At the centre of Melbourne Fringe this year is Fat Fruit, the queer Naarm duo behind The Legend of Queen Kong. 12 years in the making, three music videos premiered this month, every frame sign-sung by deaf artist Asphyxia. They call it freedom in the fringes, and they mean the access as much as the art.
Around it, Swapmeet haul their Adelaide noise and debut record Mount Zero to a country that’s finally listening; harminia drags Japanese Visual Kei into the local guitar underground and finds a crowd already fluent in it; and Robert Forster brings Strawberries back to Thornbury Theatre on 12 September, still writing love as a set of small habits.
While Body Type hit a decade and keep moving, Celent takes his first bow at the Toff, and Máquina Peligrosa smuggle out a surf-punk seven-inch with help from some puppets.
On the shelf there’s new work from Miss Kaninna, DMA’S, Grace Mitchell, Noah Hill and Rowena Wise. The windows are open. Go get among it.