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Music

We Saw This: Standish & Carlyon

Hanging out at Melbourne's music/chess equivalent of Indecent Proposal.

This week I saw Standish & Carlyon play the final night of their month-long residency at The Toff. The audience and atmosphere resembled an over 30’s singles night as young and sexually-ambiguous professionals drank bottles red wine and chatted about the GFC.

As the curtain rolled back revealing Standish & Carlyon, so too did it reveal Ying LI Hooey (in-house graphic designer for Bryan Ferry) and Jonnine Standish (HTRK/Wife of Standish) who sat at the back of the stage playing a languid game of chess. Not having a drummer in your band must be awesome.

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Standish and Carlyon played a set of trance-inducing disco noir that took cues from Italo disco and French pop but ultimately came across as a cluster of sound creeping between Arthur Russell disco thud and the washed out dub of Augustus Pablo. However it was the propulsive bass lines and lingering crooning of Conrad Standish, which served to set Standish & Carlyon apart.

For those more interested in the chess, it became apparent by the third song, “Critics Multiply,” that Hooey didn’t know how to play and was slowing the game down dramatically. Still, the strategy was sound: when in doubt, get two honeys on stage. The result was the music/chess equivalent of ‘Indecent Proposal’ and only added to the damaged aural bliss echoing from the stage.

All in all, Standish & Carlyon showed how far they've expanded their palette since breaking up their old band Devastations. And though most of the crowd opted to remain seated during the performance, you could imagine the band playing some pre AIDS disco at some place like the Mudd Club in 1970s New York.

Special mention: Melbourne duo Superstar opened the show with a set of 70’s wind rock. It’s taken Superstar six years to release a cassette and define their sound, but with tepid vocals and earthly synth passages that re-imagine Cluster during their ‘Sowiesoso’, we’re glad the wait is over.

Bonus points for the night: New War’s Chris Pugmire whose DJ set focused on mid 90’s gangster rap and dub.