All Under One Sup’ Raving.

Beaming in for the very first time.

Oh my gosh

A set to shake off the year. A cathartic moon-streaked rave to lift us up. Stick us together.

I go to loud places
to search for someone
to be quiet with

Jamie xx gets the power of the dancefloor. It’s in his DNA. Shot through his heart. The transient romance of the club absorbed, reimagined, and fed back to us via generation-shaping songs.

With The xx he cast an inescapable shadow over indie music. Imitators rose and fell away. Jamie just kept moving. He lent a hand to Drake, Radiohead, even Rihanna. Warming up for a debut that would eclipse it all.

Nine years on from the kaleidoscopic masterstroke In Colour, he’s back. 

All you children gather ’round
We will dance together

Amid the see-sawing chaos of a world shutdown, Jamie xx found a thread and pulled. In Waves unwound. It’s something else. A heady epiphany about the stuff that makes life life. The joyful limitlessness of The In-Between. The moments before The Morning After. Robyn, Erykah and The Avalanches. A second-last turn on The Eye. 7am at Sunset Strip. Night and day. Now and then.

An end-of-year-party-to-end-them-all.

Goooood times, good times. There’s gonna be.

xxoo

On Supernatural debut, in the hot summer twilight.

If I could love you unconditionally
I could iron out the edges of the darkest sky

Sparks will fly.

For decades Katie Crutchfield has turned her insides out as Waxahatchee, pinching our skin with a songbook of heart-plucking, nihilistic indie punk.

“She writes like someone who feels a rock in their shoe and needs you to feel it, too”

At the end of the ’10s, with the drop of a hat-chee, her muse turned left. She flung open the gates and went back-to-back with modern classics.

Saint Cloud arrived, a blast of sunlit Americana gifting hope in the shadows. Tigers Blood next. A Southern Odyssey – like Lucinda or Hank, its songs expand and retract. Glorious fragments, spun together and blasted out with the weight of someone who gets that life is here to be lived.

Dive in. 

This one’s gonna stick.

Goosebumps under the Half Moon.

In the beginning, there was Genesis.

Popping tops from Outer Space to Tom Mankeys.

Kofi Owusu-Ansah is a world-builder. A floor-busting combustion. The rarest of forces. We’re buzzing to have him back in The Sup’. Prime Time.

Genesis Owusu blasted outta the cast with his freaky, funky marvel of a debut.

There was no waiting for Genesis. Always moving, gestating, creating. He doubled down on LP2 with a Kafka-inspired conceptual diamond.

And we hear there’s more to come…

Metamorphosing, as the moon peaks.

Let there be light.

“Mike is from New Jersey.”

So goes his official bio, in five brief words.

An elaboration is in order for the only artist in history to be co-signed by Frank Ocean, Eric Clapton and Dry Cleaning.

Mk.gee is Mike Gordon, a prodigious kid from The Diner State, transplanted to LA. While playing and producing on Dijon and Kid Laroi records, he was squirrelling away with his own sound. A trademark guitar style that feels as if he’s transmitting from another planet. Bread crumbs were dropped here and there.

The path led to Two Star & the Dream Police. A timeless, squiggly blend of 80s bop and r&b, lathered high with eye-popping melodies that flip the record from far-out oddity to romantic classic. Perhaps the most enveloping, addictive listen of the year.

Just wait until you see him wriggle. Friday, at dusk.

California Loooooove

An electrified extravaganza with Zapp! 

The robo funk family affair out of Ohio. Protégés of George Clinton and Bootsy Collins, Lester and Terry “Zapp” Troutman lead the band, upholding the great legacy of brother Roger.

More bounce
Much more bounce
More bounce to the ounce

Zapp’s unique ingredient is their custom-made talk-box – the Electro-Harmonix ‘Golden Throat’. Those dexterously vocoderised vocals, that extra ultra-tremulousness. Autotune’s funky forebear, its syrup-y legacy spreading from T-Pain to the helmeted Frenchmen. 

I Can Make You Dance. Computer Love. So Ruff, So Tuff. Doo Wa Ditty (Blow That Thing). All the Greatest Hits.

And the enduring Troutman guarantee – More Bounce to the Ounce. Ice Cube credits the tune as his introduction to hip hop. Snoop and Biggie sampled it. Tom Tom Club took inspiration from it to write Genius Of Love.

The band’s influence on West Coast rap peaking on their delivery of 2Pac’s most iconic hook.

Californiaaaa
Knows how to party

As does the Supernatural Republic of Meredith. 

A Saturday Nite Funkquake.

When Saturn Returns, Angie arrives.

