SAFE IN SOUND FESTIVAL

Presented by JOLT, Liquid Architecture and Next Wave Festival
Supported by Creative Australia

SAFE IN SOUND FESTIVAL 2025

Date: 1st – 2nd November 2025

Address: Brunswick Mechanics Institute – 270 Sydney Rd, Brunswick

Liquid Architecture is proud to present Safe in Sound 2025 (SIS), curated by SIS Artistic Director, acclaimed experimental artist Robbie

Avenaim. 

This two-day celebration of experimental music embraces

difference, creativity, and community. Featuring an intergenerational line-up of artists performing new collaborative works — from artists with mixed abilities, to children, to stalwarts of Melbourne’s experimental scene — Safe in Sound is an all-inclusive sound world where hierarchies dissolve and every voice matters.

For over seven years, SIS has brought intimate concerts into people’s homes, making experimental sound part of everyday life. SIS is now back in the public arena at Brunswick Mechanics Institute, with performances spanning delicate improvisations to wild sonic adventures.

Featuring:  Steven Hagiliassis • Matt Watson • Fred Leone • Esther Tuddenham • Jay Euesden • Jim Denley • Allanah Stewart • Max Cheevers • Joe Talia • Antony Riddell • Brendon Walls • Alessio & Danilo Deletosso • Mat Larsen • Carolyn Connors • Karina Utomo • Lakshan Standke Jain • Stuart Flenley • Marlo Mitsak  • The Out Here Collective featuring Robert Seamons, Lindsay Sutherland, Chase Klingenspor, Ella Quintal, Elijah Augustine and Dale Gorfinkel. 

Safe in Sound is generously funded by Creative Australia, presented by Liquid Architecture and hosted by Next Wave at the Brunswick Mechanics Institute. 

The festival is also proudly supported by Jolt Arts and Out Here.

 Tickets

www.safeinsound.com.au

PROGRAM

DAY 1

Saturday 1st November – Doors open 4pm

The Out Hear Collective
Featuring: Robert Seamons, Lindsay Sutherland, Chase Klingenspor, Ella Quintal, Elijah Augustine, Dale Gorfinkel.                                         

Playing time: 4:30pm

We want you to know how terrific it’ll be. There’ll be people playing different instruments, or sometimes everyone playing the same one. Soulful vocals, keyboards, synths, drums, guitars, sometimes different genres all at the same time. And also Robert playing “a very expensive Fender Tradicaster”, his pride and joy. We’ve got some talent here. They’ll be asking, are we available?!

Out Hear facilitates a number of programs, mentoring artists who experience disability and other barriers to access in the arts. This collective meets weekly to experiment, improvise and record at Glenroy Community Hub. Yes, they’re available! outhear.com

Mathew Larsen, Carolyn Connors, Karina Utomo

Playing time:  5:15pm

Mathew Larsen, Carolyn Connors, and Karina Utomo unite as a formidable vocal trio, drawing from radically different sonic worlds to create something entirely new. Larsen, a bold new voice from the Safe In Sound program, brings raw acoustic intensity and dada-esque absurdity; Connors contributes her acclaimed background in avant-garde music and theatre; while Utomo channels the force of extreme metal and Javanese myth into powerful, extra-normal vocal expressions. Together, they promise a genre-defying performance where experimental music, theatrical invention, and vocal extremity collide.

About the artists:

Mathew Larsen is a relatively new Safe In Sound participant who occupies the same sonoverse as the most thrillingly titillating and wildly bewildering outsiders with whom What Is Music? forged its deservedly perilous reputational infamy, yet fashions his musical sphere of existence entirely anew. Freewheeling rapturous rhythmelodics collide with thick textural intensities, punctuated by intermittent auditory absurdities – wielding low-tech acoustic miscellany to invoke pieces just as unrelenting, uncompromising and invigorating as the most fervently zealous harsh electro-noise purveyors. Supported by not-for-profit disability service providers Scope Australia, this will be Mat’s forth foray into public performance – one that promises nostalgic arduousness to the seasoned cognoscenti and a short-sharp-shock to both the  neophyte and the contemporary avant-garde. 

Carolyn Connors is a Melbourne based vocalist, composer, pianist, and accordionist. She creates new works in the fields of contemporary music and theatre. In 2015 Carolyn composed and performed new works for Liquid Architecture, ABC radio’s Sound Proof, and The Big West Festival; she travelled to Chengdu for the development of new work In a Chengdu Teahouse; performances included SoundOut festival, and works by Aviva Endean for Chamber Made Opera, and Andrea Keeble for the Slow Music Festival. Carolyn was awarded the 2015 Age Melbourne Music Award for Avant Garde and Experimental music.

