RISING, Melbourne’s winter festival of music art and performance has announced new additions to its already huge 2024 lineup, with a suite of local andinternational music acts joining the sprawling 16-night program featuring 116events and 651 artists, set to take up residence in the heart of the city from 1-16 June.
Stretching down Swanston St and beyond, RISING will transform Melbourne’s streets, venues, and hidden spaces with large-scale installations, free public events, and world-class contemporary music, theatre, and dance.
“With only a few weeks to go till opening, we’re excited to reveal a whole new layer to the 2024 program” said RISING co-artistic directors Hannah Fox and Gideon Obarzanek.
“The full Day Tripper lineup is super dynamic and brings insome of our local idols and more international gems. The festival’s social heart – Night Trade now includes psychic readings, karaoke, art and dance classes and a full club program ranging from classical to r’n’b and techno. The beginning of winter in Melbourne can feel like standing at the bottom of a grim mountain and RISING is here to shake that feeling right off.”
DAY TRIPPER FULL LINE-UP
Day Tripper, RISING’s festival-within-a-festival laces Melbourne Town Hall, Capitol Theatre, and Max Watt’s with a big old day party in the middle of the long weekend on Saturday. It’s 8 hours, three stages under one ticket.
The huge slew of new acts added to the Day Tripper lineup includes Coburg jazz- funk journeymen Surprise Chef who will be cooking it up in the Main Hall, esoteric outsider Alastair Galbraith, and pathologically prolific Richard Youngs. Kiwi heart-wrencher Sarah Mary Chadwick will be on the ivories, Welsh jangle pop upstarts The Tubs will be in town for the first time, while WET KISS are bringing the post-punk glam rock explosion.
Crab-dancing slacker rock icons Scott & Charlene’s Wedding are on the bill, POSSESHOT will be rapping words and flipping birds, and Polito will be closing things down with improvised techno.
Across the road at Max Watt’s, it’s HTRK’s 21st birthday. The cult Melbourne/Naarm duo are set to play an extended live set from their classic discography. while old friends and hallucinatory beat-makers CS + Kreme will take part in a special collaboration,
Following an organ inauguration,, choreographer/actionist Candela Capitan performs The Death at the Club, Clubble will be running at each other at furious speeds, and Amber McCartney—the liminal dance maggot from last year’s Tiny Infinite Deaths—is back and ready to writhe with a new performance.
NIGHT TRADE
Free to enter, Night Trade, made easy by Up, is the festival’s pulsing hub and nightly social club, which this year spans the labyrinth of historic arcadesunderneath the Capitol Theatre connecting to Howey Place—the original home of Melbourne’s most eccentric bookshop and the city’s first queer club.
Within walking distance of most festival venues, it’s home to adult activities, bars, dancing and food spots. It’s a place to grab a drink and a bite on the way to a show, or stay and get in on the action.
RISING Sip and Paint reimagines the strip-mall cham-painting format. Each evening for Night Trade one eccentric art darling will help willing participants reconnect with their creative souls using an array of mediums and methods.
Elsewhere amongst the thrall, Night Trade visitors can see LA artist John Kilduff create a live version of cult public access television TV show Let’s Paint TV – a physical and mental triumph/ breakdown of painting, cooking, singing and playing synth on a treadmill — drop in for a psychic reading or join a shopfront karaoke session with Mummy’s Plastic.
To eat, there’ll be a melting pot of food offerings across the precinct including limited edition jaffles from Union Kiosk, and Nepalese dumplings from Momo Station. Brunswick taqueria Los Amantes takes up residence at The Howey for Night Trade with Soldada margaritas and cold Bodriggy brews available at the hotel’s bar.
At the centre of Night Trade is a career-spanning exhibition by British Turner Prize-winning conceptual artist Jeremy Deller titled In the Future Everybody Will Be Cancelled for 15 Minutes.
Next door at The Capitol 24 Hour Rock Show, a free 24-hour music documentary marathon curated specifically for RISING by Deller takes place across Saturday 8 and Sunday 9 June. Drop in, drop out, or settle in for the full 24 hours.
NIGHT TRADE (STAGE DOOR)
Those who want to dance with somebody can head down Presgrave Place and enter the Night Trade Stage Door, the festival’s late night club. In the year it would have been Shannon Michael Cane’s 50th birthday, it’s fitting RISING’s opening night party on Saturday 1 June, Shannon Michael Cane: Someone Great – A Celebration, will smudge outside the lines in honour of his
work and memory.’
Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor is heading behind the decks in tribute. He’ll be joined by Gerard Frank Long (aka Sugar Plump Fairy) spinning disco alongside the care bear of the Melbourne music scene, Andee Frost and the legendary DJ JNETT. Plus, Sydney’s gayest collaboration Stereogamous, featuring Paul Mac and Johnny Seymour.
