Ten Best Music Events at Sydney Festival 2018

Russian punk band Pussy Riot were famously jailed for “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” following an anti-Vladimir Putin protest in 2012, and the three band members spent over a year in prison. Since her release, Maria Alyokhina has continued to make music, founded an independent media outlet in Russia and now returns to Australia with Riot Days. A ‘punk opera’/documentary/performance art piece about her arrest and imprisonment, it is a ferocious call to arms for the resistance.

“Freedom doesn’t exist unless you fight for it every day,” Alyokhina says. “The choice is very simple – to act or to stay silent. What we are showing is just one small example.”

Aldous Harding is a name you’re going to be hearing a lot about very soon. Her second album, Party — released earlier in May 2017 by legendary indie label 4AD — is full of darkly lyrical, dramatic songs, sung in Harding’s extraordinarily versatile voice that can go from husky and dramatic to girlish and hopeful at the flick of a switch.

Harding’s sound is a mesmerising, intoxicating mix of Leonard Cohen and Elliott Smith with an occasional flicker of Joanna Newsom. And given the album was recorded with PJ Harvey’s longtime collaborator, John Parrish, it’s hard not to hear a touch of Polly Jean in there, too.

Image: Cat Stevens.

As a trio who perform in Spanish, Femina have learned to be more theatrical and expressive to ensure their message comes across. Mixing traditional South American styles with modern soul, hip-hop and R&B, sisters Sofia and Clara Trucco, along with friend Clara Miglioli, bring passionate intensity to promote their message of love and equality across races, genders, ethnicity and sexual orientation.

Their harmonies and intricate wordplay are sure to set the Spiegeltent alight this summer — find out why Iggy Pop is a fan and why Rolling Stone just named them one of the ‘Ten New Artists You Need to Know’ in August 2017.

Image: Eliseo Miciu.

Performances are often called ‘unique’, but there is no other word one could use to describe AquaSonic. Avant-garde ensemble Between Music has spent years researching the possibilities of performing music underwater. AquaSonic is the result of numerous experiments with scientists, deep-sea divers and craftspeople to develop a style of singing and create instruments capable of being played underwater — such as the hydraulophone and the electromagnetic harp. Featuring five musicians submerged in individual glass aquariums, singing and playing custom-made instruments, the result is a haunting, disquieting performance that wouldn’t be out of place in American Horror Story.

Image: Charlotta de Miranda.

A pulsing, undeniable groove bursts forth from this South African sextet led by London-based saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings, an acolyte of the legendary Sun Ra Arkestra. Their album Wisdom of Elders was recorded in a single day, which tells you everything you need to know about this ensemble’s connectedness and singular vision. Exploring the vagaries and intricacies of modern jazz and boldly going towards an Afrofuturist future, this is music that will challenge, surprise and entrance you — and will make you get up and dance.

Image: Leeroy Jason.

Oh boy, get ready to feel some feelings.

The latest album from musician Phil Elverum aka Mount Eerie, A Crow Looked At Me, deals with the death of his wife and has been described as more an aural document of grief than an album. Full of devastating lyrics, it’s a beautifully honest depiction of loss.

Not unlike Elverum, Julie Byrne writes with tremendous introspection and insight. But the central relationship of her writing is with nature and the perspective that the vastness of the world forces on an individual. With her rich, hushed voiced and finger-picked guitar, Byrne makes you feel humbled and powerful all at once.

Image: Jonathan Bouknight.

There’s been a major trend in the past few years of film screenings with full symphony orchestras playing the score live — the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra are doing it for Star Wars in December. But instead of just playing along, New York’s Morricone Youth write original ‘re-scores’ for famous films in their own trademark prog/Krautrock/space-age-surf style, adding a whole new dimension and context to films you’ve loved for years.

This year’s festival sees them take over Carriageworks in their Australian debut, working their magic on George Miller’s original Mad Max and George Romero’s iconic Night of the Living Dead.

Image: Chic Stringer, courtesy of Kennedy Miller Mitchell.

Cabaret superstar Lady Rizo brings her huge voice and incisive wit to bear on her relationship with America, her ‘very bad boyfriend’. If we are indeed witnessing the slow death of the USA, Red, White & Indigo is a musical eulogy to that big, bizarre, beautiful country. A hippie child, teenage punk and trained actor with a big soul voice all in one, this hugely versatile performer has previously collaborated with Moby, Reggie Watts and legendary cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Needless to say, Lady Rizo racks up awards and praise everywhere she tours.

Combining archival footage, animation, music and text, the bomb is a full-scale immersive experience that drops the audience right into the heart of the history of nuclear weapons. A 61-minute film draws you into this gruesome, apocalyptic world, while electronic-rock trio The Acid provides the tense, pulsating soundtrack live in the room.

the bomb explores the immense power of nuclear weapons, the perverse appeal they have and the profound death wish at the very heart of them – a subject that is, depressingly, more relevant today than at any time in the past 30 years.

The so-called ‘voice of the Tunisian revolution’ during the Arab Spring, Emel Mathlouthi fuses traditional North African sounds with ultra-contemporary electronic production. The result is a pulsing, intense and raw musical experience. Also featuring on this unique double bill is famed Iraqi oud player Rahim AlHaj, appearing alongside Iraqi cellist and conductor Karim Wasfi. This evening is sure to be a touching and moving experience, a poignant reflection on music’s ability to inspire, uplift and outrage, even in the most fraught moments.

Image: Michael G. Stewart.