Kevin Bronson on February 22nd, 2017

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The much-hyped Australian looping maestro and multi-instrumentalist Tash Sultana turned out to be as advertised on Tuesday night at the Echo. After a resounding 17-minute opening jam, Sultana addressed the cheering, packed-to-the-gills room, “I just need to ask, ‘How do you know who the fuck I am?’” Well, word travels.

She wowed in the audience in her L.A. debut, displaying magnificent chops on guitars, mandolin, drum machines while playing songs from her “Notion” EP. Her musical versatility even included, at one point, the barefoot 21-year-old brandishing a trumpet for a brief featurette. Recording a band’s worth of loops song by song, Sultana’s musical vocabulary ranged from tasty guitar licks to ethereal synth choices, hip-hop-inspired beats and neo-soul anthems as she led the crowd in a compass rose of aural pleasure.

Near the end of the set Sultana teased the crowd: “I’m not gonna play ‘Jungle’ because I’m sick of it…. just kidding!,” she laughed. “You don’t come to the other side of the world and not play the song everyone came to see,” referring to her viral video that launched her global tour. Sultana will return to Los Angeles in October.

||| Live: Tash Sultana plays the Fonda Theatre on Oct. 20. Tickets.

Photos by Carl Pocket, courtesy of the Echo