Betty Grumble unites with fierce lover and warrior of music and community, DJ HipHopHoe for six hours of Grumble Boogie. A surreal aerobics class—a communal celebration, ritual of rage and rite of renewal. Choreography, music, protest and pleasures blend together in pursuit of restorative energy, that transcends the physical and psychic schedule of the status quo. Featuring a mighty lineup of guest facilitators and performers, the six-hour program is
designed to be experienced in its entirety or dropped in on for moments of
resonating joy.
UK producer Evian Christ brings banging trance anthems and a massive AV show exclusively to RISING. Expect trance: music for wide eyes, aching hearts and dawn-tinged bliss. Evian Christ has been lifting the genre up and up, into windy new heights of late. After producing Billboard-topping albums by Kanye West and Travis Scott, his own debut album Revanchrist takes the mountain-sized arpeggios, the whispering pleas and the sugar-fed drops—then deconstructs them.
For RISING’s final weekend Night Trade beckons through the Stage Door and into the underground with a series club nights presented by Crown Ruler. On Thursday 13 June, patch into the South-East London and Melbourne/Naarm’s DIY circuity with a DJ set from AD93’s Coby Sey and live sets from Teether, Willis Anne and Jannah Quill. Expect a harmonious haze of hip hop, noise, and ambient cut with smoggy breaks. Friday it’s time to scuff the floor on an evening filled with house, Italo, disco and electro courtesy of Lipelis, DiTA, Bayu, and Yawung.
RISING will close down on Saturday with a night of subterranean soul and RnB as Parisian beat maker Onra steps up to the decks. He’s to be joined Melbourne/Naarm soulster Silent Jay, LA. jazz maestro Keifer, RAY OTW featuring Khiarra and Chef Cheng, and Perth/Boorloo’s ambassador for dance and pure positivity, Rok Riley.
With more acts to be announced in the coming weeks, Night Trade Stage Door will be open every night of Night Trade into the early hours of the morning.
MAJOR SUPPORTS
Across the music program, RISING has also unveiled a string of support acts that
join the music program.
Papua New Guinea born, now Naarm/Melbourne based, Kaiit, who since the release of her debut EP in 2017 has been making waves online and commanding the attention of soul and hip hop tastemakers will join cinematic Swedish soul sensation Snoh Aalegra at her two sold out Forum shows on June 5 and 6. ARIA-award winning rap up-and-comer Miss Kaninna will bring her signature Blak Excellence from Tasmania/Lutruwita to Festival Hall in support of Sydney drill-rap crew OneFour’s first headlining show in Melbourne on June 8. Deepening Western Sydney the drill heat, RFA17 and LF70 are also making the trip down to RISING and joining the line-up.
At PICA on Saturday June 9, Gunai/Kurnai and Yorta Yorta DJ/producer DJ PGZ, known for harnessing club sounds from the world-wide underground, plays a special set in support of Yasiin Bey (FKA Mos Def). Tinariwen will be supported by the Melbourne/Naarm-based Chikchika. Accompanied by traditional Ethiopian stringed instruments, the krar and the
masinko, the group sing songs of love, distance, separation and culture inspired by their East African heritage.
Melbourne/Naarm’s Georgia Knight is bringing her grungy-folk and soul- rattling melodies in support of US art rock greats Blonde Redhead on June 14.
NEW SHOWS ADDED
Melbourne icons Dirty Three add a third and final performance to their sold out RISING run. With expanses to create and new music to share, the legendary trio are finally back with their first hometown headline shows in 12 years. No one does it like Dirty Three – folk without the troubadours. Improvising rumbling, wide-open instrumentals that pull you in like oil-painted landscapes. In addition to their Hamer Hall shows they’ve added one last performance at Forum Melbourne – sure to sell out fast.
Since 2015, Secret Symphony has been showcasing the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in unexpected locations across Melbourne. Now it’s sneaking its way into RISING. It’s a bit like a treasure hunt for classical-music-lovers. You follow their Instagram and you see if you can guess the location and repertoire based on clues they drop in the weeks leading up to the performance. Then on Thursday 6 June, the hunt is on.
By popular demand Hear My Eyes adds two new shows on Monday 10 June to its special RISING presentation of Hellraiser, which will see Clive Barker’s 1987 extra-dimensional horror re-scored live by EBM explorers Hieroglyphic Being and Robin Fox—with lasers. For Hear My Eyes: Hellraiser, the cult classic is sent into a freshly spiked iron casket—with a live rescore by Chicago’s bringer of ‘rhythmic cubism’, Hieroglyphic Being aka Jamal Moss.
Late-night audiences are invited to explore the surreal underground realm of Universal Everything’s Beings after-hours at ACMI, in partnership with RISING. Among 12 eye-popping artworks and installations, this special event brings together local artists and performers including Dita, Lipelis, Betty Grumble, Samantha Thompson and Harrison Ritchie-Jones to create good vibrations that make you morph.
Dance the night away in our transformed Museum spaces, or head into the exhibition as Universal Everything’s soulful and mesmerising technology merges live music, performances, food and drink.
To explore the full RISING program head to rising.melbourne.
