The legendary Christchurch act Pitch Black whipped up an electronica storm at Neck of Woods, Auckland on their Third Light Tour on 17 October 2019. Taking the audience with them on a visual and musical journey, the duo kicked off their international
tour, with this, their first date of twelve, which will take them to London, Amsterdam and Berlin over the coming months.
Neck of the Woods was suitably packed to the rafters when a screen descended and invited the crowd to dance - it was received with shouts; hoots and the anticipation rose with the dramatic notes that played in the background. Michael
Hodgson and Paddy Free emerged, and the heat of moving bodies swayed along with the opening beats.
Hodgson’s visuals were dark, abstract, electronic and mirrored a hard to describe combined aesthetic: music and visuals that somehow captured the ways in which humans use light and electricity to manipulate and view our lives and our bodies on the inside, whilst illuminating the virtual and the interiors. The crowd were quickly immersed in the hypnotic repetition and builds.
The band have a reputation as a live act, and duly so. Their downbeat dub, ascended and descended, rising and falling across each epic track, as samples flew in and out. It quickly became an experience about sensation, tantalising all the senses. This was a thoroughly impressive set and a night of dancing the night away - and what a treat it was.
Pitch Black are Michael Hodgson and Paddy Free. Having pumped their way through New Zealand’s electronic music scene since their inaugural performance at the annual Gathering New Year's eve festival in 1996, they have spent the subsequent years rousing dance floor punters, generating rave reviews, winning awards and gaining thousands of fans across the world.
Hard to box into a single audio 'genre', Pitch Black is a combination of musical journeys. Their sound is distinctive; ranging from organic ambient beginnings and layered soundscapes to skanking keyboards, cutting acid riffs and thumping rhythmic grooves, with dub being the glue that holds their sound together. One critic has described them as like "Orbital meets King Tubby, or Rhythm and Sound in Technicolor".
It is their live show that really makes Pitch Black stand out from the rest of the crowd, both sonically and visually. Their tracks take on an added dynamism and their performances reveal the dialectic behind the band - Paddy wants to do it for the crowd, Michael wants to do it to the crowd. Visually they are in another dimension thanks to Michael's cutting edge visuals.