After a rough 2024 iteration, Pitch Music & Arts showed a brave face and returned for its eighth edition over the March long weekend.
Pitch prides itself on being Victoria’s premier electronic music and arts festival. Deep in the backroads of Moyston, 200 plus kilometres from Melbourne, the dry foothills of the Grampian Plains framed by black scarred trees from recent fires hosted those committing themselves to four days of beats in the late summer heat.
Punters were excited, in particular, for Joy Orbison’s Australian debut and technical dj Objekt, along with catching other renowned and emerging DJs, producers and performers from across the globe until the early hours of each morning (Honey Dijon, Kia, Jennifer Loveless, Funk Assault, Funk Tribu, Lady Shaka, Job Jobse, among others).
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It was auditory bliss as Funktion-One sound systems enveloped all at the three stages (Pitch One, Pitch Black and the Resident Advisor Stage) and carried a smooth sound to wherever you found yourself around the camping, chill out and food court areas.
This all made for solid sets that balanced out – or, even felt inconsonant with – a crowd made up of large late-teens-to-early-twenties friendship groups that sometimes felt a bit posey.
Festival fashion was a tad scraggly, too: a mix of op shop gentrification, eshay cosplay and fit combos probably sourced from a TikTok lip sync vid made in someone’s childhood bedroom.
As daytime finished, though, cliques melted into the shadows and Pitch’s arts program took charge of the mood. With sunset, the colours of Ash Keating’s site-responsive painting merged with the pinks, purples and blues of the mountains, trees and sun beyond.
Then, at nightfall, gum trees across the desolate landscape lit red and blue guided your path. A trampoline-like lightshow bounced amongst a grove of trees to watch until you tipped your head up at streams of mammoth light beaming across Gariwerd’s ethereal Milky Way sky (lighting courtesy of Front of House Productions).
In the dark, standing in the glow of all these elements, the grounds turned into an unworldly but electric image. Resident Advisor stage’s iconic orange orb by Studio John Fish evolved with the music against a kaleidoscopic sea of doof sticks before, at midnight, festival-goers relocated in droves to Pitch One, their mass movement kicking up thick clouds of dust.
As you wandered with them, other media loosened this intense energy, like the gentle looped silent film Do you see this water? co-produced by Rachel Lyn and Cameron Trafford. With landscape and water footage, it stirred and held your introspective state of mind as it posed thoughts like, “Sometimes I forget where the daydream begins…”
From visuals to sound, Pitch was, at times, sensorily immersive and striking. Still, it wasn’t always comfortable, with heat, dust and an electrical storm all challenges to embracing a completely blissed-out vibe. That said, the organisers did well this year by introducing more emergency and safety features, like further shade, drink stations and misters.
We love vibing in the open air amongst our choice of sound waves, of course. But festivals like Pitch are faced with the task of getting better and better at co-existing with an increasingly challenging climate, no matter the joyride of their curated atmospheres. Right now, they’re marching on, though on very shaky grounds.
For more on Pitch Music & Arts, head here.
