At the Gam Gallery on Saturday, July 6

So much summer lovin’. The weather may have been blissfully warm, but on this Saturday night, a few dozen Vancouverites opted to pack into the Gam Gallery in the Downtown Eastside for a triple bill of chilly, gloom-filled electronic pop and postpunk. It may not have been as seasonally appropriate as, say, drinks on an outdoor patio, but the bands made this sacrifice worthwhile.

Beginning at around 11, opener Adanac set the tone with a concise selection of introspective synth tunes. Adanac is the solo vehicle of Dan On from local trio Adam Kadmon, and the songwriter utilized a table full of electronic gear including a sampler, a keyboard, and a laptop.

On’s breathy baritone vocals, bummed-out lyrics, and downtempo arrangements tapped into the glum side of ’80s pop, and opener “Alison” matched synth twinkles with chorus repetitions of “I don’t love you.” Adding to the absorbing atmosphere was the dim backlighting, which came primarily from a reddish paper lantern hung behind the performer.

Adanac experienced a few technical difficulties, and he lost his cool slightly when complaining about a faulty microphone, but this didn’t seem to bother the attentive onlookers. They gave an “aww” of disappointment when he announced his final tune, and some chanted for another, to which he admitted that he had run out of material.

After this, Adanac’s table of equipment was carted away and Gal Gracen set up its amps in the corner of the stageless gallery. The trio—which consisted of two guitarists and a synth player—opened with a drone that swirled ominously for a few minutes. Eventually, a beat was introduced and the band segued into a thudding dance arrangement of four-on-the-floor rhythms, spiralling riffs, and six-string freakouts.

The performance had originally been billed as a live soundtrack to the 1987 slasher flick Stage Fright, but this plan seemed to have been abandoned, since there was no film playing. That said, the lengthy instrumental jam would have functioned nicely as a horror-movie score.

Gal Gracen then lifted the mood with a few tropical-flavoured cuts, including the waltzing “Sylvan Tragedy” from this year’s Blue Hearts in Exile cassette. As if that wasn’t enough to put a smile on showgoers’ faces, frontman Patrick Geraghty earned a few groaning laughs with a knowingly corny joke about a tiny surfer dying in a microwave.

Between bands, attendees perused the art hung in the gallery, checked out the workshop in the back room, and stepped out of the steamy venue for a breath of pleasant summer air.

By the time headliner Koban finally plugged in, it was nearing 1 in the morning, and some of the fans had already headed home. Those who stuck around had their patience rewarded, and the duo conjured up a drone of threatening feedback to accompany the spoken samples of “Absolute Minimum”, the opening cut from the recent null LP.

Next, the pair tore into a string of ferociously infectious postpunk smashers. Guitarist Sam Buss cued up mechanical beats from a laptop before hunching over double and coaxing waves of distortion from his axe, while bassist Brittany Westgarth banged her head and tossed her hair along with the nightmarish rhythms. Their dual vocals were doused in reverb, with the shouts buried beneath waves of shrieking fuzz.

Koban didn’t go about its gothic aesthetic halfheartedly, and the few lyrics that rose above the glorious din were every bit as unsettling as the punishing tunes. Take, for example, the scorching “Down in the Well”, which closed the brief set and was replete with references to bleeding and suffering. The musicians even looked the part, since Westgarth wore dark lipstick, and her denim shorts were the only non-black item of clothing between them.

Then again, the set wasn’t entirely made up of creepy vibes: Westgarth flashed a couple of wide smiles between songs, reminding us that, given the right mood, even the most chilling of sonic assaults can make for fun summer listening.