Live Review: Mama Kin Spender, Lucy Peach

Perth musician-cum-comedian, Lucy Peach (with her very own Ted Talk about PMS) combines both skills to perfection, rapping between songs about, well, periods. On the musical side, her vocals are intimate and raw as she utilises two microphones, one normal, one drenched in reverb, to great, layering effect. Peach appropriately leaves us with a powerful Native American saying about the power of periods, prompting uproarious applause from all the women (and men) in the audience: "When a woman first bleeds, she meets her power, through her bleeding years, she practices it and at menopause, she becomes it."

ARIA-nominated Mama Kin (aka Danielle Caruana) and producer Tommy Spender both have rich musical histories, combining forces to release their debut album under the Mama Kin Spender moniker, Golden Magnetic. Coming out on stage to a rousing applause and a packed crowd, Caruana can hardly believe it. "Tommy, say something!" Spender swoops in to introduce Cold Rooftop as "the first song we learnt how to sing together". Both dressed in simple colours (black and white), they sing another stripped-back song, Cherokee Boy, before Caruana finally unleashes her secret weapon, a 20-piece choir, to a wonderstruck audience. 

Led by Virginia Bott and all donning bright-yellow gowns, the choir lifts the energy levels in the room, adding meat to the bare bones and giving the music a new, rich, fullness. Between-song banter includes asking audience members what the words are for "water" and "fire" in other languages, jokes about doing "the work" and explaining why egg shakers are still in their original packaging, and is consistently entertaining and hilarious.

While Caruana waxes lyrical, telling anecdote after anecdote, Spender casually noodles away on guitar, illustrating their rock-solid chemistry. All the while, Spender's brooding guitar underscores Caruana's raw-yet-rousing mid-range vocals alongside the rattle and rumble of her drums, and the choir's soaring harmonies fill every inch of Howler's bandroom with a sound that is sometimes intimate and raw, but also joyful, uplifting and full of colour.

The highlight of the night definitely belongs to Underground: a slow-burning, intimate ode to the wonder of nature that gets a standing ovation from the adoring Howler audience. Penultimate song Air Between Us provides "hope in the face of despair and loneliness", Caruana shares. The choir departs only for Caruana and Spender to re-enter as they'd started; intimately sharing one microphone for one last time, highlighting years of friendship and deep connection.