Karina Utomo is an extreme metal vocalist, composer and co-founder of extreme metal projects Rinuwat, KILAT and High Tension. Utomo’s vocal practice explores multi-disciplinary forms of extreme-metal, experimental cross-cultural practices and extra-normal voicing. Aspects of Utomo’s practice are informed by and interwoven with Javanese mythology and storytelling. Utomo’s compositional practice explores the duality of intergenerational trauma and power, and tensions between tradition and rebellion. She has collaborated extensively with artists in Australia and internationally across a broad range of industrial, avant-garde improvisation, grindcore and black metal genres in numerous forms and settings

 

Alessio and Danilo Diletosso                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Playing time: 6:35pm

Alessio and Danilo Dilettoso, long-time Safe In Sound alumni and true embodiments of the program’s spirit, return with a powerful new collaboration. Known for their intuitive command of the Airsticks, Alessio now channels percussive pandemonium through the quadruple-bass-drum fury of the SARPS (Semi Automated Robotic Percussion System), an innovative device developed by Safe In Sound’s artistic director Robbie Avenaim. Alongside him, Danilo’s vocal provocations build energetic feedback structures, pushing both artists into heightened realms of sonic exploration. Their dynamic interplay frequently erupts into bursts of ecstatic musical mirth, creating a thrilling, unpredictable performance that celebrates improvisation, invention, and joyful chaos.

Anthony Riddell, Brendon Walls

Playing time: 7:05pm

Brendan Walls and Antony Riddell join forces for the first time in a collaboration that promises to be anything but ordinary. Walls, a master of psychoacoustic tension and experimental instrumentation, collides with Riddell’s nonlinear genius and surrealist larrikinism. Expect a chaotic symphony of metallic resonance, anarchic humour, and unexpected turns — a meeting of two singular minds where sonic invention and absurdist performance blur beyond recognition.

About the artists:

Brendan Walls “Walls is infamous as a psychoacoustic provocateur, and the ‘high tension’ label applied to his Cableworks, a deceptively simple suspended cymbal instrument, doesn’t just refer to how taut his wires are. This anarchic assemblage has been installed in contexts as wildly different as children’s events and violent endurance-noise performances with Daniel Menche, Marco Fusinato and Oren Ambarchi. In a rare re-emergence from the Tasmanian wilderness, Walls will give the audience the rare privilege of tagging along for each and every feedback groan, sympathetic reverberance, metallic crash and chaotically creative confluence. Beyond the stage, Walls also serves as the Tasmanian coordinator of the Safe in Sound program, shaping the festival’s vision in the region and ensuring that its inclusive spirit resonates through local communities. His dual role as both artist and organiser places him at the heart of Safe in Sound’s Tasmanian chapter, where experimental practice, accessibility and community engagement converge.”

Antony Riddell  is synonymous with nonlinear genius, disordered delightfulness and larrikin surrealism – in a world filled with hollow contrived pseudo-weirdness, Riddell is the real deal. And to say that Brendan Walls is a key progenitor of the modern face of this country’s audial experimentation would be selling him short – nobody has managed to directly foster so much grassroots musical culture as he, while remaining an ever-flowing source of genuinely innovative sonic techniques, texturalities and tastiness alike. Together? Well, suffice to say – you’re welcome.   

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Day 2 

Sunday 2nd November – Doors open 4pm

Lakshan Standke Jain                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Playing time: 4:30pm

Lakshan Standke Jain, age 13, weaves turntables and vocals into an experimental, eclectic mix, echoing the spirit of musique concrète. Reimagining the textures of everyday sound, Lakshan shapes bold new forms from the familiar. A longtime participant in the Safe In Sound program, he crafts sonic worlds where noise and voice dissolve into something wholly unexpected.

Jim Denley, Esther Tuddenham, Allanah Stewart                                                                                                                                                                                       

Playing time: 5pm   

Esther Tuddenham, Allanah Stewart, and Jim Denley come together for the first time in a trio where sound, poetry, and improvisation dissolve into something beyond the sum of their parts. With Tuddenham’s emotionally charged spoken word and intermedia vision, Stewart’s exploratory sonic play, and Denley’s deep listening and entangled musicking, this collective creates a shared space where no single voice leads—only the emergence of something trans-individuated, felt more than defined.

