Witch Hats - Newtown Worker’s Club

East Brunswick All Girls Choir have come a long way since Marcus Hobbs shelved the name Smokin’ Hot Bitch and built a proper band around his solo work. By turns groggy and cathartic, the quartet exists between seething noise and loping garage. Both slow and fast songs are graffitied with feedback, and Hobbs’ high, androgynous whine can turn to a palpable scream. And hey, the band name’s not all wrong: there is one girl in bassist Rie Nakayama.

Checking in with a short set, Fabulous Diamonds continued to explore how loops and rhythms can degrade or intensify through time and repetition. Nisa Venerosa’s irregular drumming and Jarrod Zlatic’s lugubrious conjuring of organ chords have a tractor-beam effect, pulling us closer despite downbeat pacing. Venerosa’s vocals were chant-like and almost incidental, as if they too had fallen under the music’s heady spell. About half the punters present took a seat on the floor to take it in.

Launching their second EP, Solarium Down The Causeway, Witch Hats played a loose nine-song set. The first four came from the EP – ‘Fucking With The Atmosphere’, ‘Stomach In Your Hair’, ‘Check The Center’ and ‘Pleasure Syndrome’ – and with the exception of the opener, each was just over two minutes. They were followed by a new, albeit brief track, and an old one, ‘I Can’t Stay At Home’, from last year’s Cellulite Soul album. Another new song followed, a bit more shambling and less constricted than the band’s past work and building to a cool harmonised finish.

Then came ‘Pepperman’ from Witch Hats’ debut EP, Wound Of A Little Horse; a song marked by a sawing hook and haughty laughs from frontman Kris Buscombe. His brother Ash towed the following ‘Western’ (from Cellulite Soul) with a big, wagging bass line, and there was hardly any guitar on the first verse. The band finished with Solarium’s ‘Sessa (Son Of A Silo Salesman)’ in all its Fall-inspired brittleness.

Like the EP itself, the set saw Witch Hats pushing towards a new sound; not as willfully claustrophobic as their first two releases but still raw, mean and rumbling with jumpy nerves.

by Doug Wallen