Live Review: Mallrat's Stratospheric Jack Rabbit Slim's Gig

Fresh from a successful tour of the US - including well received SXSW shows - Mallrat sold out Jack Rabbit Slims on Saturday night to celebrate the release of her EP In The Sky.

Melbourne producer, singer and songwriter Eilish Gilligan was a revelation. Confident and sophisticated, she strutted about the stage belting out dance pop in a ridiculously high register. I found myself singing along to choruses I’d never heard before, and making notes to check her out later https://soundcloud.com/eilishgilligan .

In contrast, Ninjirachi was all disembodied vocals and enigmatic smile as she pushed and twirled the knobs and dials in front of her. She danced - and sometimes sang - along to her own tracks as anime style imagery flashed on the screen behind her.

Mallrat took to the stage in schoolgirl meets festival hippy chick glitter on her cheeks, black self labelled hoodie and twin braids. And look - I usually hate when reviews of female artists describe their outfits, but in this case it seems a sort of metaphor for Mallrat herself. Her music is sophisticated and she has confidence in her abilities - yet she somehow maintains a youthful artlessness about her on stage performance.

Introducing 'Suicide Blonde' as the song she wrote when she was 16 (Mallrat is now just 19) led me to consider what, exactly, I had been doing with my own life.  

Minutes later she was obviously pleased that the opening bars of 'UFO' were met with rapturous recognition by the crowd. By the time she played new track 'Texas' I couldn’t move my arms I was so tightly wedged in amongst adoring fans, and the ponytail of the girl in front of me was dangling in my drink. She’d just unceremoniously shoved her way in front of me so I didn’t feel too bad about this at all. This was the only sour note of the evening - Jack Rabbit Slim's just was not big enough to contain the sheer number of enthusiastically dancing fans in the room.

Mallrat is not a made for tv teen pop star, she’s just prodigiously talented. If you missed her this time don’t worry - Mallrat is here to stay, and next time I predict the venue will be big enough for us all to dance.