Live Review: Roscoe James Irwin, Delia Obst

It was the first truly cold week in Adelaide for the year and a small band of musicians were doing their best to warm the cockles of those at The Wheatsheaf. Delia Obst immediately silenced the crowd with her powerful voice echoing around the tin walls of the venue. Obst and her bandmate Banjo were dressed head-to-toe in black, and while the songs were mournful there was a simple beauty to the lyrics, supported by sparse acoustic and electric guitar.

Roscoe James Irwin can be a million different people on stage. He’s often travelling the world playing trumpet for The Cat Empire or The Bamboos but tonight it was just Irwin supported by a trio of local players helping to launch his new EP The Wild. Much of the time, Irwin was alone on stage surrounded by instruments he would use to create and loop layers of sound.

Often a song would start with simple piano or vocal percussion but finish with layer upon layer of gorgeous harmonies, trumpet, glockenspiel and even thumb piano. Creating a song from scratch on stage was a complicated process and affected Irwin’s engagement with the crowd, as he was often so focused on making sure everything worked that there was little time to establish a connection. It was a different sound when the trio of guitar, bass and violin joined Irwin on stage, and a highlight was the use of a musical saw on the title track for The Wild. Irwin has musical friends across the country and it was nice to know that this line-up of musicians and instruments was unique to Adelaide.

The set didn’t look back at Irwin's older work under the Roscoe moniker, only featuring songs from the new EP as well as unreleased tracks and a cover of Genesis’ I Can’t Dance. This is certainly a man looking forwards, with another EP set for release before the end of the year.

It could take a while for a song to get going as each new layer was created, but it was a fascinating insight into the creation of his sound and the payoff as these layers collided was worth the wait.