ESG, NO ZU and Terrible Truths. A mere seventeen days into 2013, and we may have just witnessed one of the shows of the year.
Terrible Truths opened the bill to a handful of converts and early arrivers. The hypnotic three piece’s music is steeped in post-punk, displaying a lineage that harks back to the burgeoning Australian do-it-yourself scene of the early 1980s, which gave rise to bands such as the revered Essendon Airport, Tactics, and Voigt/465.
Terrible Truths have built on this aesthetic, creating something genuinely fresh and interesting on the foundation of Stacey Wilson’s (who also records as Rites Wild, amongst others) frenetic bass, which propels her voice alongside guitarist Rani Rose’s; the twin vocals intertwining at close hand throughout each song.
Their set is energetic, drawn from both their back catalogue of 7”s and their hotly-anticipated forthcoming debut album.
NO ZU are next to take the stage, their crowded assortment of synths and percussion fill the space as they tread out and begin their set. Several years of playing together has honed the six-piece into one of Australia’s premier high-energy, live bands.
Blending Zapp-era sticky funk with disco, percussive dance, world beats, and dub, NO ZU’s set is a glittering frenzy of upbeat, polyrhythmic party music, fronted by the elaborate vocal inflections of Daphne Shum apace with Nicolaas Oojges’ multi-instrumentalist flair; as he effortlessly covers vocal duties, synths, percussion and trumpet.
They power through their far-reaching set, raising the question that it might actually be impossible not to dance when they’re holding court.
As the room rapidly fills up, ESG appear to thunderous and extended applause. In a career which has spanned over 30 years, this is their first visit to Australia.
Tonight’s set is their first show on Hi-Fi soil, which sees members of the band sport tight fitting RRR t-shirt, gained from their spot at the station’s performance space the night prior. The display invites an immediate sense that they’ve wasted no time ingratiating themselves to the local community.
With a few short words from frontwoman Renee Scroggins, ESG open up with arguably their biggest hit, ‘Dance’. The crowd complies immediately, as seemingly every pair of hips in the room begin to shake in unison. This is an audience fully attuned to the significance of this outfit, and appears determined to make this a night to remember.
ESG’s heart, body, and soul is the Scroggins family. Raised in the South Bronx in the late 70s, sisters Renee, Valerie, Deborah, and Marie were reputedly given instruments by their parents in an attempt to keep them out of the neighbourhood’s burgeoning street gangs.
This was a time of serious disquiet in the South Bronx. Tenements were torched daily, leaving thousands homeless as the gangs terrorized all and sundry. With no support from the Government, the police were fleeing in droves, leaving residents to fend for themselves.
This disquiet created something of a cultural melting pot, seeing fellow South Bronx residents Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, and Grandmaster Flash, amongst others, birth Hip-Hop music.
This music, alongside that of ESG, became a complete product of its environment. The gritty, intense minimalism was a reflection of the burning Bronx and the burgeoning independent arts scene which grew from the ashes.
Thirty years on and ESG’s music is still finding cultural relevance. Their sparse, rhythm-laden beats have found many a home sampled and re-sampled by all manner of contemporaries, but it’s this evening which holds all bearing – the culmination of a career’s worth of influence and distinction.
Playing a set of impossibly tight disco/punk, driven by Valerie Scroggins’ unrelenting drumming, and peppered by the sisters’ rotating percussion and vocal detail.
Signature tracks ‘UFO’, ‘Come Away’, ‘Bam Bam Jam’ and ‘The Beat’ all get a workout. They leave the stage after ‘Moody’, as the crowd, who’ve been deafening throughout, scream for an encore.
An hour after it began, it’s over, with ESG leaving the stage for the second and final time, leaving the crowd with the feeling that they’ve just witnessed something special. Thirty years on, it was worth the wait.
