A crashing, dark ocean of layered synths, a violin in a desert and post-punk bass lines—all things that could describe the score to a prophetic dream, or the sound of the Naarm-based band Shock Corridor. I was lucky enough to see them play this September at the final show of their spring tour of the country, at their stop at the Night Cat in Fitzroy.

I could spot the line to the gig a mile away. Johnston St was littered with keen adoptees of IBCs (intelligent buzz cuts) and varying degrees of brunette shags. Inside, the Night Cat’s 360° stage was similarly well surrounded with young people chattering and nursing a beer or G&T. As I grabbed my own drink I watched the fridges behind the bar’s lights flicker as the doors would periodically swing open, like even the appliances were aware of a major energy shift afoot as we waited around the stage for the band to begin.

The best way I can describe the rhythmic sounds and reverb of the band’s setlist is a yell down an echoing, well, corridor. The six-piece outfit played early work from their EP I’m Afraid I Lost My Way, as well as new music like the tune ‘Drag Nets’. Haunting lyrics, melancholic and guttural, filled the space and the crowd was called to immediate attention. Floor to ceiling mirrors stretched across one of the walls of the venue, the dual imagery of the stage fitting to the repetitive sounds of the instruments. The space became a prism of trip hop beats and orchestral elements meeting each other in the corners. The lyrics from their song ‘Abyssal’, “and now, and now, and now...” added to a sound bath of spectral noise.

For the “oldie” released in 2023,‘Stop All the Clocks’, the stage was drenched in amber lights, the proud trumpet cut across the foggy drone of the bass and guitar. The hazy synth melted the crowd  and I saw people started to bob their heads, their necks and hips becoming looser to make room for the winding tunes. Their songs are able to carefully piece together a status-quo for the listener, before skillfully knocking you from your feet as the music upends itself and unravels into cathartic vocals and a tornado of violin. I am careful to spotlight the violin, truly a weapon within the band’s body of work and especially cutting to hear live in show.

The set was not without a couple odd microphone feedback interruptions, but for the crowd’s experience, the sounds fit; it all felt a part of the band’s design for an irreverent orchestra.

Shock Corridor were quite quickly persuaded into an encore (thank god) after they had exited the stage. They walked single-file into the crowd, turned on their heels, met the mic again and thanked the Night Cat.

“This was “the biggest show [they] had ever played,” they said, and followed the thanks with a humble statement to the cheering crowd: “I’m fucking shitting myself.”

The closer ‘In your Orbit’, their current most popular track on Spotify, was the softest of the set list, lullabying the crowd with a sweet goodbye. The song is a warm hum made up of a brush petting the drums, a plucking bass guitar, and complete with melodic vocal harmonies and instrumental trills. Singing of the earth opening up for “a place to hide” and being “trapped” in the ever-mysterious you’s orbit, Shock Corridor are masters of mood—a beautiful, intimate verse turned melancholic in the sweetest way as they crooned to the crowd, “now you’re leaving”.

Keeping trip hop alive and breathing, albeit feeling like a sound that only exists behind the veil between our world and theirs, Shock Corridor put on a dreamscape of a show.

While the spring tour has concluded, Shock Corridor continue their live performances this year at Archie’s Creek Hotel (supporting Gut Health) on 1 November.