Holly Stewart

There may have been a mini-monsoon Thursday night, but that didn’t stop droves of people from making the trek up Park Avenue to Espace Reunion for a 2 a.m. set from Toronto’s Holy Fuck.

Taking the stage clad in a “Poo Teens” t-shirt (talk about catering to a local audience), Brian Borcherdt and company played their brand of instrumental and experimental dance music to an energetic and excited crowd.

Songs like “Jungles,” “Red Lights,” and “Stilettos” showed Holy Fuck’s knack for layering sound and building intensity before letting it dissipate only to start up again, keeping the venue on edge and filled with anticipation.

You can’t talk of a Holy Fuck show without mentioning that neither Borcherdt nor Graham Walsh use computers of any kind to make their music. Instead, they favour keyboards put through a multitude of guitar pedals. Watching the two of them go to work at their stations was like watching scientists in a lab, as they carefully manipulated every knob and pedal to create some of the most interesting sounds to ever come out of mini-Casios. It looked like a very involved process—Borcherdt had to hold his microphone in his mouth a few times to keep both hands free, and the group requested more light on stage so they could better see what they were doing.

A minor complaint would be that “Lovely Allen” didn’t hit as hard as it usually does, but playing it mid-set was a welcome change from being the obvious set-closer.

When all was said and done, people appeared more disappointed that it was over than about having to head back out in to the rain.