Sydney Festival
Future Classics and Amyl & the Sniffers
Future Classics
Speaker’s Corner
05 January 2022
With the label’s roster including such trailblazing acts like Flume, Flight Facilities and Ta-ku, there are few Australian crews that would be better suited to throw a party to ease into the three week extravaganza that is the 2022 incarnation of Sydney Festival, before the floodgates open for the program to unleash both large-scale as well as intimate performances across the cities’ public places, stages, streets, screens and everything in between.
Having coined and dominated Australian electronic sound for more than a decade, the evening saw both Future Classic’s stalwart Touch Sensitive hold court as well as the introduction of newer acts, i.e. the Warrang / Sydney based rap crew 1300, self-taught alternative-pop newcomer Jack Slade as well as a COW*TECH set from Reuben Styles of Peking Duk’s new positive vibe laden project Y.O.G.A., all of which were frenetically celebrated by an enthusiastic audience that did not remain seated for too long.
Amyl and the Sniffers
Speaker’s Corner
06 January 2022
I have been lucky enough to witness one of the first shows Amyl & the Sniffers played in Sydney, along with checking in on them whenever the chance presented itself, be it supporting the Cosmic Psychos or when they played intimate performances at small venues.
It has been fantastic to see their evolution from destroying stages by channelling their all-out primal brand of raw Australian pub rock with punk rock sensitivities to the confident and refined version of themselves that doubles down on their idiosyncratic formula.
Lead by live-wire Amy Taylor’s frenetic, snarly and dervish-like spilling of her mind reminiscent of an Australian hybrid of Wendy-O-Williams and Kathleen Hanna, the band is not merely backing her but defiantly racing alongside dropping their canon of riffage like bombs on the weak, resulting in a magnetic, electrifying and harsh live experience.
Anyone into time-honoured punk rock would be hard pressed to not fall in love with Amyl and the Sniffers oeuvre, of which their prowess as a live band is an integral part.
Comprised in equal parts of thuggish affirmations and a disarming vulnerability, Amyl & the Sniffers capture the essence of anarchic ethos, unwavering sassy attitude, dynamic raucousness and thereby infuse the tried and tested genre known as pub rock with new lifeblood without forcefully attempting to reinvent the wheel.
A band that knows who they are and what they stand for and one that you want to experience live whenever you can as they are bound to conquer bigger stages as their standing increases on international terrain.
The Pulse
Roslyn Packer Theatre
08 January 2021
A pulse is the equivalent of measuring the heart rate and if the multi-faceted Sydney Festival incarnation of the renowned circus company Gravity & Other Myths is anything to go by, the ticker that pumps blood through its three core ensembles, all of which contributed to The Pulse, and the accompanying thirty voices strong choir is in tip top shape.
Merging acrobatics, a musical ensemble of singers in a meticulously choreographed performance, set in scene against a carefully calibrated light design canvas and serenaded by an engaging and driving score, The Pulse results in a harmonious and poetic whole that is much more than the mere sum of its parts would suggest.
The ebb and flow of the performance coinciding with rays of light emerging from the dark is accentuated by Gravity and Other Myths’ power as a collective: It redefines what contemporary circus can be as it incorporates not merely remarkable routines and feats but leaves enough room for both subtleties as well as comedic and dramatic elements, which aid in letting the fluid cohesiveness shine as it highlights how we as humans react to change and life as a collective.
Summa summarum: An aesthetically rich example par excellence for gracefully controlled chaos that is bound to delight anyone remotely interested in contemporary circus.
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