About the artists:

Esther Tuddenham Esther is a sound artist, poet, photographer and intermedia creative mind. Esther explores human emotions and their utterance in her work. In 2021 Esther completed her book of poetry and photography titled THE SEA-ER. The work outlines a tale of a young woman who develops the power of seeing into the future. In 2022 Esther premiered The Sea-er as a stage production (spoken word, music, video, live performance). In 2023 Esther released The Sea-er album (Hullick Studios).

Jim Denley has been playing with Allanah Stewart on his trips to Naarm for a number of years now. They both love what their musicking does when it entangles. Two years ago during the SIS festival, Jim was deeply impressed by Esther Tuddenham’s performances of her poetry. So this new group brings together these three individuating Beings, into a new collective. The aim is create phenomena that can’t be ascribed to any one individual, where what is experienced is trans-individuating. 

Allanah Stewart is an artist from Aotearoa/NZ, currently living in Melbourne, Australia. As well as her work in various experimental music projects, she is the presenter of a monthly podcast radio programme called Enquiring Minds, hosted by Noods radio, which explores experimental music and its many crossovers. She recently finished a Master of Arts Therapy, and believes in the power of the arts. Dissecting drums, recording silly things, making music and eating chocolate keeps her going. 

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Esther Tuddenham, Astrid Meurer, Jay Euesden, Mia Alexander, Nick Ashwood, Joe Talia      

Playing time: 5:55pm                                                                                                        

Joe Talia, Astrid Meurer, Esther Tuddenham, Jay Euesden, Mia Alexander, and Nick Ashwood come together for a bold and exploratory performance where texture, improvisation, and deep listening converge. Talia weaves shimmering tape manipulations with live percussion, creating an ever-shifting sound field. Meurer, Tuddenham, and Alexander perform on a set of acoustic pump organs donated by the late great sound artist and composer Cornelius Fuhler, crafting densely textured, delectable layers that merge breath and tone into a resonant, immersive drone. Euesden contributes his signature vocal “OM bombs,” grounding the experience with minimalist, thunderous voice work. Ashwood prompts and guides the improvised composition, using prepared acoustic guitar and subtle harmonic cues. The result is a richly layered, collective sonic environment where structure emerges through intuition and collaboration.

About the artists:

Joe Talia Born in Melbourne, Australia, Joe Talia is an improviser and composer who works with percussion, tape and electronics. Focussing on the use of Revox tape machine and analogue synthesizers in combination with instruments and field recordings, Talia’s electronic works patiently build up sparkling, detail-rich sound worlds of gliding tones, skittering percussion and burbling location atmospherics. In live situations,  Talia often uses tape and effects to process and warp his own and others’ playing into uncanny chains of echoes and spectral smears of sound.

Astrid Meurer joined Noise Scavengers in April 2022. Astrid works through various sonic mediums with the band including guitar, found sound and electronics. Astrid also works through the medium of digital, exhibiting digital images with the MAS collective. In 2022, as a part of the Noise Scavengers, Astrid worked with legendary performance artist Stelarc to create a wearable synthesizer that Stelarc then used in the show Stellar Metal Arc. The same technology then appeared in the Noise Scavengers show Augmented Hyenas (2022) at JOLTED Arts Space. The Noise Scavengers released the album of Augmented Hyenas in 2023 (Hullick Studios).

Jay Euesden is a founding member of The Amplified Elephants (2006-). Euesden’s practice is focused on minimalist sonic patterns, usually realising these ideas through Voice or synthesisers. Euesden is a founding member of the Sonic Adventurers Collective (2019-) – a gallery-based visual art and sound collective.

Mia Alexander is a sound artist and free alto saxophonist, and one of the youngest voices in Australia’s experimental music community. Her playing draws inspiration from the fierce lyricism of Jimmy Lyons, the spiritual fire of Albert Ayler, and the expansive sound worlds of Pharoah Sanders. Combining raw intensity with exploratory improvisation, Alexander is forging a bold and distinctive path, bringing fresh energy and vision to the lineage of free jazz and experimental sound.

Esther Tuddenham Esther is a sound artist, poet, photographer and intermedia creative mind. Esther explores human emotions and their utterance in her work. In 2021 Esther completed her book of poetry and photography titled THE SEA-ER. The work outlines a tale of a young woman who develops the power of seeing into the future. In 2022 Esther premiered The Sea-er as a stage production (spoken word, music, video, live performance). In 2023 Esther released The Sea-er album (Hullick Studios).

