Springtime dazzle at Melbourne Recital Hall

Late summer in Melbourne, and Springtime is digging deep: planting ideas, letting sounds creep, bud and burst. The result is mesmerising, unsettling and in places, curiously hopeful. As it might be, given that each member of this new Australian trio – pianist Chris Abrahams (The Necks), drummer Jim White (Xylouris White, Dirty Three) and vocalist/guitarist Gareth Liddiard (The Drones, Tropical F*ck Storm) - is a singular musician with a predilection for shapes rather than tunes; for art rock, experimental noise and flying free jazz.

Under spotlights shone at diagonals, within a loose framework provided by tracks called things like ‘The Viaduct Love Suicide’ and ‘The Killing of the Village Idiot’ (a particularly thunderous long form wig-out), respective aesthetics overlapped, wrestled and took us to places – dark places – that in the wake of a pandemic and the shadow of a world war, beg examination.

Elders Abrahams and White were a grounding presence, with the former’s 33 years’ worth of live Necks improvisations holding the space, throwing in some lyricism here, hammering out percussion keys there, and White’s balletic playing style – an arcing drumstick hovering high, brushes moving softly over skins – heightening the sense of absurdist theatre inside the noise clouds of doom.

Liddiard, the band’s youngish court jester, fanged and fed back on his instrument, roaring lyrics borrowed from his award-winning poet uncle Ian Duhig, bemoaning “con men, con jobs, moralisers, modern saviors” with feet splayed and head thrown back, his long struggle with a stray amp lead tedious but appropriately tense. As evident on the band’s acclaimed self-titled debut, Springtime intend to poke us back to life by crafting portraits of our contemporary world in all its terror, absurdity, cruelty and beauty.

It was transporting stuff, an onslaught that carved space for meditation, a testament to music’s – free jazz’s – ability to make us feel.