Gengahr – Tuning Fork, 17 January 2024: Review

Rev Orange Peel and Photos by Leonie Moreland

18th January 2024

Gengahr play melodic, well-crafted psychedelic Indie Pop bristling with guitar hooks, on their first Australasian tour.

They kick off their first engagement at the Tuning Fork, at the far end of the Spark Arena. Where another show is playing, which does mean a slightly diminished crowd in this post-Christmas holiday hiatus.

Gengahr came together with high school friends at Stoke-Newington school in Hackney, London. Felix Bushe lead singer and guitar, Hugh Schulte bass, with John Victor and Danny Ward.

They have the mild taint of a critic’s band with general praise for their first three albums.

Red Sun Titans is the fourth, released last year and five songs are played tonight off it.

A Ladder kicks proceedings off. A charming song where the guitars sparkle, and you hear a sound like a vibraphone. First heard, down by an ocean of nerves/ It stirs a landslide.

Heroine has the lead singers’ signature high tenor to falsetto. While it is comforting, it can pierce and glide smoothly.

A good guide is the Beach Boy’s very early Farmer’s Daughter, off Surfin’ USA (1963).

I know that’s going a long way back, but that gives some depth and pedigree to the sound they are aiming for.

Soft and spacey. Dreamy guitars with phasing effects. I caught a witch that cries all the time. There is soul in the high vocals of She’s a Witch.

Heels to the Moon starts with liquid guitars echo and reverb. A wet sound and maybe they are exploring post-Surf music.

Red Sun Titans itself changes the atmosphere. The bass bottom dominates and leads. There are tasty louche Rock guitar licks verging towards Garage. It can get heavy.

This band has toured with alt-J across Europe and the UK. That will also give some idea of their deeper Prog roots. They avoid some of the darker elements of dread of that group. For now.

Under the Sky and Icarus. They can extend out with guitar textures, soothing at first and then taking flight.

They remind me of the sentiments and tones of The Notorious Bryd Brothers (1968). Heavily psychedelic Folk Rock which tried to absorb the psychic damage of the turbulent Sixties, as opposed to the hopeful Love Generation.

Remember, Woodstock to Altamont only took four months.

Gengahr’s last album came out of the psychic attack which was called a pandemic.

Alkali is also from that album, and there are some Funk rhythms amongst the siren guitars. Probably there in other songs, I just didn’t notice them as much.

As with the Smiths, you hear the solid rhythm section in due course.

There are connections to the Afro-Funk and tribal rhythms of Talking Heads and producer Brian Eno.

Rita Mae is Rita Laing, and she is the daughter of James Laing, who played in the Jean-Paul Sartre Experience back in the halcyon days of Flying Nun.

She is a perfect mix of Folk and Pop, and she does remind me of a pre-fame Benee, when the band was called Bene.

First saw her opening for a great Broods concert at the Powerstation last year. Then she did her own headline set a few weeks later at the Whammy Bar.

She played with her sisters then, and one of them, Bridie Laing, accompanies her tonight.

Two voices and one acoustic guitar.

Real Love shows she can write songs with good hooks.

Superfeeling is one of her best, and it does have a Flying Nun sensibility to it.

Someday. The quality of her voice on her EP matches what she brings to the stage. I felt him creep into my skin is a great line, which leads into a more intense drama as the song closes out.

Big Star is yet to be released. I hope it will be eventually. The story is like the great Golden Lights, written and first recorded by Twinkle (Lynn Annette Riply) in 1964 and later revived by the Smiths.

Rita does have a similar powerful voice to some of the English female leads of the Sixties.

Another unreleased one is Death Song, with an acoustic guitar that sparkles and sounds like an Americana take on Paul Simon.

She closes out a delightful set with Candy’s House. Last night I went to Candy’s house and took them pills again. Happy pills, as it’s a happy song, but with some darker undertones.

Gengahr are flying as they reach a peak of momentum later in the set. Carrion and Before Sunrise have layered psychedelic guitar sounds.

Lonely as a Shark is an early tune, appearing on an album in 2015. Those vocals are heavenly but there are barbs in the velvet. If I grew horns and fins, at least I’d get to start again/ Speak in tongues, just like it all began.