bReview: Soundscape Sirens
at Cupid Bar, Saturday 12 July 2025
Written by Evelyn Jones
Photography by Milad Asadi
In Homer's Odyssey, the sirens were creatures situated on an island in the sea, singing enchanting songs to draw sailors near, who would then crash their ships on the spear-like rocks. However, it seems these days they’ve picked up a new profession, situated in Cupid Bar on a quiet Saturday night.
Compared to what I’m familiar with in the Auckland scene, Soundscape Sirens is a very unique concept for a gig; three singer-songwriters with a focus on electronic music and beat making. When talking with Trip-Hop producer and act for the night, Vanessa Tottle, she explained her work with the international station “Radio Trip-Hop Brazil” as well as “The New Zealand Trip Hop Show”, and her desire to give this type of music more of a scene locally. Essentially, the night was a pilot for a potential tour of a similar theme. When talking to MxDicey about what the show itself would look like, she told me to expect a “little bit of everything”. Looking back, that’s an understatement.
The crowd's chatter was then soon silenced by a droning ambient sound, as the opening act Talmar went into her first song. The ominous droning continued, as she added some chords and texture on her keyboard. What grabbed my attention, however, were the drums coming in soon after. They were distorted and in-your-face, almost like they’re glitching in and out of the song itself. This was in stark contrast to not only the ambient soundscape, but Talmar's haunting, reverb-drenched vocals, as she swayed and sauntered around the stage. It felt like a somber theme song to the end of a world, that’s both accepting and trying to fight back, accompanied by lyrics such as “Maybe you’ll be happy here, under a sun that's collapsing”. After the song was over, she told everyone that it was a new one, and her first time playing it.
Much of Talmar's following set captured a similar feeling, exploring different electronic sounds that feel right at home in the club, but always with a more ethereal undertone. A favourite example of mine being the fourth song and her newest single at the time of writing, “Mercurial”. It starts out with just a kick drum and synth line, like something you’d hear on an early 2010s dance party playlist. But then these beautiful choir vocals fade in and out over the ever-evolving beat. By the end of the song, it felt like a rave in a haunted church, complete with bell-sounding synths, risers, and the near-overwhelming stack of reverberated voices. Different elements were added and removed from the mix, before being left with nothing but vocals and the faint sound of strings. Talmar made a strong first impression, taking the atmospheric and industrial, the haunting and beautiful, and combining it to create a sound that’s otherworldly, foreboding and fascinating.
Next up was the aforementioned Vanessa Tottle, with a set of songs she advertised as “a taste of what I play on the trip-hop show”. In contrast to Talmar's more ethereal, industrial sound, Vanessa's first song “Let the music take over”, is a straight-up club banger, with bouncy 808s, electric drums and a more grounded synth progression. What's more, Vanessa's vocals were less about haunting a dance party and more about commanding a club, with a classic R&B style and power. At times, it reminded me of EDM songs that chop up old vocal samples, mixing and matching lines to create something new, so it was fascinating seeing that in the context of a live performance.
What I liked most about Tottle's production, however, was her ability to paint vivid pictures and stories with sound. Many of her songs come from a life full of experiences, and she soundtracks them perfectly. One song will be about sneaking in and evading people in underground tunnels, complete with echo, synths that resemble dripping water, and sharp sudden stabs of panic. Another will be a song about a trip to Vegas, a complete sensory overwhelm of constantly switching sounds. Every song had elements coming in and out, to change the vibe and progress the story of the set. The song that jumped out to me the most was the final one, “Good Till It’s Not”, lamenting an old friendship as it grows toxic and sour. The vocal delivery and production, overall, feels fittingly somber. However, in between lyrics are these sudden, near-out-of-place stabs, almost like something out of a dubstep song. It’s an angrier, more aggressive tone bubbling up underneath a calmer, further-removed exterior, something I can imagine anyone resenting an old lost friendship can relate to. Overall, Vanessa Tottle put on a fantastic act.
By this point, things were getting late, and while I was obviously enjoying the acts, I thought my energy would be low for this final set. But once MxDicey came on stage, nothing could’ve been further from the truth; this set was absolutely mind-blowing. The first song was a slow, almost hypnotic track, with what felt like even stronger RnB influences, and an absolute powerhouse of a voice. In one song, MxDicey was able to go from delicate falsetto to powerful belt, to harmonizing with layers of voices to create walls of sound. The production of these songs pulled from so many different genres and elements, from indie guitars to R&B drums, from booming 808s to what I swear I heard as 90s boom-bap.
Unlike the first 2 acts, MxDicey leans further away from the club-suited trip-hop and experimental sounds and closer to the side of pop and R&B, fitting given her previous work with acts such as the synth-pop No Sunrise. This gives way to songwriting that is catchy, poignant, and even funny at times, such as a song where the hook is “It’s giving sinister vibes.”, a lyric that could only be written in the gen-z era. More than that, though, MxDicey's sound feels like a fresh meeting of all these elements; taking an incredibly eclectic taste, the stylings and progression of the electronic world, and combining them with a solid vision to create one of the most fresh and exciting sounds I’ve seen in a long time.
All-in-all, it was a fun night with a lot of new, interesting performers and ideas, and I’d love to see Soundscape Sirens expanded upon. I can imagine this happening again with more dance-suited venues, like Ding Dong Lounge and Whammy Underground, blurring the lines between traditional gigs and club ragers. But already, with this soundcheck, the sirens have proven the power of their song.
95bFM 
