Seraphina Lotkhamnga on October 10th, 2013

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It was a sweaty, baggy evening at the Echo on Friday night when Australian duo Jagwar Ma made their L.A. debut, an intentionally cozy affair that imagined the band with a bigger light show, a bigger sound system and a bigger crowd – although not bigger beats. The bottom-heavy psychedelia-meets-house music on their debut album “Howlin'” was quite enough to shake the room, and the crowd.

The newbies to Mom + Pop Music took the stage with a delirious determination. Touting Jack Freeman as touring bass player, singer-guitarist Gabriel Winterfield and producer Jono Ma pounced on stage as hard as fast as the neon lights changed colors.

• Photos by Carl Pocket

Of course, they came on one by one, with Freeman immediately throwing himself into the intro of “What Love.” Winterfield took his place and donned the guitar, while Ma sank into the beats he conjured up via drum machine and synths. Now
before you dismiss them for not having a live drummer, it should be noted that Jagwar Ma blew the roof off the room without one even before they finished the first number. Yes, Coachella will love this.

“Waiting for tomorrow brings another day and another sun,” Winterfield repeatedly chanted, and fans took his lead as the beats swirled underneath for a complex round robin. Never mind that Winterfield and Freeman would end many of their songs in a bro-stance, arms held up to induce a louder roar from the crowd. The energy was running rampant, and in this small of a room, it crashed back and forth like a tidal wave.

The bodies stopped swaying for only a second when Winterfield commented, “All right, hi. Thank you very much. It’s very good to be here, ” before adding “We’ve traveled really far.” But the dynamism quickly returned when the familiar backwards-guitar riff in “Man I Need” ignited the room once more. Melding their throwback to ’80s raves with a contemporary psychedelic filter, the Madchester scene was quickly reborn in the City of Angels. But even with the song sounding like a track off “Screamadelica” soaked in acid itself, it wasn’t over just yet. Soon enough, Winterfield was shouting “Exercise your chemistry,” and showing everyone how to do it. Dropping his guitar to give into the groove, “Exercise” was a flawless segue.

Although the beats were getting baggier by the second, the pop elements came to the forefront of the second half of their set during songs such as “Let Her Go” and fan favorite, “Come and Save Me.” If anyone wondered by Noel Gallagher had been praising Jagwar Ma for quite some time, those ’60s pop melodies were a dead giveaway.

Winterfield took a break from throwing his own body into the music once more during the set to gush, “It’s really rad to be here [”¦] You are literally making our dreams come true.”

“The Throw,” a high-flying song with a harmonious chorus and a funky synth line, was an appropriate closer as the trio stretched the song out from its core. Of course, with only five songs in their set, an encore ensued with “Uncertainty.”

Sure, one could thank Happy Mondays for molding baggy back in the day, but Jagwar Ma had L.A. adding the night to their list of happy Fridays.