Pink Reason just swung through our ghost town on a tour of australia presented by Fifth Column and Stained Circles. I saw the perth leg of the tour which placed itself in the cavern of the Norfolk Basement and decided to down some ramblings here: Silver Bulletin and Mental Powers took positions as local supports. Silver Bulletin (aka Cambro Rothalot) is a one man apocacryptic folk machine. Usually, or as far as I have seen so far, his sets feature lots of gentle vocal and percussion looping but not today and the set seemed leaner and stronger for it, like a pretty cow changing into a horse. A manly horse with black rimmed glasses and a nylon string guitar. Beautiful. After cambro left the fairy lightstage Mental Powers assembled on the floorspace. Once a different beast, the Powers that be have come a long way from the first time I saw them, they have shifted into tighter territory. Jamie's cut-down and tuned up jazz drumming is amazing and Lewbro glues into it like teeth coming together, new man Steve is the gums in this mouth equation, a strong foundation. Deni therefore is somehow the tongue in this mouthband, his sonic presence floating over and through. After this happening, Lakes formed on stage, seating himself on a black case, he began an ice cave journey in songform which was moving, especially to the douchey few that walked in and straight back out mid-set. Pink Reason featured Ryan Jewell and Matt Horseshit for this tour, aswell as Deni Powers for this show. They played a 40 or so minute set and it was amazing. It had everything from touching acoustic ballads(?) to waves of free jazz with rolling atonal piano and Deni's sax. Throughout Jewell's skills were obvious, this man is a percusso-genius, always supporting and embellishing yet never showy or crushing not to mention his oscillations. Horseshit's, for lack of better terms, surf-psych strat work filtered though Kevin Debroux's "dark, squalid and-bluesy streak music" very well. I noticed Deni manipulating the pitch wheel during one bursting number, it seemed fitting.
In Summary, all the above bands are MUST see.
over and out.
P.S. a recording of PR's set will be released, maybe on Fifth Column.
