This is another part review, I wasn’t at Ambar all of Friday night, I was only there to see Malente, but I do have something to say. Generally I liked what I saw, Malente had lots of energy and looked like he enjoyed what he was doing, he had skills (girls like guys with skills) and he played banging electro tracks. He did some great work crossing between songs, holding onto loops and basslines of previous and forthcoming tracks, and teasing the crowd with snippits of a song well before he dropped the beat (that’s a personal favourite, it’s fun trying to pick the songs). Probably the most important thing I saw was his use of effects to build that little bit extra into already banging tracks, and I know that in itself isn’t phenomenal, but whatever Malente was doing worked perfectly. There were only a couple of problems, read the full review after the jump…

Malente (Myspace)

The big problem; I just didn’t get into it. I think it was mainly because I didn’t know many of the songs but I also noticed the crowd wasn’t too, um, good? The best reactions came when Malente played remixes of “Riverside” and “Business Man,” and I expected more from the crowd at Ambar, because it’s patrons are meant to be appreciators of electronic music. There were awesome dj skills on show and great Malente originals and remixes being played (”Gipsy Kings,” “I Like It,” and “Bangkok” to name a few), yet no one seemed terribly excited about it. This left me feeling pretty bummed out. I know there are plenty of people out there who love electro, I know lots of readers of Perthquake love electro but where are the appreciators of  electro going, what are we being left with in the clubs? I love electro and will still enedevour to hunt down good tracks but maybe electro is dying in Perth, or it might already be dead.