Active Child - Live @ East Brunswick Club (Laneway Sideshow), Feb 8

The following live review was syndicated with, and for, Everguide - it is recreated here in it entirety.

Opening the evening was one of Sydney’s most promising solo acts, Oliver Tank (previously introduced by AMR). Fresh from his own tour launching his debut EP, Dreams. Tank is probably a lot more acclimatised to playing to larger crowds, and he deserves more than the odd thirty that have show up early for his support slot. Delivering a short but typically warm set, he shreds on a Strat along to his refined beats, loops and backing tracks. A little rough and visibly nervy, particularly during I Can’t Sleep where he has to mask a wonky guitar tuning with beats and volume, but by the end of his blissed out reworking of Snoop Dogg’s Beautiful, his toothy, Cheshire cat grin begins to emerge.

He doesn’t need to incite the crowd but instead lull them with his nocturnal beat-making and his plaintive vocals, saying naught but ‘thanks’ and his usual little send-off in the cathartic climax of breakout tune, Last Night I Heard Everything In Slow Motion. Even brisk sets like this prove why he’s one of Sydney’s ones to watch.

Review: Youth Lagoon - The Year of Hibernation

Youth Lagoon - The Year Of Hibernation (Fat Possum)

If you’re looking for a simple way to grade your enjoyment of Youth Lagoon, it’s in direct correlation to how much you flinch at the label ‘dream pop.’ Nothing? Ok, how about ‘chillwave?’

Make no mistake, a glance at the musical heritage of Trevor Powers – the man behind the moniker – reads no differently from the recent swathe of lone Americans producing warm pop from the lo-fi confines of their bedrooms. Not such a surprise, the clue’s in the title. But even for those who struggle to distinguish Washed Out from Active Child, The Year Of Hibernation represents an accessible entry point to a genre filled with intimate rewards.

Taking the hyper out of hyperactive, and putting the chill in child.

I really must apologise for that title, you see at AMR I've always tried to avoid standard bearing headers. Probably always to the detriment of topping search engines and for people browsing for simplicity's sake - but there you go. Anyway, the true curdling nature of that title is only clear if we know what we're talking about, and what are we talking about!?

Active Child. The musical banner for Los Angelean Pat Grossi, who took his upbringing with choirs and playing the harp and made into some very nice, chilled electronic sounds that feature... choirs and playing the harp. Of course!