Some songs are just ready-made for Supernatural lift-off. Angie has a suitcase full of ‘em.

I know the sun don’t rise and set above me
I don’t want you to compromise a lot to love me

Angie keeps finding new ways to carve up our hearts. Knitting small words into big feelings. Keeping time, getting lost, breathing in, breathing out, moving slowly. A talent that bubbles up and up. For a moment she felt like our little secret. But of course the rest of the world was eventually gonna clue in.

“A record of this moment, capturing something true about the time we live in and the way in which so many of us exist.”

Her luminous giants will fly high. And we might see her dinosaur, Steven.

As the sky turns light, dark, light again.

I Love NY. Alphabet City arrogance. Acid synths and Good Time freaks. Pre-vape. Post-sleaze. B2B Charli XCX. Making out in the club. In the toilets. In the smoker’s corner. Bidding wars. Lamé. $5.99 Perfume. Jägerbombs and Highballs. High Freakquencies. More Cowbell. Dimes Square. Disco ball. Disco punk. Song Of The Summer. That suit. Guess who?

Yeah, I think he’s with it.

The Dare. Saturday Nite.

You’re Invited.

A cosmic riddle more mysterious than the Dimboola Triangle.

These masked mavericks materialised outta the mist like the ghost of Laura Palmer. Swinging the pendulum left, right, left. Hypnotic earworms wriggling deep into our tympanic membrane. 

Mahal. Rattlesnake. Mirage.

Rajan Silva is the man behind the mesh. Slippery psychedelic jams, a love letter to his Indian heritage. A nod to the east, to the west, to the interminable imagination of a mind left to wander the wild blue yonder. Far out. Out far.

Step through the looking glass.

Who knows what lies beyond?

Loud bark, deep bite. Mannequin Pussy are the real deal.

After 14 years of no-nonsense power punk, this Philly four-piece knocked it for six on their latest. I Got Heaven landed in our laps like a steaming stack of sweet and sour hotcakes, oozing with syrupy licks. Marisa Dabice’s shimmering wail, an eruption of corporeal beauty.

And what if we stopped spinning?
And what if we’re just flat?
And what if Jesus himself ate my f––king snatch?

All that Mannequin Pussy power coalesces on stage – where they cultivate a space to thrash it out, sing it back and share in life’s ecstatic mess.

Heads back, hearts open.

See you in the pit.

Bow Down.

Call me King Brown
You ain’t fu**in with me now
Came too far just to go back down

Stepping up to the mic. Gadigal’s own. 

No one hits it quite like BARKAA. This proud Malyangapa, Barkindji rapper re-wired the mainframe when she landed with For My Tittas and Our Lives Matter in 2020. Sharpening her skills since the schoolyard, BARKAA’s scorched-earth rhymes are full of fury and pride.

Telling stories. Telling it like it is. Telling it for her ancestors. 

Blak Matriarchy, Saturday eve. Preach.

“A band that’s always on the brink: of stardom, of madness, of brilliance, of disgrace”

Pushed out of a Peckham squat sprouting political provocations atop a squall of putrescent punk, this multi-headed menage has a rep to rival Mark E Smith.

A decade of debauched delirium drew the true believers into the Fat White sanctum. Bubbling up like slow-cooked bolognese, their cult expanded while the myth mushroomed.

Unruly creative twists and tumultuous turnovers led Lias Saoudi and company down the garden path, and straight to their latest deliciously-decadent-possible-swan-song. Stacked with Algerian-rai influenced disco, torrid jazz, scabrous socialist distillations, and banging synth rock. Hair-prickling stuff.

Serf’s up, hightide Friday.

Who Am I?

I’m the first artist with two consecutive US number one hits in their repertoire to play The Sup’.

I’ve appeared on The Muppet Show, and the Charlie’s Angels soundtrack.

I’ve written hit songs for Cliff Richard, Roger Daltrey, Tina Turner and Dolly Parton. I’ve been covered by Phil Collins and Taylor Swift. 

I launched my career in England in the early 70s. My first seven singles all went Top 10 in the UK. 

I was the last person to speak to Elvis Presley.

You’ve got a cute way of talkin’
You got the better of me

My fingerprints are there to see through disco’s revivals: Scissor Sisters, Jamiroquai, the chart-topping  remix of my song, Thunder In My Heart Again.

Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy included my song, Long Tall Glasses, in his new book on music that changed his life. 

I escaped the UK Celebrity Big Brother Season 5 house on Day 10, by breaking a fire door open with a broom, due to Big Brother not providing clean underwear.

I have released 16 studio LPs, the latest titled Selfie, and now reside in Australia.

