SAFE IN SOUND FESTIVAL 2024
Date: 6-8th December 2024
Venue: JOLTED Arts Space, 342 High Street Northcote
Price: $10/15
Legendary WHATISMUSIC? organiser Robbie Avenaim is back again with the second instalment of the genre-defying new music festival, Safe In Sound!
For over six years, the program has made experimental music accessible to people with disabilities through in-home concerts. Once more, participant performers will share the stage with established musicians and the broader community.
From December 6-8, JOLTED Arts Space in Northcote will host three days of liberated sonic exploration featuring some of Australia’s greatest musical talents, including uniquely skilled creators with disabilities from Naarm, Warrane & Boorloo.
Date: 6-8th December 2024
Venue: JOLTED Arts Space,
342 High Street Northcote
Price: $10/15
For program information please visit
www.safeinsound.com.au
FESTIVAL PROGRAM
Friday Dec 6
$10/15, Doors open at 6pm.
6:30 Out Hear Collective feat, Robert Seamons, Lindsay Sutherland, Chase Klingenspor, Vanessa,Amy,Dale Gorfinkel and others TBC.
7:15 Jim Denley (Warrane), Jay Euesden, Chloë Sobek & Nick Ashwood
8:00 The Ponza Scheme feat: Brenton Ponza / Steph O’Hara / Alon Ilsar (Warrane)
8:45 The Definitives (Boorloo) feat, Rodney Stone / Keith Hayton, Mirijana Janscak / Eduardo Cossio
DJ Paul Wain (Aka DJ2) in between sets
Saturday Dec 7
$10/15. Doors open at 3:30pm.
4:45 Alice Hui-Sheng Chang (TWN) & Esme Brown (TWN)
5:30 Antony Riddell & Jim Denley (Warrane)
6:15 Rodney Stone (Boorloo), Rainer Linz & Erkki Veltheim
7:00 Marbles
7:30 Andrew Crosling
8:00 Anthony Pateras, Mia Alexander & Levi Liauw
8:45 Steven Hagiliassis & Mat Watson
DJ MyBodyMyChoice 4-9pm in between sets
Sunday Dec 8
$10/15, Doors open at 3:30pm
4:00 Matthew Ward
4:30 Lakshan Standke Jain
5:00 Antony Riddell & Erick Mitsak
5:45 Mathew Larsen & Angus Leslie
6:30 Keith Hayton (Boorloo)
7:15 Alessio & Danilo Dilettoso
8:00 James Rushford, Judith Hamann, Teagan Connor, Mirijana Janscak (Boorloo) & Grace Ferguson
DJs Saskia Mitsak & Elke Jai 4-6pm and DJ Defenestration 6-9pm in between sets
FRIDAY DECEMBER 6
Doors 6pm
Event 6:30pm
$10/15 entry
6:30pm
Out Hear Collective.
feat: Robert Seamons, Lindsay Sutherland, Chase Klingenspor, Vanessa, Amy, Dale Gorfinkel and others TBC
(curated by Dale Gorfinkel)
“When they look at us playing, what will they think? Will they think we’re available?!”
Improvised experimental music and songs featuring different combinations of artists from a large group that’s been meeting weekly in Glenroy. Artists include Robert Seamons, Lindsay Sutherland, Chase Klingenspor, Vanessa, Amy, Dale Gorfinkel and others TBC.
www.outhear.com
7:15pm
Jim Denley (Warrane/Warrang) / Jay Euesden / Nick Ashwood / Chloë Sobek
One of many inaugural sonoversal exclusives of the festival – this awe-filled foursome will commingle the evocative winds of our favourite positive paternal improv-progenitor Jim Denley, the electro-patternings of Amplified Elephant synth-originalist Jay Euesden, the cosmick-refractories of steel-string contemporaneity-seeker Nick Ashwood and the viscerally virtuosic violone-powered acoustemological aethyrealities of Chloë Sobek. Together they will interrogate and explicate the existential weight and extemporaneous delights alike of being four humans gathered in a specific spacetime, collaboratively considering and selectively sonifying all that is, was and shall be.
8:00pm
The Ponza Scheme
feat: Brenton Ponza / Steph O’Hara & Alon Ilsar (NSW)
Led by Brenton Ponza—an emerging dancer, musician, and visual artist—this trio revolves around his connection with the AirSticks, a wearable instrument that lets him create expressive music through arm and leg movements, inspiring his fellow performers to explore new directions.
