NTS Naarm takes over Northcote Theatre and High Note for two days with a lineup of buzzy live acts and class-act DJs from all over the globe.
Music fans have become increasingly eager to detach themselves from the algorithm in recent years. Dozens of articles have been published about how best to reinject some genuine surprise into music discovery. One piece of advice that always comes up is to listen to NTS Radio.
The London-based online radio station turns 15 this year. It’s grown from a tiny DIY operation hosted by passionate advocates of independent radio and budding DJs into what journalist Shawn Reynaldo has called “arguably the most important and influential independent online radio outlet on the planet.”
And this year, the station’s annual Melbourne event, NTS Naarm, might be its most impressive yet; headlined by cult favourites like POiSON GiRLFRiEND, Smerz, james K, Lyra Pramuk, and Voice Actor, with NTS regulars Nabihah Iqbal and Yu Su also in the mix, plus a deep bench of local underground acts. Two nights of sounds that have no business being this good.
NTS Naarm
- Sat 28 Feb & Sun 1 Mar, 2026
- Northcote Theatre & High Note
- Ticket on sale now
Check out our gig guide, our festival guide, our live music venue guide and our nightclub guide. Follow us on Instagram here.
View this post on Instagram
NTS also has a reputation for throwing great parties, including regular pop-up events at the station’s HQ in Dalston’s Gillett Square, and the annual NTS Naarm. Initially a one-off event in 2023, NTS Naarm is now a two-day music extravaganza at Northcote Theatre and High Note, and this year’s lineup features more than two-dozen live acts and DJs.
Much like the music played on NTS’s two 24/7 channels – and the sounds contained in its vast, near-infinite online archive – the NTS Naarm lineup is a mix of the ultra-cool (james K, Smerz), proudly unique and experimental (Lyra Pramuk, Tarquin Manek), hyper-local (Ryan Powderly, Prophetic Justice Ministry), deeply nerdy (Hobbies Galore, Floor Length Skirts), and cultishly revered (POiSON GiRLFRiEND, Lord Tusk).
Global sounds and NTS regulars for NTS Naarm
Acts from all over the globe will be heading to Northcote for the event, including Egypt’s percussive, post-shaabi DJ and producer 3Phaz, Japanese dream pop legend POiSON GiRLFRiEND (playing an Australian exclusive in Melbourne with no shows in any other state), China via London experimental club producer Yu Su, Norwegian postmodern pop duo Smerz (exclusive sideshow outside of Golden Plains), Canadian downtempo producer and DJ RAMZi, and Copenhagen-based dub and trip hop producer Fergus Jones.
A bunch of NTS mainstays are on the bill, including a DJ set from Nabihah Iqbal, who has been presenting a show on the station for nearly 13 years, playing everything from jazz, reggae and Italo disco to Pakistani classical, Indonesian gamelan, Dunedin jangle and plenty of Jeff Buckley, Deftones and Tears For Fears.
Babyschön, who hosts NTS’s flagship Soup To Nuts program every Thursday, is also on the lineup. The DJ alias of The Guardian’s experimental music critic Safi Bugel, babyschön is known for playing leftfield disco and house and esoteric post-punk.
POiSON GiRLFRiEND, Smerz, james K, Yu Su, Lyra Pramuk, and Voice Actor are also NTS residents, and all are confirmed for NTS Naarm.
Live sets from acts we’ve waited years to see
Tokyo’s POiSON GiRLFRiEND – the solo project of Noriko Sekiguchi – started putting out downtempo electronica in the early 1990s. Her seminal releases, such as 1992’s MELTING MOMENT and 1994’s Love Me, have found a whole new generation of listeners in recent years, thanks in no small part to frequent airplay on NTS. POiSON GiRLFRiEND started playing shows outside of Japan a couple of years ago, and will make her Australian debut at NTS Naarm.
Based in New York City, james K’s music moves between downtempo electronica, dream pop, trip-hop, and shoegaze. K’s latest album Friend, released in 2025 via AD93, was described by Hard of Hearing magazine as sitting at the intersection of “retrofuturistic nostalgia” and “club music that would be totally unsuited to the club.” His live show is a Melbourne exclusive.
Oslo via Copenhagen duo Smerz released one of the albums of 2025, melding their avant-garde and neoclassical instincts with the immediacy of alt-pop and 90s R&B on Big city life. When they’re not making dial-turning, ambivalently romantic pop music, Smerz’s Henriette Motzfeldt and Catharina Stoltenberg hold down a monthly radio show on NTS.
Compelled by collectivity, spirituality, and care; Berlin-based composer, multidisciplinary artist and bi-monthly NTS Resident, Lyra Pramuk, conjures a rare form of devotional music. A book of transformational worship songs, Hymnal was released in 2025 to much anticipation and critical acclaim – and NTS Naarm is thrilled to present the exclusive live AV debut of Hymnal in Melbourne this summer.
Voice Actor, aka UK musician Noa Kurzweil, is one of the most prominent artists on cult Belgian experimental label Stroom, a go-to for lovers of all things peculiar and transfixing. For evidence of Voice Actor’s irreverent streak, look no further than the project’s 108-song debut album, Sent from my Telephone.
Both Voice Actor and Lyra Pramuk are presented with a live AV show.
The best of the local underground
Many of NTS’s Melbourne/Naarm-based hosts are on the lineup, including outsider art pop musician Sui Zhen, club DJs Moopie and Jex Wang (also part of Eastern Margins collective), and diggers Mil Townley, Abe Pedroza and Bridget Small.
There’ll be live performances from various heavy-hitters of the local underground, including poetry and post-punk band bodies of divine infinite and eternal spirit, Yuin experimental electronic artist e fishpool, deconstructivist improviser Tarquin Manek, environmental music duo Wilson Tanner, and dubby drone hypnotists Fabulous Diamonds.
Other Australian acts on the bill include Hobart post-punks The Native Cats, Brisbane’s buzzy online pop artist Fatshaudi, and the most chill band from Arnhem Land, Drifting Clouds.
In all, it’s set to be a wild, mind-bending and invigorating antidote to the numbing effects of the algorithm.
Tickets for NTS Naarm are on sale now.
This article was made in partnership with Crown Ruler.