I am playing Meredith Thirty Two in the Saturday arvo sweet spot, drawing from a lifetime of hits: 

You Make Me Feel Like Dancing. When I Need You. Long Tall Glasses. Thunder In My Heart. One Man Band.

Who Am I?

I’m Leo f–king Sayer.

You make me feel like dancin’
I wanna dance the night away

A slice of pop disco ballad heaven. This Aunty will be swooning More Than I Can Say.

Music for Essendon Airports.

A chartered flight into the trivial, and out the other side.

These legendary travellers are a product of Clifton Hill’s early post-punk scene. In the late 70s – while the St Kilda set were spitting pints and scowling into the void – Robert Goodge and David Chesworth were busy planting weird little flower pots of sound.

They bought a homemade drum machine from the trading post and jammed along with a guitar and an electric piano.

Melodic minimalism, repetition games and gentle jazz experiments. Traditional song structures that stretched and slowly unravelled.

Listening to their first EP, it’s like they’d hung elevator ditties from a Hills Hoist and let them rotate into strange, new shapes.

Later, they expanded into a five-piece and went deeper into funky art-pop. Then, in 1983, they broke up.

For Meredith Thirty Two, they’re cruising down from The Hangar, drawing from their minimal chapter.

See the band fly up, up. Ready for the Sunday morning rise.

The arithmetic is skewed, but the sound hits a bullseye in your chest.

Technically just two polite-looking Sydneysiders. But the way Jonathan Boulet hits the sampler and the drums while Kirsty Tickle stalks the stage, hooting her sax and screaming into the bell of it – frankly it’s a two-piece adding more value than the proverbial baker.

This is psychedelic, no-wave noise-jazz that makes you want to stomp around and dance. After three fierce records, a Nick Cave feature and a hit world tour, Party Dozen are back with new music that adds doomy piano stabs to the percussive din. 

When the sun goes down, the party goes up. Saturday.

The look, the lips
The hips, the tits
The hair, the eyes
The skin, the waist

No-f**ks-to-give, the party-people’s princess has been popping off since we hit a new century. Spitting her flip-pop panache into the ether. Hitting highs. Hitting lows. Sliding between fame, infamy, obscurity, but always rolling out something atop the pack. She mixed it with the best. Kool Keith, Beth Orton, The Prodigy, Lana Del Rey. Co-labs. Re-runs. TikToks. A renaissance of late.

One, two, three, four
Let me hear you scream if you want some more

Bad babysitters to the front.

Let’s drink the bathwater, baby.

Dreijer in the 3333.

One half of The Knife, the Swedish siblings who built a haunted house out of indie-electro bangers. 

A techno enigma who – under the alias Oni Ayhun – sporadically released some truly singular dance music at the end of the noughties (see interstitial rave fave OAR003‑B).

The central twine has been those pitch-shifted synth lines. Like sirens off duty, doing gymnastics in the forest glade. They lock you in, even as they swerve.

Lately, Olof’s been busy again: DJing melodic house and techno sets, producing floor-fillers (see Fever Ray and the collab with Diva Cruz), and releasing new solo music on AD93 and Hessle Audio – perhaps the giddiest stuff yet. 

Saturday afternoon party. 

Olof chops.

At 25 he has as many records as years on this earth.

Rap’s youngest old soul, MIKE ascended like subway steam, from underground wizkid to bonafide VIP. 

Cutting the edge of mid-teens dotcom rap with his [sLUms] collective, the mellifluous emcee born Michael Jordan Bonema, spun tops with his featherweight flow and world-weary rhymes. Breakout ​​May God Bless Your Hustle was a gargantuan flex, and he keeps raising the bar. Burning Desire. Links with The Alchemist, Tony Seltzer, Sister Nancy and Earl Sweatshirt. Building community with his annual Brooklyn festival, Young World.

And gee whiz does he put on a rap show.

Rollin up, rollin in. New York City’s MIKE.

Guten Morgen. Buongiorno. Buenos días. No matter which way you flip it, Good Morning sounds right at any time of the day. 

Stefan and Liam might be flung either side of the world these days, but not even the Atlantic can mess with chemistry this good. Seven albums in, the adored pair of Melbourne schoolmates turned band/duo/recording-thing keep scratching out new creative beats. Their latest packs up all those signature lo-fi indie sketches in favour of something full-body, fully out-of-the-comfort-zone. Ambitious, orchestral, it stretches riiiiiiiight out in a sandbox under the piano kinda way. Exquisite stuff.

Good Afternoon, Friday.

Like a trio of feral von Trapps, alive with the sound of riffage.

