Currently touring in support of their February-released sophomore album Punk Shadows – an eccentric, artfully dense work of baroque electropop and hard left turns into the avant-garde – a performance in the Petit Théatre du Vieux Noranda's basement space presented an intriguing opportunity to see how Montreal's Lisa (Creature) and Morgan Moore (Thus Owls) bring their extroverted goth opera to life. The room lit only by the light of their headlamps, Blood and Glass made their way onstage for midnight, the Moores bringing a drummer and a violinist in tow.
Greeting the crowd with some mysterious drones, Lisa Moore's opening vocals got under the skin like a ghost, and then a brief ornamental segue steered us into some vibrant, emotionally charged electropop. Never staying in the same sonic territory for too long, it was a set brimming with surprises, including vocoder-y robot vocals, interpretative dance and theatrical narration, twinkling harpsichord beds, sharp blasts of disorienting crescendo, outside jazz percussion, and a dusky, brooding take on Leonard Cohen's "Take This Waltz."
If it was the weirdest act of this year's festival, it wore that badge with honour, playfully erasing the room that contained them and reconstructing it with their own world.
Greeting the crowd with some mysterious drones, Lisa Moore's opening vocals got under the skin like a ghost, and then a brief ornamental segue steered us into some vibrant, emotionally charged electropop. Never staying in the same sonic territory for too long, it was a set brimming with surprises, including vocoder-y robot vocals, interpretative dance and theatrical narration, twinkling harpsichord beds, sharp blasts of disorienting crescendo, outside jazz percussion, and a dusky, brooding take on Leonard Cohen's "Take This Waltz."
If it was the weirdest act of this year's festival, it wore that badge with honour, playfully erasing the room that contained them and reconstructing it with their own world.