Steph O’Hara creates flexible and responsive artworks that connect and engage through sound and participation. Steph’s practice centres on the intersection between art and technology. His multi-arts sound and visual based work includes contemporary music, sound design for performance and interactive/participatory art, as well as web/audio design and creative coding.
Alon Ilsar is an Australian drummer, composer, sound designer and instrument designer. He is co-designer of a new interface for electronic percussionists called the AirSticks, He has been heavily involved in theatre and film as drummer, composer and sound designer. Alon has completed a PhD in instrument design through the University of Technology, Sydney’s Creativity and Cognition Studios.
8:45pm
The Definitives (Boorloo)
Rodney Stone, Keith Hayton, Mirijana Janscak. Eduardo Cossio
The Definitives are an experimental post-rock outfit from Boorloo/Perth. This motley crew of poets, musicians, and visual artists make music that is free-form and raucous, yet tender and personal. They use spoken-word, guitars, drum machines and synthesizers to create whimsical vignettes propelled by freewheeling rhythms. The group has performed at Outcome Unknown events and the Audible Edge of Festival of Exploratory Music.
The Definitives are Rodney Stone (vocals, lyrics), Mirijana Janscak (vocals, guitar, lyrics) Keith Hayton (bass, lyrics), and Eduardo Cossio (drums, production). The Definitives are supported by DADAA (Disability in the Arts, Disadvantage in the Arts Australia) and The Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries (DLGSC).
DJ Paul Wain (AKA DJ2)
Between sets 6-9pm
Paul Wain remains a hyperpotent plunderphonic-core conduit for both the hottest and coldest recesses of the sonoverse – a staunchly laconic Luddite liberationist of both mind and proverbial posterior, adamant that augmented intelligence is the one true AI. Following his studies in emergent turntable methodologies under the richly neuroplastic minds of four talented preteens at last year’s festival, Paul will attempt to summarise 147 years of phonography, millennia of musical culture and infinitudes of chillout across three roughly fifteen minute intervals.
MC Marlo Mitsak
MC Marlo Mitsak: The child of an enfant terrible is once more unleashed upon the sound art world! Marlo is a bright young man of 14 years obsessed with basketball, basketball culture, teasing his sister, & 2-minute noodles with spinach. His father, MC Erick Mitsak, is a name that strikes fear into the heart of any gig attendant with an aversion to aggressively interventionist forced crowd participation. Though we are not suggesting that the sins of the father shall befall the son, charisma definitely has a level of heredity so we were hard-pressed to think of a more appropriate host for Whatismusic’s smaller sibling festival than…SON OF ‘SAK.
SATURDAY DECEMBER 7
Doors 3:30pm
Event 4pm
$15 entry
4:45pm
Alice Hui-Sheng Chang (TWN) and Esme Brown (TWN)
Alice Hui-Sheng Chang’s piercingly provocative vocal stylings are probably well-known to long-standing Melbournian improv aficionados, and now she’s back in town from Taiwan with a very special little collaborator. Esme has been studying with Alice for at least six and a half years – her entire life thus far – and was no doubt absorbing textural complexities even before then, as she toured Japan, Korea and Singapore in utero. Their duo is the maternal bond made manifest – an audial amalgamation of carings, questionings, caperings, contradictions and cacophonies.
5:30pm
Antony Riddell with Jim Denley (Warrane
Two of Australia’s most priceless national treasures reconvene on a stage once again after revivifying their dynamic duo at last year’s festival – and our excitement is no less palpable! Antony Riddell is still synonymous with nonlinear genius, disordered delightfulness and larrikin surrealism – in a sonoverse filled with hollow contrived pseudo-weirdness, Riddell remains the real deal. And suffice to say this author has waxed effusively aplenty about Jim Denley’s inextricability from the musicking lineages that lead us here today, yet it never feels quite descriptively sufficient to convey what a serotonal gift this human has – and is. Together? Well, suffice to say – we once again thank the sonoverse for such blessed frequential tidings.