Siblings Apollonia, Antonis and Nikos. Born in Melbourne, raised in Crete. Just one EP and a coupla singles under their belt, the next-gen Xylorians have already cranked up a reputation to rival the Acropolis. They do gut-blasting punk at brain-shuddering volume, and their shows are The Shit.

Big in Greece, massive in The Sup’.

Guaranteed to light a fire in ya gut.

Cop a load of Frenzee. First on.

They could possibly be the most bonkers act we’ve ever given the keys to. 

Maximalist madness out of Barcelona: Mainline Magic Orchestra.

The Catalan trio have been firm friends since they met at a skate park as teens. Dressed like Klaus Nomi going undercover as a star-shaped marshmallow, their Boiler Room debut  climaxed with a band member magically cut in half.

The surreal live theatrics are somehow matched on record, with releases on Public Possession and Primavera Sound traversing colourful terrain, from wobbly summertime house, to trance and hard-groove techno. Homages to Balearic pop, the Mediterranean and Shrek.

Skateboarding Is Not A Crime. BDSM (BLISS, DREAMS, SOUL, MEMORIES). House Music 2 The W❤️rld. Their debut album, Harri Poter, comes with a prudent warning to “Enjoy it in moderation”.

Musicians or magicians? Find out, laaate Friday night.

Laaate Friday, it’s Good Static ’til stumps with local icon DJ PGZ.

Paul Gorrie is a Gunai/Kurnai/Yorta Yorta musician, DJ, artist, contemporary music producer and radio presenter, based in Naarm on Wurundjeri Country. Harnessing a deep love for underground club sounds from around the world, his sets (and 3RRR show) explore the contemporary works of Black and Brown producers in dance music. Expect hard techno with dark, sparse and bass-heavy drum syncopations, fusing into the vital PGZ blend. 

The Dance. Quality High. Hypnotic Suburbs. Shitkickers! Just a taste of his red hot releases on Butter Sessions, k7!, and Black Artist Database. 

We’re in for an absolute treat.

Gliding over Bluegums, the Tucker Tent line, and the third lantern to the left, straight to you.

Tori Zietsch crafts emotionally direct and woozily romantic songs under the moniker Maple Glider. 

Good Thing. Swimming. Friend. The whole of I Get Into Trouble. 

Songs that have served as an escape from a series of oppressive institutions: religion, enervating relationships, her own brain. Intimate, striking, velvety. Full of charm and power. Vocals melting into layers of acoustic guitar and lulling piano. Swooning and swelling – a vast catalogue upon which to forge new paths.

Like a bat out of heaven. Saturday.

On Saturday afternoon we make room to bloom. 

Precious Bloom are Aradea Barandana and Adinda Dwimadasari – a crate-digging producer and disco queen from Jakarta. Their sound bounces with new beat basslines and swerves with film-geek detours. It taps into the glory days of Indonesian city pop, back when chintzy western hits first met gamelan-inspired percussion and spread via mobile discos.

With a new 12” on Rush Hour, following their 2023 debut, they’re teaming up with a full band to help take our Saturday into The Next Phase. 

Get down if you want to move your arse, pump your knees and wave like plume grass in the summer breeze.

Direct from Gadigal Land. 

Here to close it down on Saturday night.

Not a DJ to be locked into genre, Ayebatonye finds the key and paves the path through soulful house, banging techno, jungle breaks, R&B melodies, and whatever the floor’s calling for.

Deep percussion and big drops are the only two certainties.

Kind of like how you know the sun’s going to rise. But, for the final push, you don’t necessarily know who you’ll see it with in The Sup’.

Or the shade of orange when the sun comes oop.

So, yeah, best bring your sunnies.

Light is incoming.

Keanu Nelson Tjakamarra is a Luritja singer songwriter who lives in Papunya (Warumpi), NT.

He grew up with the sounds of gospel and desert reggae, both of which resonate heavily with his songs, carrying themes of longing for Country.

In 2022, Keanu began recording and writing songs with the production of Yuta Matsumura (Th Blisks, Orion). This unique collaboration led to his debut album, Wilurarrakutu, released by Altered States Tapes. A gem of an album that places Keanu’s soulful, resonant vocals against the backdrop of Casio keyboard and dub productions. Sweeping up Album of the Week’s at community radio stations across the country, it has nestled into a treasured spot in many hearts and vinyl collections.

Keanu is also an arts worker and painter at the Papunya Tjupi Art Centre. He comes from a strong artistic family. He paints the Yalka Tjukurrpa (Bush Onion Dreaming) which was his grandfather, Liimpa Tjapangarti Puntungka’s, Tjukurrpa (Dreaming).

Making the trip from Warumpi, this will be a special one. Saturday.

