On October 10, the Festival Hub: Trades Hall will transform into an interactive, choose-your-own-adventure rave with a moving backstory.
Matt Frequencies never expected to be here creating his own rave. A disabled Neuro-queer voice actor and vocalist, Matt had never even touched a DJ deck until June of last year. What initially began as an invitation from a friend to join DJ competition Your Shot, has now flourished into a fully-fledged Fringe rave entitled The Book of Divergence. You can practically hear the bemusement in Matt’s voice.
“I have a long history with electronic music as I had brothers who were 10 years older and they were ravers. Then it trickled down to me, but I never thought to take it up seriously.”
The Book of Divergence
- Dates 10 Oct
- Time 9:00pm (60 minutes)
- Venues Festival Hub: Trades Hall – Common Rooms
- Get tickets here
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Whilst performing at Your Shot, Matt decided to create a setlist that represented who he was as a person. For this, he enlisted music from Australian record composer Mick Gordon, and the Doom 2016 soundtrack, for a set he called “My Story”.
“I built the set as if it were a video game, with quiet moments, boss moments and urgent movement all throughout. My trainer hadn’t heard of anyone else putting together music like this, so I thought it might give me some edge. When I took it to stage, I was put in silent disco and I didn’t think it would work. But I managed to get the word out on the day and we packed the room with people screaming RIP AND TEAR! Apparently, you could hear it from the main stage.”
The Your Shot experience lit a fire in Matt; he had finally found his strong passion. He did not know, however, how to continue.
“I just went, ‘What else can I do with this?’ My set at Your Shot was only 25 minutes so I imagined what the next half of the set would look like. It felt like there were more options there than I initially thought.”
This process led to Matt creating The Book of Divergence. For this show, Matt wanted to create something that felt slightly different to most raves.
“I always hated that feeling when a crowd is starting to vibe and then a song comes on and it just kills it.” To counter this, yet also channel his interests of Dungeons and Dragons and metafiction, Matt had an idea. He wanted the Book of Divergence to be like a rave sermon. One with characters, a story and where the audience could choose their own music through a voting system.
Speaking of the process Matt offered, “I had the idea of the crowds picking the music. A sort of choose your own adventure DJ set. It’s done by show of hands. I’ll say to the crowd ‘Point left, right or cross your arms’, while showing where to point.”
Next, Matt set about creating his characters, all with very different vibes. He ended up with the characters, Brother Seth, Father Matthew and the villain, the Glitch.
“Father Matthew is techno music. Four on the floor type stuff. Arms in the air Jesus pose, protector of the Heavenly Rave. Brother Seth is rock and roll groove, down to Earth, very un-serious. Whereas the Glitch is the harsh, sharp, heavy side of bass music, a taste of Hell.” These characters, all played by Matt onstage, are distinctly personal to him, with each of them representing a different aspect of his neurodivergence.
“Brother Seth is my ADHD. He’s the approachable one, chaotic and silly. Father Matthew is my masked autism. He survives, he gets me through, he’s the one that welcomes you. Then the Glitch is my unmasked autistic rage. He’s supposed to be the worst of me, the villain. It turns out people like the villain.”
Given the extremely personal nature of the show, Matt admits that he can feel strongly emotional while performing. “There’s a very real chance that if I am embodying the characters just right, I can burst into tears of joy. I want the crowd to receive the emotion because I’m being very vulnerable” he added.
Being neurodivergent themselves, Matt and his partner Felicity were also sensitive to possible neurodivergent members of the audience. To remedy this, they meticulously created the lighting show to match with the beats and avoid headache-inducing strobes so that everyone can come and enjoy the performance.
Despite everything, through talking with Matt you really get the feeling that nothing has held him back. He has funnelled his experiences and life into something special, and the crowds are noticing.
“People fucking love it” he tells me. “We have a 75% retention rate on people wanting to take home our keychains called the Artefacts. At each performance you attend, you get a different insert on your keychain, and we’ll honour those as long as we run the show.”
Created, designed and performed solely between Matt and Felicity, the Book of Divergence is truly a tour-de-force on how to pull off a DIY show and pack it with punch. Going forward, he hopes to one day embed it into a Melbourne nightclub. But as for right now, really all he wants is just for you to come along.
“The only thing we want for Fringe is just a room full of people raving and engaging. We just want you to experience it.”
The Book of Divergence is playing on October 10 at Festival Hub: Trades Hall – Common Rooms. Tickets can be accessed here.
