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Brisbane Powerhouse - Thu Sep 27 Beginning the night with something a little different, Abject Leader perform expanded cinema; Sally Golding pushes the operational limits of multiple 16mm film projectors while Joel Stern spreads thick and vicious ambient sounds via his MacBook. There are bugs, long-dead people and abandoned houses. Jamie Hume’s ridiculous accompanying performance art (taking his cues from Bad Boy Bubby) distracts a little though. The drum kit that had been sitting suspiciously in the corner makes use when Sanso-Xtro begin their multi-instrumentalist set. Heavily syncopated beats compliment spiralling discordant guitar, and thick, Vangelis-esque synth is performed with the feet. There’s even a ukulele duet with a fuzzed-up guitar. Sebastien Roux’s performance would seem indiscernible from any other French ambient sound artist’s, if not for it being in surround sound. The lights are set low and we’re treated to an immersing enclosure of disparate themes; one moment Roux is taking us for an aural stroll along a secluded beach, and the next the whole scenario shatters and we’re tumbling into existential nausea. Leafcutter John, aka John Burton, looks and seems a little like an English Ben Kweller, if Ben Kweller were interesting in taking regular old Ben Kweller songs and sending them through a screen-saver pipe maze of electronic manipulation to create spectacular sonic rubber bands. It’s something akin to sounds echoing down a building, through the sewers, bouncing off passing subway trains, and mixing with the voices of people blocks away. The Kweller similarities continue when Burton, hindered by computer malfunction, finishes with an improvised song about Trevor the closet gay wife beater, which ends with the artist singing as the voice of God. PAUL RANKIN
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