Named for a small mountain town that has more to do with hydroelectricity than anything else, Melbourne band Khancoban are celebrating the launch of their highly anticipated second album Arches Over the Sun at the Toff tonight, with support from the Orb Weavers and Ildiko.
Ildiko are a six piece built around singer-songwriter Laurence Szucs. Crafting lush folk-pop songs, they layer harmonies over Szuc’s finger-picking guitar style and delicate vocals, reminiscent at times of Arthur Russell or Eric Bachmann. There’s a lot of energy in their set, moving from softer singer-songwriter numbers to bigger, more “full band” pieces, with Szucs swapping acoustic guitar for electric with ease. Halfway through their set band member Julia Busuttil joins the stage, her singing adding another dimension to their harmonies, and providing a foil for Szucs on stage. Illdiko are clearly a talented bunch with an ear for a melody.
The Orb Weavers were formed back in 2006 by Marita Dyson and Stuart Flanagan, and were shortly after joined by Dave Leggatt on drums, Paddy Mann on bass and Dan Aulesbrook playing trumpet. The lights have shifted from the warm oranges of Ildiko to a deep blue, almost violet. Marita takes to the stage cradling a violin, her ethereal singing voice balances the instrument, before she changes it for an acoustic guitar. There’s a certain film-noir flavour in their music and performance, fringed with a hint of Mexico in Aulesbrooks’ trumpet, and the bandana around Dyson’s neck. Stuart Flanagan’s guitar on “Diving Bell” develops a hint of menace in it, as Dyson sings ‘is this your hell? Or is this mine?’. They play slowly, deliberately, with each song taking just as long as it’s going to take, with a certain eerie intensity that you see in bands like The Drones and Howling Bells.
Khancoban’s guitarist/singer Andre Hooke starts out with a disclaimer, that “this first song has lots of f-words in it” playing ‘Do Not Trust the Horse’ accompanied by keyboardist Jim Patterson to open the set. The rest of the band take the stage, playing ‘Cause and Chaos’, the first single off their new album, and it’s received warmly by the audience. Khancoban have a very easy, disarming air, almost as if it’s a house show that they’re playing. ‘Until it Takes You Over’ is an astonishingly big track, for a band more known for the quiet, country-tinged folk from their 2008 album Limbs May Fall. Hooke’s vocals climb over Andrew Bonnici’s guitar and Jemima Hooke’s building drum beat in what could almost be a Kings of Leon song. ‘Adelaide Song’ is followed by ‘I Woke Up and I Was Here’, both from their 2008 album Limbs May Fall. On ‘Ghosts in This Lake’, from the same album, Bonnici shows off considerable talent with his lap steel guitar. Hooke is a great frontman, casual and confident. The band as a whole have the manner of professional musicians at the top of their craft that comes after a certain point, but still with plenty of room for a joke, Patterson at one point protesting “Not that one! I hate that song!” before playing it anyway. The contrast between their older material is in full view tonight, but instead of creating discordance it showcases just how broad their repertoire is, and how far they’ve come as a band. One constant however has been the overwhelming Australian-ness of their songs, in that hard-to-put-your-finger-on kind of way that bands sometimes have. Midnight Oil had it, The Triffids had it, The Church has it, Paul Kelly has it in spades. There’s a certain melancholy in a few of Khancoban’s songs, but it’s a melancholy mixed with hope, as they play ‘Everything Went Differently and Everything Was Good’, Hooke singing “Put your heart into it dear, every morning is not the same”. They close tonight with the title track ‘Limbs May Fall’ from their 2008 album, to enthusiastic applause from the audience. Khancoban have certainly hit their stride with their second album, showing tonight that they continue to grow as a band, adding to the kind of well-crafted musicianship and songwriting that that they’ve become known for since 2006.
– Shaun Thatcher
