Live Review: Toro Y Moi, Lanks

The curators of the Perth International Arts Festival have once again proven dab hands at lining up quality funky treats to dance away the last night of the live music season.

Melbourne duo Lanks eased into the warm-up slot handsomely, as evidenced by the shimmying and shuffling of the receptive, quickly swelling crowd. It was a well-balanced set and among the floor-fillers — which were propelled by light, skippy Afro guitar and some solid stick work — a serving of maudlin bedroom pop acted as a counterweight. While not exactly exuding rockstar magnetism, vocalist/guitarist Will Cuming nonetheless connected with the rapidly filling venue as he introduced Comfortable, a three-week-old song, which bristled with that extra energy you get on a debut public performance. They finished with Holla and probably a few new fans to boot.

"Howdy. This is going to be fun," Chaz Bundick aka Toro Y Moi promised as his five-piece band assembled before diving into What You Want. Decked out in a grey marle Perth t-shirt and — who knows what passes for fashion in LA these days — what looked like pyjama bottoms, Bundick's sweet-tempered, US West Coast cool translated smoothly into our equally lackadaisical local west coast surroundings. He mostly positioned himself off to the right, allowing bassman Patrick Jeffords to take centrestage. Despite sporting pigtails, Jeffords laid down some indisputably authoritative grooves. The frisky long-weekend crowd lapped up the higher tempo jams, such as the wiggly Stevie Wonder-esque synth lines of New Beat, but on a warm summer's night the sublime Rose Quartz was equally effective and the band made full use of the outdoor, fire detector-less venue as veritable fog banks of dry ice swept across the stage. It was one of a number of examples where, underneath the obvious Californian sunniness, closer inspection revealed just an edge of melancholy that give Bundick's songs that certain bite. Making for an amorous finale, the gradual build of Say That seemed to float above the clouds as smiles widened, bodies moved closer, arms wrapped around shoulders and, although this writer didn't see it, no doubt phone numbers were being readily exchanged. He occasionally drifts down to visit us, but Bundick's stellar music mostly exists on its own plane.