Glass vaults - Space Academy - Christchurch - 7th July 2017

Glass Vaults hail from Wellington and play a sort of electronic indie pop with their first album being more experimental than their latest, of which this tour is supporting, which is more poppy on first listen.

  They had two acts in support, the first being a young lady also from Wellington who preforms under the name Womb. Listening to her very small output on bandcamp reveals electronic ambient drones with airy vocals. Live though, she just had her guitar and loop generator and set up some very simple loops and sometimes didn't touch her strings for the most part of the song after initial setting up of her sounds. She had a nice voice and sung with quite an intensity(reminding me of Aldous Harding slightly) in places with lyrics also sounding a bit more deep(when I could make them out). I enjoyed her set and it was a shame that so many of the audience chose to talk loudly throughout her set.

  Next up were a Christchurch band called Pickle Darling, a 6 piece jammed into the small corner allotted to the bands at Space Academy. For a large band their sound was very restrained, they had keys, trumpet, two guitars and bass backed with drum machine. They were very quaint pop with some interesting sounds, very twee, reasonably interesting although the singer was so restrained that he was difficult to hear, but not something I would buy if they had any music to sell.

Still, I enjoyed their set enough, quiet as it was and a large slice of the audience still talked loudly throughout the set.

  I had been on Facebook between sets and a friend said he had seen Glass Vaults a couple of years back and thought the gig was terrible, so I was hoping this would not be the case again. The sold out crowd paid a lot more attention now and the increased volume made talking more difficult. Glass Vaults live were more bouncy and up tempo than their records and nearly everyone was dancing and grooving to their sounds. They reminded me a lot of Primal Scream's Screamadelica period actually and I really enjoyed their set.