Playing in the amiably intimate setting of Broadcast on Sunday night in the middle of his first European tour, Com Truise lay on a feast of electronic delights for a fan base that is as knowledgeable as it was enthralled.
Roughly this time last year Seth Haley, to use his real name, released his second album In Decay, an intricate work that has more in common with 1980s LA than just its cover art.
It is a work that brings to mind a late summer in that most sprawling of metropolises, with sun bleached industrial estates beneath an inky blue sky, an aesthetic recalled less in his live show, which is more like Blade Runner than that post-Olympics, pre-riots city of angels.
The set list is a deft selection of pieces from both In Decay and Galactic Melt, and has a more than appreciative crowd dancing, trance-like, for more than an hour.
Haley himself has a relaxed, confident presence appropriate for someone whose work has become more assured through its progression.
This isn’t the minimalist soundscaping of Tycho, or Gold Panda-two of his stablemates at Ghostly International, or even the surf-appropriate stylings of Washed Out.
Haley has found a different niche and appears to be pushing its boundaries, if not with revolutionary fervour then at least with quite panache.
The live show itself is principally focussed on the music-as electronica, more than most genres, needs to be.
Listening to any great length of music without a human voice requires either narrative in the form of movements or a concrete story, or for there to be a recurring sonic motif to touch base with-in this case a female voice- vocoded, of course- which provides just the right level of interaction to prevent the set from being too long, and too abstract.
This along with Haley’s occasional interjections-more often than not unpretentious assessments of the work :“This is probably my favourite thing I’ve ever written-it’s like some French shit or something!” gives the event exactly the right balance of music and human interaction-other performers would do well to take note.
All in all it is a great night, with a skilled artist demonstrating finesse not only in his art but also in his showmanship, and a crowd that comes alive in its reception of him.
Words/photos: Simon Jones
