Recording: Hush Pup

Artist: Hush Pup

Song: Wait Up

Recorded at Smiling Buddha (Silent Shout Festival – Night 1), December 4, 2014.

Hush Pup - Wait Up

Although they'd stepped away from presenting live music, Silent Shout returned for a two-night celebration to mark their fifth anniversary. Taking over the Smiling Buddha for two nights gave the site's designer Roxanne Ignatius a chance to re-imagine the space, with a deconstructed disco ball twirling above clouds and webby fabric tendrils. Plus, downstairs there was a gallery of her consistently-excellent show posters, going right back to the series' beginning when it had to spell out its mandate of "EVIL DISCO / GLOOMY ELECTRO / DEATHLY SYNTHPOP". And though there was a retrospective element to the whole affair, the music was decisively forward-looking, including a couple bands making their debuts.

After hearing the gauzy dreamgaze tracks they have online here's something slightly disjunctive about seeing Hush Pup perform — casual and laughing, they look like they're going to start a dance party on stage instead of unfurling some atmospheric synth-rock. There's a bit of that tension in the music, with sprightly rhythm tracks sometimes pulling a bit too much away from Ida Maidstone's ethereal vocals. But when it finds the right balance and settles into woozy Cocteau Twins territory, this is something you can convincingly sway to.