Music
Dark Mofo 2018: Pushing boundaries at the end of the earth
Apply your earplugs: Australia’s world-class winter festival doesn’t do things by halves.
It’s hard to describe Dark Mofo on paper without it seeming like an impossible proposition. The festival itself, a winter celebration of the darkly vision birthed by David Walsh’s Mona, is more than a sum of its parts – and its parts are overwhelmingly plentiful, ranging from music, installation, discussion, performance, and an over-arching all-in spirit that blankets the entirety of Hobart with a red hue.
Even focussing purely on the music program of Dark Mofo, now in its fifth year, is a formidable task. Stylistically, the lineup fits under a broad church. A loose ethos of ‘anything goes’ is threaded by a common trait of boundary-pushing artists, ranging from up-and-comers to certified legends such as Laurie Anderson.
We take you on a genre-by-genre run-through of what we saw at Dark Mofo 2018.
Madchester and house
Down at the wharf, MAC2 proved to be a versatile venue placed between the family-friendly Dark Park and Winter Feast playgrounds. Intuitive lighting arrangements managed to constrict and expand the space within. For Red Bull Music’s Jagwar Ma headlined night, the place felt massive. Jagwar Ma sent a vibrant pulse throughout a sea of flailing arms, wheeling out hits Man In Me, Come Save Me, and OB1. Plus a bit of dub thrown in for good measure with Another Dub In The Sun.
To cap the night off, renowned Melbourne selector Tornado Wallace kept the fire burning, sparked earlier by DJ sets from Lauren Hansom and a live showing from No Zu, well into the night. Check out the photos and full report here. Listen to Tornado Wallace's Red Bull Radio Choice Mix here.
And at each iteration of Night Mass, dance sets proliferated throughout bunkers, alleys, and pretty much anywhere that could house a PA, right through past sunrise.
Metal
Folding metal into what is not specifically a metal lineup is usually a tricky prospect. Dark Mofo embraces the genre as an ace in the hole, attracting a pilgrimage of metal fans for its Hymns To The Dead program. Metal works in Tassie, facilitating influential local artists and visiting acts alike. At Hymns To The Dead, Polish outfit Batushka relished a lengthy liturgical ceremony before launching into stoic and commanding black metal.
In the previous week, Melbourne outfit High Tension celebrated their album release day at Night Mass, shredding through Purge with blistering aplomb led by singer Katrina Utomo.
Leading into the final weekend, a dose of stoner metal with Electric Wizard triumphant
Noise
Performing and recording for close to four decades, Japanese artist Merzbow is rightly regarded as one of the most iconic purveyors of noise. At Dark Mofo, he graced the eclectic Borderlands bill (taking place at MAC2) with a powerhouse set of searing noise. It was a perfect platform as any, the sizeable room drenched in blood-red light and blinding strobe. A break in the set led to what could be described as calls for an encore, which Merzbow dutifully obliged.
Merzbow at Dark Mofo
© Dark Mofo/Jesse Hunniford
IDM
Arguably the most influential name in IDM (the counterpoint to the argument being Aphex Twin), ground-breaking UK duo Autechre heightened senses at MAC2 by depriving one of them. The room remained in complete darkness for the entirety of the performance, each subtle electronic click and glitch resonating with due impact.
Pop
Did you know that in 2014, mainstream pop superstars Coldplay were in line for an appearance at Dark Mofo, at MAC2, only to be thwarted by Hobart Airport’s inability to unload their performance gear? Pop may be the unlikeliest of genres to experience at Dark Mofo, but it was present in alternative forms. St Vincent managed to showcase her slick Jack Antonoff-produced new album Masseduction in full.
Kiwi sensation Marlon Williams won hearts with his golden-age pop croon, both in a headline performance at Odeon Theatre, and a looser appearance at The Bang Bang Bar as part of the Night Mass program. Alice Glass’s hectic DJ set climaxed with a happy hardcore remix of tATu’s All The Things She Said.
Dark Mofo also marked the first headline appearance by Melbourne's Laura Jean since the release of her pop-focussed new album Devotion, performing tracks from the record with a full band at The Avalon Theatre – with Laura rekindling her affinity for the saxophone to wonderful effect.
Drone
An installation piece taking place upstairs at Domain House, Lou Reed: Drones featured the late musician’s guitars and amps in a semi-circle array, feeding an overbearing hum throughout the space as a mirror ball painted the walls with red dots. On entry, we’re told that a minimum of 15 minutes is recommended for optimal experience. It’s true, a meditative aspect to the physicality of the noise projected by the amps.
Ambient
At Borderlands, William Basinski was resplendent as he introduced his works On Time Out Of Time – an ode to black holes colliding. The result was calm, powerful, and celestial. After an enthralling showpiece of sound, Basinski graciously thanked the crowd and gave invitation (to those who had tickets to the sold-out event – I did not) for an orchestral performance of his most notable work The Disintegration Loops, taking place on the final night of the festival. A joke about not wanting to carry his merch across the globe was backed up with a call to support local record shop Tommy Gun, which showcased the album in their shopfront (to Baskinski’s delight).
William Basinski
© Dark Mofo/Jesse Hunniford
Folk
The Lynchian love affair of this year's Dark Mofo wasn't really explicated during Kiwi folk exponent Tiny Ruins' set, despite her previous collaboration with the auteur. The Avalon Theatre was treated to mostly new material from Tiny Ruins' upcoming new album. Beforehand, Melbourne's Jess Ribeiro won hearts in solo mode with renditions of material from her 2015 album Kill It Yourself.
A Lynchian influence
While not quite a genre unto itself, Dark Mofo this year took the idea of Lynchian music and took it to its logical extreme. A fixture of the four nights of Night Mass, The Bang Bang Bar was modelled after its Twin Peaks namesake, with acts booked accordingly. Marlon Williams fit the bill with his recent Roy Orbison inflections. Rebekah Del Rio performed in the dress she wore during her appearance in Twin Peaks: The Return, and performed her iconic rendition of Llorando, which formed the lynchpin (pun intended) of Mulholland Drive. Zola Jesus cut loose in The Bang Bang Bar, floating up like The Fireman while crowdsurfing. A Lynch collaborator on screen and in song, Chrysta Bell joined Del Rio to close out the festival at The Avalon Theatre.