After spending a large amount of the day watching guitar bands at the Pauhaus festival, it’s a refreshing change to see Romy Hoffman, AKA Macromantics, take the stage. She doesn’t bother breaking us in too gently – straight up, she’s spitting fierce, explosive rhymes out to a less than huge, but adoring audience, who screech when she pulls off particularly difficult tongue-twisters. And she does it with a commanding, yet natural ease, no less.

You can see why the U.S-based Kill Rock Stars label swooped up Ms. Hoffman and her Moments in Movement debut long player – they’ve long been the home of cutting-edge, female-produced music, and they aren’t far off the money with this lady either. She's a unique and original performer, flavoured with the influence of artists as distinct as Patti Smith and the Wu-Tang Clan. The music itself (which could have been way louder, thanks soundies) backs up Macromantics’ punchy, raspy vocal delivery: the majority of the bass-driven beats on show tonight have an earthy, tectonic-plate shifting quality courtesy of the deceptively shy-looking DJ Amy, who also grins through backing vocal duties.

It's this brazen hip hop/electro mash-up that gives us clues to the kind of artist we are looking at – an artist that tends to appeal across genres. Any other hip-hop performer would stick out like a sore thumb on the Pauhaus roster tonight, but Macromantics has the presence and engrained aural wiliness that makes her a favourite with the stoner indie kids and the wannabe rappers. Clever, fresh, challenging – a must see.

by Jo Nilson