What You Missed: Tash Sultana at The Sylvee

When Tash Sultana comes to The Sylvee, a concert hall turns into a temple.

A stick of incense has been lit and placed in the middle of their four-sided set up, and in thirty minutes when it burns out, it will be replaced with a new one. On stage, the 28-year-old radiates a sense of calm, even with a crowd blaring in front of them. Welcome to Sultana's 120-minute masterclass.

They begin their set solo, creating a loop of drums, bass, guitar and more by themselves for the song, "Mystik." This is what Sultana is known best for--manning their one-person band, using a custom loop pedal to build their songs piece by piece. In a few songs, a full band (a drummer, keyboard player and bassist) will join them. They've only just added a band in the past year after touring solo for most of their career.

Even with the extra members, all eyes are on them as they float through their intricate discography and boast their eminence as a performer. It's captivating watching Tash: the ease at which they operate three different pedal boards spread across the stage, swap between instruments and yet still have time to feel every note fully.

For Sultana, music has always been the only career option. As a teen, they went to every open mic night they could find, eventually turning to street busking in Melbourne. In 2016, they wrote a song called "Jungle," and uploaded a video of it to YouTube. This video would receive a million views in just one week. Today, it has 165 million views.

Much like Tash, opening artist, Go-Jo, found their start online. The energetic Australian singer has probably crossed your For You Page on TikTok once or twice with his videos challenging strangers to play a guitar solo on the spot over one of his tracks. For tonight's performance, he admits that it's his first time performing in America; despite this, the only barrier he has as a performer in Wisconsin is the thick Aussie accent. He easily pulls a playful energy that matches the fun, upbeat nature of songs like, "Mrs. Hollywood," and delivers a solid vocal performance. He even pulls out a cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams," that the crowd tries to sing along with, despite their differences in range from Stevie Nicks.

Fleetwood Mac is one of Tash's own eclectic influences, along with names like Led Zeppelin, Erykah Badu and John Mayer. Even with a backbone in psychedelic rock, Sultana is impossible to pin down; they're genre and gender fluid, and it seems like they could play their way through an entire instrument store with ease. In this set, they pull out an electric guitar, bass guitar, 12-string acoustic guitar, saxophone, trumpet and wooden recorder, not to mention the keyboard, mini drum kit, drum machine and chimes that they occasionally turn to. Sultana called their 2018 debut album, Flow State, named after the psychological state where one melts into their craft, becoming one with the instrument in their hands. As Tash performs, we watch their energy glow from head to pedal board. During their guitar solos, they drop to their knees and thrash hard enough that their hat falls off and their long hair flies everywhere. Every part of their body and every muscle in their face is involved.

The setlist is comprised of just 12 songs, but it takes a full two hours to finish. Sultana isn't one to stick to the recording; they create slow builds and add shredding guitar solos and even add playful elements like teasing pauses or funky swells to keep things interesting. Every song pushes the five-minute mark, and some even push ten. For fans, seeing Tash live is a must, since no two performances are the same. Even from night to night, they're likely to change up the structure of a riff or slightly alter their sax solo, depending how the song moves them that particular day. They meld the first song into the second, and it's over twenty minutes into the set until Tash finally catches their breath and addresses the crowd: "I've played here a few times...but I have a feeling that tonight will be the best one."

This tour follows the recent release of their Sugar EP, a six-song project that leans into synthetic production more than previous work. Our performance of "1975" begins simply with acoustic guitar and lyrics like, "You listen to The 1975 while I just try to feel alive." But at the halfway mark, Tash sings, "This is how it feels to just be free," which triggers layers of airy vocals, guitar, bass and drums. After a guitar solo, quick string-like synths sneak their way in, transforming a rock song into electronic territory. At its conclusion, Tash is playing saxophone over a glittering beat and pitched vocals.

Eventually, their bandmates walk off stage, leaving them alone again and indicating that we're nearing the end of the night. They quietly strum the opening of "Notions," a fan-favorite, gut-wrenching song about heartbreak. Every night, they take it on by themselves, building layer after layer of guitar and dancing across their pedal board to perfectly loop and add layers of effects. Following this, we get our false last song, "Jungle," where Sultana boasts their shredding skills while the giant LED screen behind them displays camera angles that mimic their homemade videos.

For our encore, they return to the stage with a 12-string guitar and a stool. "Blackbird" is the ultimate finale, a total spectacle of Tash's skill as they play their way through ten minutes of complex fingerpicking at a hummingbird's pace. We hear their vocals at their softest and then their wildest, proving the width of their vocal control. Halfway through the song, they slow down and tell us this is the last tour they're doing for a while, so now is the time to let loose. The crowd head bangs along with Tash until the final chord rings out and the crowd howls in approval.

Even on their worst day, I have a hard time imagining Tash Sultana giving anything short of a prodigious performance. Hopefully the next tour won't be too far into the future, but it's clear that Tash is focusing on themselves these days: "I'm the happiest I've ever been, and I f-cking deserve it...and you do too."