6:15pm
Rodney Stone (Boorloo)/ Rainer Linz / Erkki Veltheim
A ‘Strayan poet named Rodney, a West-German-born Australian sound artist named Rainer and a Finnish-born Aussie performer named [Redacted] walk into an old bank. The poet vocalises “modulate self-publishes Hopefully self-publish, whimsical cut-up a whale song of articulated entities?”, and the sound artist responds with meticulous modulations devised upon the ambient atmosphere and the attendant audience’s predilections. The performer is really good at listening to others and playing his fiddle complementarily so everyone at the show probably has a good time and sorry if you thought this was a joke it’s actually just another rambling description. This will be ripper though!
“Cop that ya mugs” -Erkki Veltheim, 2024
7pm
Marbles
Vyvyan Hughes Stern (keyboard), Beatrix Hughes Stern (percussion and electronics),
Joel Stern (various instruments)
Debut concert for new power trio comprising 7 year old twins and parent performing improvisations for various instruments built around Vyv’s keyboard sketches. “Named in honour of the former family cat that went missing around xmas 2019 and never returned.”
7:30pm
Andrew Crosling
Andrew Crosling is a multimedia artist who often begins projects from a sonic point of view before expanding them into other mediums.
Andrew’s most recent work is titled CEO of the BIRDS and incorporates video (assisted by Stelarc and Max Cheevers), sound and spoken word. In this work Andrew tells stories about the the birds and their various corporate and non-corporate activities. CEO of the Birds has been exhibited at JOLTED Arts Space for FUSE Festival Spring 2023 (City of Darebin) as a series of video art works. In 2024 Crosling will present the work as a performance at JOLTED Arts Space. Andrew is mentored by James Hullick, Alister Karl and Stelarc at JOLTED Arts Space. Andrew also makes work through Wild at Heart.
8pm
Anthony Pateras / Mia Alexander / Levi Liauw
The audial trajectory of ecstatic liberation and radical endurance featuring supremely dazzling sax/drums spontaneity-devastators Mia Alexander and Levi Liauw arcs yet further into the rhizomatic sublimes of skronk ‘n onkyo, as they are augmented by the variously key-caressing and -clobbering luminous luminary Anthony Pateras. Absolutely mandatory given the ignivomous set at last year’s fest, but in the interests of fairness for those unfortunate enough to have missed that– for fans of: Coltrane & Ali & Coltrane / Ornette & Denardo & Allen / Lyons & Graves & Taylor et al.
8:45pm
Steven Hagiliassis and Mat Watson
Proficient Synthesist, Mat Watson, and orthodox resonance reformist of Utrenja ensemble, Steven Hagiliassis, will fuse their respective performative matrices in formal acknowledgement and demonstration of their shared affinity for Pendereckian hypercontemplation-as-worship. Crackling-circuitboard-communions compress into cavernous claustrosonics ardently lamenting the lost potentials of technocratic prospects, somehow simultaneously defiantly coalescing neoteric and captivatingly nebulous jubilations and rejuvenations in equal measure, as false expressive dichotomies fall away and all in service range are treated to rapturous auditory cleansing and bombinating existential enrichment.
DJ MyBodyMyChoice (Kristi Monfries)
Between sets 6-9pm
DJ MyBodyMyChoice, a Javanese-Australian creative producer, curator, selector and party-invoker, is variously alleged to be the cat’s pyjamas, the bee’s knees, the fox’s socks, the snake’s hips, the ‘bomb’, the best DJ since sliced bread AND all that and a bag of minimum chips. She has been documented as assisting and championing innovatively experimental emerging artists of the most rarefied of cultural calibre, but reports indicate this is not uniformly reflected in her dancefloor decisions. SIS journalists are updating this story, more details as they emerge.
SUN DECEMBER 8
Doors 3:30pm
Event 4pm
$15 entry
SIS is proud to introduce a man whose oeuvre traverses show tunes, yacht rock, varied vocals with a dollop of pirate shanties to accommodate his inner-conversational missives of slapstick high repute. Absorb the beauty.
4:30pm
Lakshan Standke Jain
Well-seasoned Safe In Sound program participant and supreme selecta for this afternoon will be the cryptic hero Lakshan Standke Jain, age 12 – invoking inevitably impetuous and crucially captivating media mélanges of audial anarchy.
Amusement. Beatitude. Bliss. Charm. Cheer. Comfort. Delight. Ecstasy. Elation. Exhilaration. Exultation. Festivity. Gaiety. Glee. Happiness. Humour. Joviality. Joy. Jubilance. Lakshan. Merriment. Mirth. Revelry. Satisfaction. Wondrousness.
