Live Review: NAO, Kucka

Singer/producer Laura Jane Lowther, better known as Kucka, brought her '90s dancefloor-soaked chilled electronica to open the evening. It's been a slow but steady ascent for the Perth local. In 2016 she collaborated with Flume and Vince Staples on Smoke & Retribution. Now, supporting NAO's Sydney Laneway sideshow, making the Laneway bill and heading to South By Southwest in March, things are looking ever brighter. Lowther played the night solo, singing with a backing track. This didn't always work, but Lowther's voice was steady enough to compensate for the show's lacking dynamism.

Neo Jessica Joshua aka NAO's team reassembled the stage and made way for a three-piece backing band to ring the stage around Joshua herself. She emerged in a haze of red smoke just in time for the vocals on Happy from 2016's For All We Know.

It didn't take long for things to literally start heating up. The sold out venue came close to a boil with all the booty shaking, dropping and hip jiving that Joshua's funky soul demands. Joshua herself pulled out a white hand towel from her pocket on multiple occasions to dry herself off (she would later upgrade to a red hand fan) between her own booty shaking and hair flicking interludes. Her voice is as creamy and dexterous as ever and she shows off the total control required for such rhythmically complex, funk-inspired music. Her live performance works hard to really bring out all of the energy and joy in her music. Her guitarist in particular was masterful, moving inside and around her vocals to really help them shine.

Hit Girlfriend got hands in the air for a rendition what felt more epiphanic than the recorded version's slow-simmer longing. All in all the entire evening felt like a prolonged, joyful catharsis.