Yamantaka // Sonic Titan are one of those bands that are difficult to know how to describe in simple terms. On the one hand, you could attempt to individualize them by naming all of the different genres that their diverse array of songs may fall in to. On the other hand, this could make them so uniquely diverse that it would just get too confusing and make your head explode. Using broad strokes though, they are a rock and performance art collective with all sorts of different influences (post rock, metal, opera, Asian music, Aboriginal chanting, etc.).
Their set was also intricately decorated with a number of cardboard cut-outs and from what I was able to see of them, they looked almost like Manga-influenced drawings. As well, there costumes were mostly Asian-influenced including white painted with faces with tribal markings. There was also a bit of self-promotion with the one singer/percussionist wearing a “YT//ST” bedazzled jacket.
YT//ST started their theatrical show with the two lead members slowly walking through the crowd with one ringing a bell. A ceremonial blessing from the start for good luck, perhaps? Despite being under the weather (“I’m sick so don’t hate. I’m drinking 7/11 tea on stage.“), lead singer Ruby Kato Attwood soldiered on even though she went through a couple coughing sessions between songs.
Even with such dark and heavy music that included double-bass from the drummer, I didn’t feel like it was negative but rather that they were letting us know that they were presenting this gloominess to us and letting us know that it did in fact exist. At times there was even dancing during their set which was divided between their self-titled debut album and their most recent one UZU .
Unfortunately, the hipster quotient was quite high at the Garrison on this night. Fortunately, they were hanging out at the bar at the back (as they do) and were mostly drowned out by YT//ST’s beautifully haunting performance.