This week saw the first announcements of two new Victorian multi-day festivals, Pitch Music & Arts Festival and Babylon Festival. To the dismay of many, both festivals occur on the same weekend – as well as Golden Plains – Friday March 10 to Monday March 13. The Pitch lineup includes Italian hypnotic slow-burning techno maestro Donato Dozzy as well as his production project Voices From The Lake, Berghain stalwart Ben Klock, the unforgiving Paula Temple, live set wizards Octave One and a ton of other local and international acts. Babylon have announced Planetary Assault Systems – Luke Slater’s longest running techno alias and Infected Mushroom. Babylon’s full announcement is coming this Thursday.
Kevin Saunderson hits Glamorama on Friday November 4 with local mad-dawg Adrian Bell in tow. Saunderson’s been kicking around since the mid ‘80s, as one of the legendary high school trio ‘The Belleville Three’ (that also included Juan Atkins and Derrick May), his influence on electronic music is unquestionable. He’s played every club, stage and festival that’s worthy of mention so go have a look, it’s free entry before 9pm too.
Friday also see’s Drumcode’s Mark Reeve popping over from Germany for the Mahala party at New Guernica with a whole slew of local guests backing him up: Handsdown, Leighboy, Jydn, Ben Mac, Brooke Powell, Daniel Cuda, Kids Table, JC Coyle, Louay, William Kiss, Scott Freedman & Dave Juric.
Next week things ramp up as we enter Melbourne Music Week, my pick is the Saturday November 12 gig at the State Library, presented by Four Melbourne music cornerstones – Aarght Records, Paradise, Smooch and Waving At Trains. It’s a massive three stage affair featuring seminal Australian Industrial/EBM act Severed Heads, the lush and immersive Young Magic (New York) and phenomenal live disco trio Harvey Sutherland & Bermuda with support from Youandewan (Scotland), Nun, Drug Sweat, Fantastic Man, friendships (DJ set), Deer, Krakatau, Lucy Cliché, Albrecht La’Brooy, Terry, Null (DJ set), Shouse, Ela Stiles, Sweet Whirl, OCDANTAR, Nite Fleit, Kris Baha, Noise In My Head and Chris Ackroyd.
