Recording: Battleship!

Artist: Battleship!

Song: [set 2, first part excerpt]

Recorded at The Tranzac – Southern Cross Lounge ("Mike Smith August Residency, Week 4"), August 25, 2014.

Battleship! - [set 2, first part excerpt]

Full review to follow. It's forever a struggle to get crowds out for an early show, but I'm a big fan of the night's first timeslot down at The Tranzac. Start 'round 7:30, wrap up before ten, get home and in bed at a reasonable hour. So I was well-pleased to see that Mike Smith was taking over the early slot for four Mondays in August, each with different musical collaborators.

The final instalment of Mike Smith's residence brought on another flavour of synth noodles, pitting Smith in a head-to-head matchup with I Am Robot and Proud's Shaw-Han Liem. Musically, this hewed a bit closer to Liem's turf, with Smith sometimes running sonic interference and causing commotion like the heroine of a screwball comedy. (On the other hand, one stretch with some deconstructed Muskox samples shifted things to some entirely different terrain.) A satisfying way to wrap up an enjoyable run of shows — I wish more artists would take on this sort of mini-residency to try on some different musical shirts.