2 globetrotting, party rocking, techno brats, here to Break It Down (On The Bassline).

Staples of the local underground, Sarah and Georgia have notched up a serious résumé over the last six years. Between them they wear the hats of Phenomena label boss, DJ mentorship programs, WIP Project, and Neurotiq Erotiq party makers, building bridges and dancefloors for those around them. With countless hours behind the decks of the country’s best clubs, they’ve finessed a DJ style as adept at sonic skull massages as dropping a Big One.

After two EPs of sophisticated slammers, they’ve teamed up with Confidence Man for a certified anthem. Night two in the 3333.

Are you IN2 it?

An indie-soul storyteller with a powerful, smoky-sweet voice.

Naarm-based Yara Alkurd migrated from Palestine, the land of olives and vines, when she was 12. She learnt English watching the Disney Channel and got guided down the forked road by the likes of Amy Winehouse, Lianne La Havas and Beyonce. 

Her debut EP is open-hearted R&B with no time for shit-talkers. Starry-eyed melodies cloaked in velvet-curtain sass.

Songs for lonely love affairs and Uber-ride lust. For that feeling you get when the past turns up in a new pair of shoes.

(Or runners caked in three-day dust, as the case may be.)

Fast, loose and warm. Like Sonic the Hedgehog flinging himself into the tropical void.

A young Melbourne band that’s got the spin kicks, power chords, tambourines and blown-out synths.  

Bill sings about video fuzz and living on the spectrum. Claims he just goes into a fugue state and ends up with the pay cheque at the end. But it’s obvious he splits the bill right.

This is snotty, paranoid garage-punk with a heart of gold lager. Saturday.

Cool Sounds for Part Time Punks.

The project of Australian pop polymath Dainis Lacey, with a live band that sees up to six musicians crowded around onstage. Across four albums to date, Cool Sounds move deftly through indie rock, 80s pop, cheerful funk and alt-country, with a lightness of touch that disguises Lacey’s thoughtful, perceptive songwriting. 

Chock-full of polished hooks and summer-y grooves. Like That, Cactus Country, the hits keep coming.

Follow the BUG0BEAT. Sunday.

Don Glori is an anagram of Gordon Li. 

A producer, composer and multi-instrumentalist who traverses jazz, funk, soul, R&B, samba and beyond. A syncopated mix of the sultry, the seductive and the spiritual. 

Originally from the genre-bending melting pot that is Naarm, and now based in London, the Don is back down for summer. Don’t Forget to Have Fun is his latest album, released on UK label Deep Matter.

Music that translates equally to the dance floor and the lounge room rug. And the slight incline of The Sup’.

Sunday, before the Gift.

Hot Tubs Time Machine are Marcus Rechsteiner and Daniel Twomey from Melbourne, Australia.

They’ve released four albums in as many years, on Spoilsport and sometimes Trouble In Mind. A delightful, bare-bones jaunt of a catalogue, awash with minimal bass, 808 beats, layers of synth, bright guitar and percussion, soundtracking the engaging, humorous and relatable stories taken from Marcus’ daily life.

Odes to A1 Bakery, bush enigma Button Man, Wu-Tang’s onstage chemistry and the indisputable fact that Dandenong Is Not In The Dandenongs.

They’ve both rocked The Sup’ in the past, Daniel with Deaf Wish and Marcus with UV Race. During the latter performance, someone took a DIY shower in soy milk.

Prepare the Time Machine. Hot Tubs with the last say on Sunday.

Sez.com.au. Comedian, Musician, Writer, Content Creator, Loo Reviewer.

And now, your MC for The Gift at Meredith Thirty Two. Which, after the weather-induced success of last year’s edition, has evolved into a power walking race.

Five foot nothing and armed with a guitar, mic and an ‘I don’t give a shit’ attitude, Sez invites her audience into the trenches to explore the world around her. Through stand-up, sketches, characters, and folk-pop songs, she has struck a chord all over.

One foot on the ground at all times please.

Like the jam in the middle that binds the whole thing together deliciously. The Interstitial DJs, known to surprise and delight in equal measure, are as crucial an ingredient to the Meredith adventure as any other.

Illuminating the between at Meredith Thirty Two are:

DJ Daddy & Bridget Small
Paul Main
Mon Sebire
O Honey
Lauren and Simon
Shio

Those magnificent folks in their almost-flying machine.

Now over 125 years old, and a popular fixture at Meredith since 2005. Starting with a march through the campsite, incorporating the Bugle Corp, then onto stage for a romp through old and new hits like Gonna Fly Now (Rocky theme), Bob The Builder, maybe something from Queen and a contemporary hit or two.