Art vs. Science + The TANUKI Project – Club Lambi – 27.10.11
The night started off with the band The TANUKI Project. Bringing a grungy, industrial and electronic sound to the stage. The lead singers deep resounding vocals carried us away to a different plane, almost reminding me of a young Karen O. They had no guitarist in their three piece. Instead, a finger picking bassist took the lead. The stage visuals were something else as well; a crazy black and white projection of lines, creepy faces, and a numbered countdown beamed onto a canvas leaning in front of the drummer and a huge sheet behind him. As they describe themselves; “Power Electronic Music and Visual” a pretty accurate summary of the entire performance.
Few people had been dancing up until this point, but as the Australian trio Art vs. Science came onto the stage, there was electricity in the air. Everyone that had been sitting, meaning most of the venue, got up and headed to the dance floor. In under 30 seconds, it became a dance party. The room had an awesome vibe to it, everyone was losing themselves in the weird voice effects and synth keyboards. Bringing a similar-to Montreal natives Chromeo‘s sound to the stage, you could tell that they were used to playing for much bigger crowds. The intimate setting of lambi was just perfect for everyone who was present, though. All three band members have extremely high energy on stage, blending a mix of witty banter; a lot of it in impressive French for an Australian, by Vocals/Keyboardist Dan, and hilarious antics and gestures by all three of them. From the drummer, also named Dan, standing and playing on his stool, to having one drumstick clenched in between his teeth, to the awesome dance moves of both Jim and Dan. They were great at getting the crowd going and getting them to sing along and dance. As Jim put it speaking to me after the show: “Almost everyone was dancing in the crowd, except this one guy off to the side, so I just started pointing at him and dancing until he noticed, and then he started dancing too cause he knew I was watching!” haha. My favourite song of the night was ”With Us”. Led off with a touching comment by keyboardist Dan; “A song about love, love for humanity. About having loving thoughts, and thinking about good things, no matter what people or the news tell you(…)” It was an extremely catchy and upbeat song, compared to the rest of their set which had a bit of a darker and grungier feeling to it.
The entire performance was super tight and well performed, seeing them live and listening to their album is almost an entirely different thing. Their energy and charisma is almost unmatchable. Hailed as one of the top Australian bands to see live, I definitely see why after this performance. All in all after interviewing them over the phone and then meeting them in person, Art vs. Science are an awesome group of individuals. I hope they will one day return to Montreal, and bring their epic-spacey-dance-party back for all of us to have another chance to lose ourselves in their performance.
-Written by Michael Colatruglio
The TANUKI Project
Art vs. Science
-Photos by Amelia Robitaille
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