Live Review: Nicholas Jaar & Charles Murdoch

A vast polished wooden floor was dotted with awkward early birds, milling aimlessly and flirting self-consciously. The Town Hall had a distinctly school disco feel, with the swirling lights and blaring sound bouncing off the caverns and lack of soft bodies. Charles Murdoch did an excellent job of reeling the crowd inside from the plastic hedges and astro turf of the Paradiso Terrace Bar. His cruisy beats were at walking pace with a crafty mix of samples just long enough to keep your ears pricked. As the room filled, the set slowly and steadily progressed in pace and intensity, leaving the room packed, anticipation high and that intoxicating urge to dance just tingling into limbs. It was a perfect opening for the young and talented headline act.

Silhouetted against pulsing LED screens, Nicholas Jaar set the mood with a deliciously atmospheric introduction, complete with soaring sax, wind chimes and samples of waves crashing. Naked light globes and scrap metal chandeliers heightened the gothic visuals as the lights rippled beautifully over the curves of the pipe organ on the back wall.

A hint of a beat was enough to spur the crowd into movement as Jaar proceeded to toy with the audience for the next hour. Weaving through material from his EP and debut album, Space Is Only Noise, he built up only to ebb away every time until the audience was aching for a beat to be dropped. The live instrumentation made the wait worthwhile, but it was not until the sax and guitar players had left the stage that the blessed beat was shared.

It felt though as if Jaar had been gearing his whole set for the encore. For just a few delicious songs, the rhythm reigned. It was just a shame that the intricacies of the mix were not crisper; sadly the bass and treble overpowered the detail, which was a flaw of the venue not the artist.