubbishness of the Forum. Although the recent redecoration means it’s no longer quite as dingy as it was, the acoustics are still bloody terrible, something that was immediately apparent from the moment Frog Eyes started their first song. A relatively obscure, terribly under-rated Canadian group (‘Bushels’ is, in my honest opinion, one of the best songs ever written), their mix of swirling, chaotic keyboards, epic song structures and Carey Mercer’s unhinged, impassioned yelping deserved far better than the turgid sound mix inflicted upon them by the Forum’s sound people. The lead guitar was mixed in far too low, the keys were pretty much inaudible and Mercer’s marvellous vocal gymnastics were diminished, and combined with the suspect acoustics of the venue it made them sound like they were playing at the other end of a wind tunnel. Not a complete disaster, (‘Paul’s Tomb’ was as stunning as ever) but it wasn’t a patch on last year’s superb show at the Luminaire. 
More encouraging were Six Organs of Admittance, an act I’ve never really listened to before- I was very pleasantly surprised by their mesmerising grooves and lashings of distorted guitar fuzz. Definitely encouraged to check out more of their stuff in the future.
Then for Dirty Projectors, who I thought were ace. A love-‘em-or-hate-em band through and through, their odd time signatures, and weird, discordant melodies are sometimes a bit pretentious and outré even for my tastes, but for the most part they’re a brilliantly original experience, sounding unlike anyone I can think of. At a push, you could describing them as mixing elements of Animal Collective, Battles and the Beach Boys, but there’s much more to them than that; particularly worthy of note were their intricate guitar duets and striking female harmonies. They’ve also gained charisma and stage presence over the last year, adding some much-needed accessibility to a very impressive performance.
As for Alexander Tucker and Stephen O’ Malley…well, if I wanted to hear thirty minutes of self-indugent, mindnumbing drone, I'd watch a Tarantino interview. It wasn’t actually that bad for the first ten minutes, but then I realised there was still twenty to go and began to lose the will to live. The second worst set I've seen so far this year, if only because Cutting Pink With Knives are the musical equivalent of a terminal disease.
Luckily, Owen Pallett redeemed things with a typically accomplished performance- I’ve seen him five times now, and he never fails to astonish me with what he can do with just a violin, a keyboard and a loop pedal. I only caught half his set thanks to the ridiculously late start time, but what I saw was brilliant- the new stuff sounded great, and the old favourites were delivered with effortless flair; best performance of CN Tower I ever did see. Steff’s low-tech projections are as inventive as his music, and it’s a shame the venue felt the need to obscure them with excessive amounts of smoke. Apparently, he finished with the awesome This Lambs Sells Condos, which upset me greatly, but my sources vouch for its excellence.
Overall then, a decent night out that nonetheless fell far short of its potential. I’d love to see more shows with such interesting line-ups, albeit at a venue that doesn’t completely suck. Oh, and with less half-hour drone-fests too.
(Photos: John Gleeson; Mapsadaisical (Flickr))
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