Anthonie Tonnon

Anthonie Tonnon is looking fashionably retro on stage in New Zealand’s oldest theatre, the Hollywood in Avondale, and with his band lays out a charged and enthralling set featuring latest album Leave Love Out of This.

With a slicked-back pompadour and white jacket, the Taite Music Prize Finalist resembles early rockers Eddie Cochran or Ricky Nelson. A sense of drama and theatrics would place him closer to Chris Isaak in vocal style. His songs combine witty lyricism on heavy subjects with the studied naivety of a Jonathan Richman.

He has his trade-mark robot dance and swim routines, along with older guitar-slinger poses. His keen followers are out in force tonight, in a close to full auditorium.

The music can be lush and orchestral as it combines electronic and digital music with analogue in a seamless mix of radiant Indie Pop. This much-delayed concert has him with a full band. Stuart Harwood drums and syn-drums, David Flyger analogue-to-electronic bass, Sam Taylor guitars and percussion and Brooke Singer (from French for Rabbits) on synths and samples. Credit also given to Jonathan Pearce of the Beths, who produced this and previous albums, and was in the audience.

When I’m Wrong and Entertainment, both from the album, start the show. Drum and bass are dominant. The syn-drums and skins can’t be differentiated. Synthesiser swirls and spins melodies. Keyboards sparkle when they come in at the close.

A synthesiser guitar from Tonnon gives Entertainment a lift and that naïve Richman vocal phrasing stands out.

Lips

Opening the evening’s show are Lips. The project of keyboard player Steph Brown and longtime collaborator Fen Ikner on drums, which they started twelve years ago in New York.

Big red lips are their brand. Pure New York and Andy Warhol style Pop Art and it is a chaste version of the Rolling Stone logo (also designed by Warhol). That is, without the lascivious tongue.

Everything to Me sounds like moderately pleasant Lounge Pop with some modern Café Jazz chops on the keyboards.

That’s a mis-direction as they immediately follow with Heave Ho and warn that nobody takes me seriously, anyway! Quirky and angular Tribal Pop rhythms. Has the nervous sound of early Talking Heads.

Slower and thronged with early Sixties Joe Meek style Space-Age sound effects is Ghosts and Demons. And the world could crumble around me/ I’m so lonely, so lonely.

They lift off and get the crowd cheering with Your Deodorant Doesn’t Work. You could call it Rap but it’s a humorous diatribe driven by jagged rhythms which they have fun extending out on the vamp.

Just as good is I Want You, which starts with a Martin Rev and Suicide-styled electronic drone. I want you to leave me, as Brown winds up the energy with more ranting and comedy.

Nervy and edgy Alt-Pop.

I am struck by the generally English Eighties sound that Tonnon has on these songs. His voice is a precise soft baritone which can swoop up high, and not get carried away with over-emoting.

Peacetime Orders has a rolling, meditative rhythm riff which cycles up in rising emotion. The synthesiser sounds orchestral like Ultravox. A drum break disperses all the waves in a dramatic finish.

Two Free Hands has a drone backing, with melody being added by the sounds of a vibraphone. The lyrics address biology, evolution and ecology, I suspect. What to do with those two free hands? With his Android on the keyboards mime, he resembles Max Headroom’s brief time in the music TV spotlight.

Sitting at the piano, he introduces a new song which isn’t finished yet, which turns out to be title track Leave Love Out of This, a standout on the album and also here tonight. The band come back in halfway and it sounds magisterial.

The history of the Roland D10 synthesiser is given its place in history (for Tonnon) by way of introduction for Mt Cargill. With the wash of sound from the machines as a bed this sounds like Lounge Rockabilly, with guitar riffs sharp and cutting like glass.

Front of stage are not into dancing so much as being happy to bathe in the wash of sound. A cheer and some movement for Marion Bates Realty, off the Up Here for Dancing album.

Environment, conservation and history are important elements of Tonnon’s art. Mataura Paper Mill is mostly solo on keyboards. The story of a timber-processing factory in the Deep South, shut down due to global competition, and becoming a site for toxic waste storage. Starts at a slow hymnal pace and sounds like the Smiths in a cathedral. Expanded out from the recorded version, the sound becomes immense to finish.

Railway Lines finishes the evening in style as the drone rhythm beds in and melody arises from the resonations.

A sonic and melodic triumph and Anthonie Tonnon, with the band, presided over the night with sympathy and taste, along with some restraint.

Rev Orange Peel

Click any icon to view a gallery of each artist by Tara Ranchhod