What. A. Night.

I finally organised my dream gig in Melbourne, a night of live dark & heavy music & live shibari performances at the Tote. An album launch for ZCluster & an opportunity for Infernal Desire Machine to perform our “Burning” ritual.

The night was like a fever dream delirium of beautiful noise, haunting voices, spinning bodies & shapes bound with rope. Filled with energy & rawness, an electrical charge palpable in the air. It was everything I wanted it to be & I’m so glad that it resonated with so many others.

Eve X & I have been building the energies all week for Infernal Desire Machine, & tonight’s ritual was the most ordeal driven live experience that we’ve entered into together. Open doorways & invitations to draw in those required, & to forge those links between intention & actualisation. Creating a space to burn that which no longer serves, clearing the deadwood from our forests & bowers. We all need to clear our internal landscapes of debris at times, & there has been a lot; A lot of joy, a lot of sorrow, a lot of change.

https://twitter.com/IDesireMachine

Letting go of the old to make way for the new deserves a process, a marking of the passing of selves & times. Creating meaningful ritual to shift our internal structures is a huge part of the work that we do, & I hope that we held a space for all of you there to do the same. The continual application of specific actions to connect to deeper meaning is the essence of ritual; sometimes our conscious selves cannot do what needs to be done, & we must let our ghosts & shadows do the work. I am utterly blessed to be able to do such Work with my beloved, my heart, my witch sister & soul twin. Thank you Eve, for flying with me, to heavens & hells.

The launch of ZCluster’s first full length is huge for us, as a band composed of parents of very young children time & energy has become one of the most precious of commodities, & choosing where to spend that is absolutely vital now. I am proud to have been able to carve out the space to have created a piece of work with my beloved band wife Steve Collins that I’m absolutely proud of, that speaks straight from our heart & gut, screaming from the heights of joy & the depths of despair, transmuting the unspeakable.

Also, I sang upside down for the first time. Living my best bat life.

https://zclustermusic.com/

I love putting on shows that feel like a community comes together, & this definitely has that vibe. It meant so much to feel the love & support of my friends & peers who came out to the show, & all those who came to witness. Feeling you all connect to us as we channel on stage is palpable & humbling, thrilling & affecting. Thank you for sharing your energies & being part of the deep space of this evening.

Thanks to all the brilliant artists & performers who joined us this evening;

Enryka‘s live show was dark & ethereally breathtaking, haunting & channeling intense energies to open the night. There was a singular point in their performance where many of us felt something cracking open at the gig – Sydney, get onto this right now & give this ephemeral creature more opportunities to bless you with their craft.

https://www.instagram.com/enryka__/

I’ve been waiting to see Asylum Sis†ers for a few years now, & I’m so glad I had them on the bill, angular shards of industrial noise pounded into our ears as Caitlin looms menacingly over the entire affair.

https://www.facebook.com/asylumsisters

Von Riga Kinbaku 緊縛 put on the most dazzling Shibari performance I’ve seen in a while, like a bird of prey in fishnets & thigh highs, descending from the ceiling to ensnare their elusive prey /ANestOfRopes/. Such a wonderful high energy performance, & the contrast of ice to the fire of our Shibari ritual seemed like a perfect juxtaposition & balancing of the energies on the night.

https://linktr.ee/vonriga

Special thanks to Anton the sound engineer who made everything sound huge, & helped put on a spectacular light show for all the acts. They really took the time to make sure everything was going to be perfect, & I was so very happy to introduce Shibari to another uninitiated! Let the corruption of the innocent continue!

A huge thanks to The Tote for taking a punt on this event, things are tough for the live scene at the moment, & I really appreciate them saying yes to my weird night of transgressive artistry & chaos magick.

Big props to the beautiful Adam for sticking around through the entire night to capture moments on film, even though they had to wake up rudely early the next day.

And a special mention to Freakflag at Frankie’s Pizza By The Slice for inspiring me to continue believing in the freakshow.

So very, very, very looking forward to doing all this again.

See you all around, beautiful freaks.