Live Review: Sharon Van Etten, BATTS

“I send greetings on behalf of the people of our planet. We step out of our solar system into the universe seeking only peace and friendship, to teach if we are called upon, to be taught if we are fortunate.” These words were spoken by Austrian diplomat Kurt Waldheim, Secretary General of the United Nations in 1977. His words are embedded in the Voyager Golden Records, launched into space on the Voyager 1, intended to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth to any intelligent extra-terrestrial life forms, or future humans, who may find them. Waldheim’s speech is sampled on Melbourne-based singer-songwriter Tanya Batt’s (stylised as BATTS) debut album, The Grand Tour, released earlier this year – her own transmission to future humans.

Rather than trying to capture the essence of human life through field recordings of nature or through making grand, sweeping statements about life, Batt locates the universal in the specific. Her songs have titles like Overstayed Your Welcome, Little White Lies, and Folding Chairs. If there’s a message to future listeners, or the attentive crowd seated in the Concert Hall this evening, it’s perhaps that human life is full of uncertainty. “I read a book on clearing out – it’s meant to rid me of all doubt,” she sings forlornly on Folding Chairs. Rather than remaining alone in this feeling though, Batt’s voice fills the room, sailing across the rows of chairs – and it’s hard not to imagine it ringing into outer space.

Sharon Van Etten’s music similarly embraces the disorientating experiences that characterise human life. The cover art from her latest album, Remind Me Tomorrow – released earlier this year – speaks to this with its portrait of a young Van Etten, wearing nothing but costume jewellery, crouched amid the unruly chaos of a childhood bedroom. “What is the difference between now and then?” she sings on No One’s Easy To Love. “I’m not sure.”

Accompanied by a four-piece band, she opens the show with Jupiter 4, poised centre stage with two spotlights on either side of her. It’s a stunning effect. The whirling synths are reminiscent of Nick Cave’s 2016 album, Skeleton Tree, and it seems that Van Etten has also taken a few notes from the godfather of goth’s stage presence – she embraces the rock'n'roll pathos in Comeback Kid and Seventeen like another of her influences, Siouxsie Sioux.

However, not long into the performance, as she goes to pick up her red guitar to perform two older songs, One Day and Tarifa, she knocks the instrument off its stand. She’s forced to break that rock'n'roll image; although, as she slips from one role into another – rock icon into everyday person (“It’s nice to know we’re all human,” she says) – it’s a reminder that Van Etten is also an actor and a stand-up comedian these days. “I used to just play folk music,” she says at one point.

Van Etten then emphasises her identity as a mother. Despite the wealth of material available in her own catalogue, she performs a cover of Sinéad O'Connor’s Black Boys On Mopeds. “I love my boy and that's why I'm leaving,” she sings, seated alone at the keyboard under a lone spotlight. “I don't want him to be aware that there's any such thing as grieving.”

She returns for an encore, performing I Told You Everything (“You said, ‘Holy shit, you almost died’”) and Serpents (“Everyone changes in time/I hope he changes in time”) – the former positioned as commentary on the latter. She finishes with Love More, her own message to the universe, and receives a standing ovation.