Nick Ashwood  is a composer and performer of contemporary experimental music from Nipaluna/Tasmania, now based in Naarm/Melbourne. Nick’s practice explores the possibilities of the steel-string acoustic through means of just intonation, preparations, bowing and harmonic space. Nick has had the opportunities to perform and recorded with a diverse array of artists from all over the world such as Laura Altman, Jim Denley, Robbie Avenaim, Annette Krebs, Amanda Stewart, Splinter Orchestra, Cor Fuhler and Chris Abrahams, amongst others. Nick is part of a number of ongoing groups 180º with Jim Denley and Amanda Stewart, The Splinter Orchestra, Duo with Laura Altman and newly formed group ACDA with Chris Abrahams, Jim Denley and Romy Caen. Throughout 2019 and 2020 Nick released a body of work that includes a number of improvised groups and his own composed works:

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Max Cheevers                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Playing time: 6:45pm

Max Cheevers is a sound artist and percussionist whose work exists at the dynamic crossroads of rhythm, noise, and environmental energy. His performances are immersive, unfolding as volatile dialogues where dense textures and shifting atmospheres collide, inviting listeners into a cinematic soundscape charged with raw sonic experimentation. Cheevers is known for his inventive use of unconventional instruments—most notably, harnessing solar panels to generate feedback, tones, and noise—transforming natural energy sources into unpredictable and electrifying sound. By integrating sustainability with experimental practice, he creates performances that not only challenge traditional notions of music but also engage with elemental forces, making each show a singular experience shaped by invention, chance, and environmental resonance.

Steven Hagiliassis, Matt Watson, Fed Leone                                                                                                                                                                                         

Playing time: 7:35pm

Steven Hagiliassis, known for his darksynth project Utrenja Ensemble inspired by Penderecki and Orthodox chant, and Mat Watson, a skilled synthesist, first collaborated last year, merging their sonic worlds into a ritualistic fusion of hypercontemplative soundscapes. This year, they are joined by Fred Leone, a Butchulla Songman and cultural custodian, who brings the deep resonance of Indigenous song and language to the mix. Together, the trio weaves ancient tradition with futuristic sound, crafting a powerful and immersive performance that bridges sacred ritual, electronic innovation, and cultural storytelling.

About the artists:

Steven Hagiliassis has been involved with JOLT for the last 6 months as part of the Sonic Adventurers Collective, but has been producing grand musical explorations for many years under his performance names, Utrenja Ensemble and Sergei Koslov, Utrenja Ensemble is a one-man Darksynth project from Melbourne, Australia, heavily inspired by the magnum opus composition of Penderecki, Utrenja. As well as Retrowave, Impressionism, and Russian Orthodox Liturgical Chants. My music is sinful. My music is holy. My music is Orthodox. Utrenja Ensemble may as well be the future of music.

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.

Fred Leone is one of the Butchulla Songmen with Aboriginal, Tongan and South-Sea Islander roots. He comes from the Garrwa and Butchulla tribes. Fred’s role as a Songman sees him as one of the custodians of the traditional songs of the Butchulla tribe and one of a handful of keepers and custodians of their language. Fred is active in his role as a Songman, ensuring that contemporary Butchulla stories are embedded into the collective memory of the tribes oral histories and ceremonies going forward.   

Master of ceremonies

Stuart Flenley is a musician, songwriter, and creative wizard ready to keep the show moving as your master of ceremonies—with a sharp sense of humor to match. Expect smooth talking, unexpected twists, and a few quirky surprises as Stuart leads the event with the flair of a seasoned ringmaster. He’s sure to make this a night you won’t forget (whether you want to or not). He’ll also be joined by his new sidekick, Charley Macathey, injecting whimsical energy into the proceedings.

Marlo Mitsak: Emerging voice Marlo Mitsak, only 15 years old, brings the writings of Sean Baxter to life, channeling his sharp insights and critical theories rooted in the work of key philosophers like Foucault and Deleuze. Like a contestant buzzing in with the winning answer on a game show, Marlo delivers Baxter’s ideas with clarity and youthful presence, giving the audience a rare chance to engage with complex thought as if it were an exciting live challenge.

TICKETS HERE

SUPPORTED BY

This project is supported by Creative Australia, the Australian Government’s principal body for supporting the arts and culture.