Weekend Live Music Reviews: Little Boots, Song Yuzhe

There were not a lot of big live music shows last weekend, but it was the right time for some interesting acts to show us their lesser-known talents and for us all to learn that we can party on a Sunday night.

Song Yuzhe

Have you ever tried to remember a nightmare? That's what Saturday night’s show at Zajia Lab bar felt like- haunting notes of distortion set to a background montage of stark, black and white photographs.

It was the sound and vision of folk experimentalist Song Yuzhe. He may be more known for banjo strumming, but much of his latest gig featured long drawn out drones from electronica instruments, his banjo strings only lacing the tunes at times. If they could be called tunes. Extended jamming might be a more fitting phrase. Song and three backing performers elicited chilling tones from their instruments, sitting crossed legged all the while, as if they were conducting a séance instead of playing in a rock show.

But that was their aim- to be boldly creative and unconventional, even for a genre as steeped in tradition as Chinese folk. The most eccentric element of all was the background slideshow of black and white photographs. The images were taken during his recent troubadouring throughout Western China. But the shots of rearview mirrors reflecting endlessly snaking highways could have been taken anywhere. It was as ambiguous as the music being played.

At one point Song switched from one slide show presentation to another, his MacBook’s desktop screen sloppily visible and projected to the audience. But the performers’ tossed manner at that point added to the subdued vibes they created while sitting cross-legged.

The music and images further melded - gusts from a strange mouth instrument making the scrolling images of traffic speed by. Then the spell would be broken by some bizarre, bungee chord-sounding electro notes, only to be brought back again by harmonious chanting from the performers. It was wholly unique, often incoherent, vivid, and as difficult to articulate the next morning as any warped dream from the night before. Kyle Mullin

Little Boots

Little Boots managed to drag around 100 revellers out on a cold November Sunday night for what turned out to be just a DJ set. I guess the clue would be in the unambiguously-titled 'Shake DJ Tour', but it seemed like people were expecting a song-and-dance affair. Well, a dance affair is exactly what they got after the initial disappointment subsided.

The diminutive diva also known as Victoria Hesketh, barely made eye-contact with the rabid, iPhone-waving throng, a shy smile here, a modest pump of the fist there, as she mixed up a storm of Hed Kandi house, remixes of indie-pop tracks from the likes of Lykke Li, Robyn, LCD Soundsystem and Foster The People, and beefed-up versions of her own hits. It was all rapturously received and when she came to the edge of the stage at the end to give out Little Boots official bags, they were lapped up eagerly by the grateful mob. It may have been ambitious to put on a knees-up on a cold November Sunday night, but inside there was pure warmth. Michael Robinson