Live Review: Oisima, Mei Saraswati, How Green

You need a pretty good reason to draw the kids away from Netflix on a Saturday night as brutally cold as this one, but it wasn’t at all surprising that a sizeable Rocket crowd deemed Oisima worthy of braving the elements. 

It seemed like folks were hugging their heaters for as long as they could, leaving opener How Green without much of a crowd to play to, his calm grooves clattering rhythmically, pulsing spaciously and generally sounding grand, even in a sparse room. 

Things got a darn sight deeper and fuzzier when Perth’s Mei Saraswati took to the decks. The steadily growing huddled masses were warmed from winter’s chill by Saraswati’s uplifting performance – a performance which, perhaps surprisingly, traded some of the intimacy of her recorded work for a punchy energy that jammed a sizable dose of momentum into the evening, the attitude-filled groove-kick at the lower end of her vocal range no doubt standing out to more than a few ears. 

Wasting little time in the turnaround, our bearded and beanied bro Oisima bounded on stage. The weather was doing its bit to ensure the headliner had a full house to play to, with the rooftop being closed on account of the inclemency. So, with the house full and primed for the man of the hour, Oisima rolled up his sleeves and spun-up... and... well... the opening of the set was probably not what he had in mind... 

It’s important to note that the tracks on Oisima’s newly released debut EP, Nicaragua Nights, are complex. They lean towards intricate landscape tapestries of shapes and textures: there’s a lot going on. So, when things are out of balance it gets messy. Sadly, the first portion of this particular set was hampered by technical difficulties with some of the levels ensuring the sound got pretty slushy. The crowd didn’t seem to mind too much though; they went right on about their business of getting down on a Saturday night, finding the groove in amongst the swirl and digging in. After a little bit of inter-song banter with the sound-desk Oisima had the issues corrected and was pretty quickly back on top of the game.

There was a fair mix of light and shade, as the shimmering low-key vibes melted off into the AM, Oisima’s core dubstep meditations broken up with guest vocal spots from the irrepressible Mei Saraswati and the smooth as super-smooth-stuff Annabel Weston for the well-known and rightly well-regarded Everything About Her – these moments certainly stood tall as highlights of the show, along with the jazzier flashes of the record.

It’s likely that Oisima learnt a lot on this cold and stormy night. It was good to see him stick it out after a shaky start. He’s a unique talent with plenty to offer; there are plenty of folks looking forward to seeing what falls out of the newborn bundle of beats, bells and horns that is the new album.