Enon

Ill Ease is Elizabeth Sharp, a one-woman punk-rock band. She uses a sampling pedal to repeat bass and guitar patterns and then plays super tight drums underneath. Loop sets normally get their allure from their ability to build up something that a live band with less than 134 members couldn't accurately recreate, so you'd maybe think that basic, femme-y grunge-punk using the format would just be a poor substitute for a full band, but t'isn't the case. As with so many other things in live music, it all hinges on the character of the performer and Sharp is such a bag of nervous energy and wide-eyed spookiness that you can't look away from her long enough to really notice that she's the only person on the stage. It’s hooky, grungey fun, and she leaves the audience wanting more.

Enon’s John Schmersal is equally captivating, but, despite the equivalent frenzy of his performance, his persona is more grounded in the consummate showmanship that comes from his 13 years in rock since he first joined Brainiac, theatrically flouncing around, again with the starey eyes. And they’ve got a pretty great sound going on – pounding drums and punchy, melodic bass, Schmersal coating it all with his FX-drenched guitars. Unfortunately, this is pretty much all you get – not once does he give his pedals a rest and your ears a glimpse of what he’s actually playing, and the rest scarcely diverges from its path of professional, tight pop-rock. Whilst Ill Ease is fairly two dimensional, it was over in 20 minutes or so. What feels like two hours of one idea just seems to drag on-enon-enon-enon.