Dancing to Cut Copy performing Pharaohs & Pyramids at Meredith in soft midnight rain was one of my favourite moments in what’s been an enjoyable yet underachieving life. But DJ sets are weird. You’re essentially there because you love the artist’s music, but instead you’re offered their musical taste. And there’s just something slightly disappointing about that. You look up at the talented musician behind the decks and think, “C’mon, just pick up an instrument. I mean, you’re here now anyway.”
Tonight was sort of different. While Cut Copy headlined, the night was really about presenting Cut Copy’s compilation, Oceans Apart, starring some of Melbourne’s finest dance musicians. The album feels like a dream where you’re taken to space and into the jungle within two tracks. Highly recommended.
The 2014 setup for Melbourne Music Week certainly doesn’t boast the wow factor of previous years. In 2011, Melbourne Music Week brought in the glowing KUBIK installation from Berlin. In 2012, we were granted access to the secretive, lawsuit-waiting-to-happen Argus Building as part of Where?House. Last year, MMW constructed The Residence – a pop-up venue at Birrarung Marr.
But this year, Melbourne Music Week embraced Melbourne. We don’t really need extravagant European setups, prohibited buildings or pop-up venues. Melbourne’s awesome as it is, and kudos to MMW for understanding that by turning one of the city’s icons – Queen Vic Market – into the hub.
What the Market lacks in novelty appeal, it makes up for in serving its purpose – a functional party arena and spacious place to dance. The day kicked-off with Nile Delta’s one and a half-hour DJ set, followed by fellow Oceans Apart classmates Speed Painters and an electronic set from World’s End Press.
The highlight of the night was probably No Zu, with their impressive brass section leading firmly at the vanguard. I lost count of how many were onstage – upwards of eight – but goddamn this was a fun set. So many instruments take the lead in different parts during Raw Vis Vision; to keep it sounding so tight is a miracle.
After No Zu, local AV DJs Naysayer and Gilsun made a guest appearance and set the perfect tone for Dan from Cut Copy. The dance floor flooded and, to be honest, the rest is a blur. Not a drunken blur, but we were all lost in dance and there’s really nothing else that needs to be said about a DJ set. One hypnotic club track blended with subtlety into the next one, and before we knew it, an-hour-and-45-minutes had passed.
This night wasn’t about Cut Copy – it was about showcasing the other acts on the bill. And you couldn’t put together a more sublime lineup of Melbourne dance artists for Melbourne Music Week.
BY NICK TARAS
Loved: Bumping into old Beat Mag mate Adam Morgan tearing it up.
Hated: A wave of shit-smell passed over the dance floor from the toilets like the cosmic energy cloud in the critically-panned 2005 film Fantastic Four.
Drank: At little Cal’s bar Mitzvah beforehand. Mazel tov, my man.
