In any band’s life there’s a number of defining moments. It’s no exaggeration to say that another milestone in the upward path of Sydney instrumental rock outfit sleepmakeswaves was reached in Melbourne on Friday night when they played to well over 600 punters at the Corner Hotel in support of their new album Love of Cartography. It’s their biggest headline show to date, and around the same or more than Deafheaven, The Misfits, and other international bands have got there recently.
At the end of the night I spoke with a young guy called Dane who was telling me he had never heard of any of the bands playing that night but a friend had brought him along. He had a great time, and I’d say a big chunk of the crowd were there in the same circumstances. I’ll let that sink in - a hundred or more people turned up to hear a proggy rock band that they don’t know and that has no singer.
It was that mix of fans who had been there at the start seven or eight years ago, music fans who had never heard them, and everyone in between that contributed to the atmosphere of the night. This band no longer belonged to the post-rock/progressive niche crowd, and the niche crowd was ready to share, just as the band enthusiastically embraced the crowd as one.
‘Perfect Detonator’ opened the set, as it should, and holding nothing back it was everything that the band represents; power-laden chords, chiming arpeggios, explosive crescendocore, dynamics, and that cracking pace from drums and bass. After another from the new album, ‘Traced in Constellations’, we turned the clock back to the start with 2008’s magnificent ‘We Sing the Body Electric’, a regular inclusion that continues to evolve.
The rest of the set served up the best of their hard hitting tracks from both albums including ‘A Gaze Blank and Pitiless as the Sun’, ‘The Stars Are Stigmatica’ and ‘Great Northern’, with Kid calmly tickling and caressing his strings, Tim smacking the drums, Alex rocking out and Otto pacing around either screaming with energy or closing his eyes in concentration as he lapped up the moment. The set was punctuated with lighter moments as Alex took to his synth for 'Our Time is Short But Your Watch is Slow’ and ‘A Little Spark’, and the night would have been incomplete without the showcase for Tim’s incredible skills behind the kit; ‘In Limbs and Joints’.
Sleepmakeswaves are a band who pretty much get down to business, although they always take the time to connect with the crowd - more so than many instrumental bands. More than this they show that you can play heavy and intense progressive rock that leaves the crowd happy as fuck, the sort of smile and bounce you would expect to have after seeing someone like Gomez or Holy Fuck. It was a point brought home before playing closing song ‘Something Like Avalanches’ when Alex told the story of how they wrote the song when they were in a happy place. Well they were clearly in one again as they walked off to the roar of the crowd only to return for encore‘To You They Are Birds, To Me They Are Voices in the Forest’.
Support for the night came not from a pair of post rock bands but from Sydney’s Teal and Breaking Orbit. Both brought bags of energy with them and two very different styles of progressive rock. Teal called on a range of influences to deliver a smooth but fast flowing heartbeat that vocals and guitar built their detail on as the dynamics rose and fell.
Singer Joe showed off his vocal range and strength but also his versatility by picking up guitar then later taking over bass for one song. If you’ve ever wondered why there’s so few bass-playing singers, well it's because it’s fucking hard, especially when pumping out such soulful vocals. They played with a level of tightness that you’d expect from an older band and their skill in composition and delivery radiated as they wandered from delicate passages to thunderous climaxes. There’s a lot of talk out there about the potential of this outfit but fuck that, these guys are playing the good shit right now. Go and see them.
I’ve seen Breaking Orbit a couple of times including their launch of The Time Traveller and they played a few songs from that album, including opener ‘Echoes’, ‘Orion’ ‘My Direction’ and the instrumental ‘Machiguenga ‘. It was one of my favourite records of 2012 and showcases the intricate, complex sound that they have developed in their brand of progressive/alternative rock. It’s ambitious music to reproduce and in the main it was solid and powerful, although Matt’s vocals were losing some clarity in his lower range by the time they reached closer ‘The Time Traveller’. His higher notes were still strong so I don’t know if it was the mixing on the night or some other issues, because some of the instrumentation got a bit muddy at times too. Regardless, it didn’t detract and the crowd enjoyed the strong set that included ‘Become the Light’ from their upcoming second album.
It’s clear that sleepmakeswaves and their manager Mike of Bird’s Robe Records learned a lot about getting instrumental rock under the noses, or in the ears I should say, of the right group of Australian music fans, and the response to their opening support sets for Karnivool on two tours has shown that what works (apart from working hard and being fucking good at what you do), is defining yourself more broadly as a progressive, heavy rock band, not narrowing that down to an instrumental post-rock band. Look at the attendance at the two Melbourne events Sans Vox against Progfest for confirmation, and the fact crowd surfing is not something you normally associate with post-rock (no doubt a group of Vooligans who were back for more). Dunk! may be a great festival for the band over in Europe, but in Australia Soundwave is where the potential for the band lies. So, take to your social media of choice and get busy pointing out to A.J. that not only do Soundwave and sleepmakeswaves both start with ‘S’, they end in ‘wave’.
Oh, and remember Dane who I told you about at the start? He had seen me holding a drum head and came over to present me with a battered drumstick signed by Breaking Orbit, explaining at some length (and more than once) that I would need it for the drum skin to work and that I would get much more enjoyment and use from it than he would. Yeah sure he was under the influence of something other than just the great music he’d heard that night, but he was the friendliest guy and his mood and generosity personified what had just happened between those on stage and in the crowd. It was a memorable night to be a part of.
