Live Review: Mount Kimbie, Charles Murdoch

Walking into Charles Murdoch's loud, spectral set is an atmospheric experience. The air-conditioner creates a strange windiness, really adding to the dark, evocative setting. Murdoch busily generates a lot of the music live. He creates a great dynamic by nicely building and breaking songs, interchanging intricate beats, synths and bass. The latter makes itself known by shaking the metal grates of the exit doors.
His distinct, electronic sound has a moody tone but is also danceable, although the chatty, distracted crowd don't take advantage of this at first. But they can't help but get into his excellent set eventually, from slight shifting in their spots to more frenzied shuffling. Murdoch closes with a speedier remix of Karma Kid's Like I'm On Fire, which he describes as “a bit techno, a bit different”, and when he finishes before a large, appreciative throng it's clear that he's made a few firm fans tonight.
Squashed onto the floor and perched on various ledges around the room, the crowd seems particularly eager for Mount Kimbie's Laneway sideshow tonight. The English duo (now performing as a trio), open with some purely electronic numbers that feature rapid, disjointed beats. They incorporate various instruments into their set, frequently swapping and changing guitar, drums, bass and mixing boards, often giving the impression of a jam session.
When they begin including vocals in their songs, their eclectic concoction of genres and moods becomes clear; halfway between electro-pop and straight-up electronica. There are even some jazzier elements, notably in the rhythmic Home Recording. All of it appeals to their fans who provide a raucous reception to almost every song, seemingly unfazed by the fact that the air-conditioner has stopped and the room is suddenly stifling. Beads of sweat are visibly dripping off the compressed punters, but it's not until the band quips that it's indeed, “hot as fuck” that it's clear how much worse it must be for them than us.
Mount Kimbie are still capable of putting us in a kind of flurried trance, notably during blinking, frantic electronic segments in songs like Mayor, off Crooks & Lovers, and hinted at in their new album with Made To Stray. From soothing tones to clanging oriental guitars and biting, punchy beats, their instrumental music proves the most distinctive and original. Towards the end of their long set, they really crank up the strobe-light madness and ear-wrecking noise, ensuring the ecstatic crowd leaves wholly satisfied.