5pm
Anthony Riddell & Erick Mitsak
Artist, musician, writer, performer and then some, Anthony is prolific AF. His literary output is dizzying, as is the content of said literature. But performatively, it’s another stratosphere: when musing about this creative past, his performances of 30+ years are the stuff of vibrant legend and sudden spit-fights. Some liken his performances to the scientific magic of hot wet gelatin slung into a freezer in an unkempt bag, slowly-quickly producing a semi-translucent form of unknown/un-named shapes, others liken it to lichen on epaulets. Which camp are you?
Erick Mitsak is performer/creator of stage and screen with a side-hustle in non-musician composing. His latest creative foray is acoustically approximating the sound of smashing glass/dining ware in public places, using fruits of the post-iron-age and social conditioning.
5:45pm
Matt Larsen & Angus Leslie
In a sonoversal city where musical hyperdiversity is all but the standard it’s a true rarity for a debut show to cause jaws to tumble to the floor, rendering even the most verbose amongst us speechless – so whether or not you experienced it directly please feel free to thank your deity/force/causal-abstraction-of-choice that Mat Larsen is playing Safe In Sound Festival again this year. The unrelenting casiocore phenomenon has rippled across Naarm and returned to punctuate High St with the most spine-tinglingly broodle scream and uncompromisingly invigorating improvisatory ingenuity to have hit Melbourne in yonks – and to up the sonic stakes and extemporaneous extremity he’ll be screaming and shredding alongside a man well known for doing the same: Sex On Toast’s crooner-vociferator-candlestick maker Angus Leslie. Two consummately capricious captivators-via-cacophony with a predictable penchant for skilfully straddling the diatonic and atonal-chaotic, colliding for the first time, pushes this well beyond the realms of mandatory attendance.
6:30pm
Keith Hayton (Boorloo)
Keith is a photographer and bass player. His playing explores repeated patterns using bowed, scraped, and percussive gestures. Keith co-writes lyrics and has devised graphic scores based on his abstract photography. Keith is also a member of The Definitives from Perth.
7:15pm
Alessio and Danilo Dilettoso
Alessio and Danilo Dilettoso are two long-time Safe In Sound alumni, embodying the true heart of the program. Well-known for revelling in the intuitively expressive wielding of Alon Ilsars Airsticks, on this occasion Alessio will be invoking percussive pandemonium via the quadruple-bass-drum brutality of Robbie Avenaim’s SARPS (Semi Automated Robotic Percussion System), with the fraternal furtherance of Danilo’s vocal provocations evoking energetic feedback structures that induce both artists to ever more eminent emanations that inevitably spill over into shrieks of musical mirth.
Ciaran Frame will be the Technical supervisor: Ciaran Frame is a composer and researcher based in Melbourne. His work is characterised by an innovative approach to music-making, an interest in collaboration, and a commitment to creating music that is both accessible and meaningful to a broad range of people. His work has featured around Australia and internationally, ranging from turning people into instruments to asking 10,000 people to play the kazoo.
8:00pm
James Rushford / Judith Hamann
Teagan Connor / Mirijana Janscak (Boorloo) / Grace Ferguson
To conclude this three-day frequential feast that we call Safe in Sound, we have a distinctly rarefied auditory dessert-doubling-as-digestif on offer: four densely textured, delectable layers of acoustic organ, each respectively flavoured with the aleatoric flair of Definitive Mirijana Janscak, Amplified Elephant Teagan Connor, Golden Furrier James Rushford and introspective improviser Grace Ferguson. Harmonious phenomenology heretofore only achieved in the most occult of molecular gastronomy floods the auditory palate, as audialgustatory heights are redefined with the simultaneous piquant parsing and elegant elevation of Judith Hamann’s freshly demastered cello crudités.
DJs Saskia Mitsak and Elke Jai
Between sets 4-6pm
Immaculate vibes in between other acts on the night will be provided by Saskia Mitsak and Elke Jai, both aged 13 – two mavens of modern popular culture, BFFs and now OFFICIAL teenagers specialising yet further in cuttin’ sicker and getting’ sillier! In solidarity with future teenagers who will be unable to access it, the gals will be doomscrolling three distinct social media platforms each as they spin – guaranteeing only the most delectably disjointed of dancefloor experiences.
DJ Defenestration ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Between sets 6-9pm
FESTIVAL PARTNERS
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