ACOPIA

Acopia is a Melbourne trio — Kate Durman, Morgan Wright, Lachlan McGeehan. They all came up making electronic music on their own before becoming a band, and you can hear that in the way they build songs. Everything feels layered and patient.

Their LA stop was part of a first North American headline tour, presented by Pretty But Wicked. Sold out, but the room had enough space to let the sound breathe. The stage was backlit the entire time with this deep amber red light that made the whole room feel like a safelight was on. It reminded me of sitting in the darkroom and dissociating while the developer swished back and forth across a print. That same still patience, waiting for something to slowly appear out of nothing. And that's kind of exactly how they play. The songs build the same way — sounds looping back on each other, each pass bleeding a little more detail into the image. You don't notice the moment it fully takes shape. It just does.

If I had to place their sound I would call it Slowdive and Cocteau Twins meets trip-hop. The guitars have this dazed reverb to them but underneath there are drums that snap and baselines that just simmer. It’s dense and gossamer at the same time. First time I listened to them it felt lighter — something easy to sink into. But live, under that amber light with everything pressing in around you, there's something haunting about it. Like hearing music bleed through a wall. Most of that is Durman.

She sings in this hushed, near-monotone voice that reminds me of Romy from The xx. Intimate and honest but detached — not in a too-cool-for-school way, more like she forgot you were there. Like she's confessing something she's already accepted she can't fix. Her voice hovers right on top of everything and barely disturbs it. And the way the music keeps circling underneath her matches something in her voice — this sense of returning to the same feeling over and over, getting a little closer to the center of it but never quite arriving. A melancholic malaise. There's a longing in all of it. Not for something lost but for something that never quite showed up.

Acopia is still on their North American tour for the rest of the April. Catch them if you can.

* THE INDEX

Overall Rating // [3.6]

Sound // [4.1]
Crowd // [3.5]
Venue // [3.6]