Austra / Pixx @ Summerhall, Edinburgh, 23 Mar
There’s a definite whiff of excitement in the air tonight as we arrive for Austra’s biggest Edinburgh headline show yet. Friends are gathered in small groups, dotted about Summerhall’s Dissection Room, chattering away about how they quite literally can't wait.
The chatter is quickly quashed by the arrival of 21-year old Hannah Rodgers, aka Pixx, to the stage. Surrounded by her futuristic backing band, all sporting silver glitter make-up under their eyes, they bash through their moody electronica saying very little indeed.
Pixx herself is intense and at moments seemingly possessed, and with the sort of lurching sway reminiscent of a Gallagher brother (without the arrogance), we can’t take our eyes of her. Her voice is deep and at moments it’s like listening to Kate Bush, especially on latest track I Bow Down, set to feature on her upcoming album, out in June via 4AD.
Pixx – playing as a four-piece tonight – draw their set to a close, abruptly leave the stage and everyone in the Dissection Room resumes their earlier babblings in anticipation of who’s up next.
A simple, and very large, white sheet acts as a backdrop to the stage softening the lighting and the mood as the gentle harp of Deep Thought perfectly welcome Katie Stelmanis and Austra to the stage. Delighted woops bounce around the room and we’re ready.
Going straight into Future Politics opener We Were Alive is the perfect way to set up our next hour or so and Stelmanis’ vocals celestially float over us. The four-piece then seamlessly segue through the album's next three album tracks - Future Politics is belly-shaking, during Utopia someone next to us in the crowd squeals “I can feel the eighties again!" and I’m a Monster sees Stelmanis’ operatic background come into play as she reaches notes higher than should be humanly possible. As the song builds, Stelmanis gets lost in the beat and unfortunately her vocals get lost in the mix.
After a synth briefly misbehaves, Stelmanis jokes that “Dr Dorian (referring to bandmate Dorian Wolf) will fix it!” and he does. We're briefly taken off course by Olympia’s Forgive Me, but Feel It Break’s The Choke welcomes us back with open arms and for the rest of the set we’re treated to the perfect cross-section of three albums worth of work, including Home and Painful Like from Olympia as well as Lose It and Beat and The Pulse from debut Feel It Break.
At points throughout the set we’re confused about where we are – a friend leans over and states: “I feel like I’m at an Underworld gig!”, and during the set’s bangers the bass is so powerful and the lighting so perfectly matched, that we probably should be at an illegal rave in a warehouse at 4am in the middle of nowhere, not Summerhall at 10pm on a Thursday night. The band clearly feel it too, frequently pogo-ing around the stage like nobody’s watching.
As the set draws to a close, we’re brought down to an almost meditative state with the hypnotic Freepower. Austra’s setlist is perfectly formulated and the big moments are truly euphoric, it's just a shame that some of those moments are so big they swallow up Stelmanis’ unique vocal.