Last Friday night,
local electro dub fiends Pitch Black checked into Wellington’s San Fran venue
for the second leg of the duo’s three-date Sonic Portal tour. It was a long
overdue return to the capital for Mike Hodgson and Paddy Free, after Wellington
missed out on the late 2016/early 2017 - mostly festival - dates that passed
for the Filtered Senses (album release) tour.
A Sandwiches
(club) gig in the capital of roughly a decade ago is still spoken about in
glowing terms by all who attended (yours truly included), so it was little
surprise to discover the San Fran venue almost full upon my relatively early 9.30pm
arrival. Wellington dubheads and dance music aficionados clearly have long
memories … though, of course, the short-term stuff may be more of a challenge. Whatever
the case, this one carried the secondary billing of being a 21st party, with
Pitch Black celebrating 21 years of being at the cutting edge of the local dub
and electronica scene, and a cursory glance around the venue confirmed that it would
just as likely have been years, if not a decade or two, since the last occasion
many of these early doors punters had attended any kind of 21st celebration
(that of their own children notwithstanding).
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| Free & Hodgson, dub fiends ... |
Pitch Black had
been playing around half an hour before I arrived, easing the crowd into the night
with what they called their “downbeat set”, which meant a lot of gentle swaying
and head bobbing, as our dynamic duo filled the room with layer upon layer of
ethereal texture and languid bass-driven technicolour soundscapes. That
continued for another half hour or so before we had the pleasure of
Wellington’s own DJ Ludus (aka Emma Bernard) for company while our party hosts
took a well-earned refreshment break.
Ludus was a
perfect fit for this gig, and a swelling of the dancefloor during her mostly minimal
ambient set – is minimal ambient a thing in genre-speak? – suggests she
bought her own rather large following with her. It would certainly account for
the injection of a few younger faces into the crowd, many of whom would scarcely
have been out of nappies when Pitch Black unleashed its debut album,
Futureproof, on an unsuspecting world 20-odd years ago.
When Pitch Black
returned an hour later, the bpm factor and energy levels were upped
significantly as they launched into what they call their “pumping set” with all
the vigour of men half their age. It was around this point I realised it was going
to be virtually impossible to review this (or any other) Pitch Black gig in any
orthodox kind of way. The duo’s modus operandi is to continually fuck with the
heads of their audience by blending and mashing together various tracks from
different albums all at the same time. At no one point can it be said “oh, this
is ‘The Gatherer’ …” or “this is from Rude Mechanicals”, because at no one
single point are we being exposed to one single track. It’s a method that
serves them well at giant outdoor festivals across the globe, and it is one
that served them equally well at San Fran last Friday night.
Suffice to say
Messrs Hodgson and Free covered a fair portion of their illustrious back
catalogue as the night progressed into the wee small hours and we zig-zagged
back and forth between albums. And they did so with some gusto. If they
bypassed Wellington last time around, they were clearly keen to make it up to
us, something they achieved with ease, and more …
If I have a
complaint, and it’s probably more of an observation given the limitations of
the venue, it’s that the visual feast I’ve always associated Pitch Black gigs
with in the past simply wasn’t there this time. There was a backdrop with a
multitude of FX and far-out visuals etc, but the lighting was relatively
ineffective and the whole thing (visually) just failed to hit the heights I’ve
come to expect. Having said that, San Fran can’t be faulted for its sound,
which was crisp and clear, and there was a moment during the second set when I
swear that bass was travelling straight through my chest.
I can’t wait for
the next one, just don’t make us wait so long next time, eh fellas?
Here’s something I
wrote about Pitch Black for NZ Musician some 18 months ago …
