Efficient Space presents a long-overdue Sydney performance of Yuta Matsumura’s Red Ribbon at The Vanguard on Saturday 30 May. Also known for work with The Lewers, Th Blisks, Keanu Nelson + a litany of other projects, the lauded solo LP of hypnagogic art rock + crawl-space chamber-pop was released via Low Company in 2022. Matsumura is joined by album collaborators Laurence Quinn, Maeve Parker + Haruka Sato, alongside Matthew Spisbah, to realise this sideways suite live.
Support from fellow Lewer Itchy Bugger. Red-eyed, self-deprecating loner pop driven by drum machine, with two Low Company albums to his name - Done One (2018) + Double Bugger (2019). He agreed to play this show while fishing. Early arrival will be rewarded with D-Grade on the interstitial rituals. 7:30PM-10:30PM.
Art by @studiovinciguerra + @manzac_future@dgradeknockoff@vanguardnewtown
Efficient Space continues to bind its mind with Altered States Tapes, offering another service to How So?, Th Blisks’ 2022 debut in home-cooked experimentation. A blurring of three vastly different heads into a single disjointed, but fluid organism, How So? finds Yuta Matsumura (The Lewers, Keanu Nelson), Amelia Besseny (Troth, Impatiens) + Cooper Bowman (Troth, CD3) working with vocals, melodica, deeply pulled samples, guitar, drum machine, synths + resourceful percussion. An Elixa-blueprint of sideways ambient rituals, fog-thick melodica dub + paranoid trip hop by way of Sydney’s pioneering industrial collagists, the LP recirculates beyond its original 150-copy confines on Friday 30 January (in sync with our party at Miscellania) for those who missed its first apparition.
@manzac_future@heavenly.wine.and.roses
Design by @studiovinciguerra
Finally emerging from a house move to belatedly share that Bhairavi Raman & Nanthesh Sivarajah’s debut LP Syncretic is out now. Some might recognise the Tamil duo’s levitational work from Searchlight Moonbeam. Bhairavi is a Carnatic + Western violinist, while Nanthesh plays mridangam, a double-sided drum with buffalo, cow + goat skin heads that give their music its complex tonal centre. Their contemporary expansion of guru-led classical practice was realised at Mikey Young’s studio, complemented by artwork from LA-based South Indian artist @radha.v .
📸 @chipmooney
Back in the ’90s, Hydroplane weren’t as loved locally as you might expect. Struggling to secure a second show at the Punters Club, house parties became their natural habitat. Footage from one such gathering in 1997 has quietly surfaced on YouTube. 🕯️
Polaroids + pics from last month’s session with Atone at Tender. The only way to hear Atone’s cache of unreleased material, a comically honest Q&A + a phenomenal opening set from scene queen Emelyne.
📸 by @karl_halliday
Pel Mel perform No Word From China live during a party sequence in Going Down, Haydn Keenan’s 1982 debut feature. A blindspot in Australian independent cinema + post-punk history, it’s satisfying to see this true-to-period portrait of four friends cohabiting on the brink in suburban Sydney finally rectified through a 4K restoration. Can vouch for its brilliance. See it on screen during its mid-May national run courtesy of @smartstreetfilms .
Tracing Atone’s stacked catalogue of essential local electronica, 1993–2025. Releases span Clan Analogue, Zónar, Creative Vibes + Tonal Oceans, much of it sitting right under your nose on Bandcamp.
We’ve managed to smoke Atone out of Sydney for a special DJ set + Q&A at Tender next Friday 24 April!🚨
@atone________@tender_place_@clananalogue@tonaloceans
Efficient Space invites electronic dub outlaw Atone for Chapter Three of its 10th anniversary series at Tender on Friday 24 April.
Atone’s totemic catalogue ranks among the most vital works in Australian electronica, from spliff-billowing dub to mutant bass, proto-illbient + off-axis streetsoul. Now the solo project of Mancunian transplant Andy Fitzgerald, it began in the early ’90s as a collaboration with Ali Omar, who also relocated to Sydney after time spent living together in the UK. That link persists beyond Omar’s passing in 2009, with Fitzgerald revisiting the acapellas left behind, most recently on last year’s self-released fifteenth album (tip!). An unfiltered raconteur best met with a microphone, Fitzgerald carries stories of roadying for The Slits, playing The Haçienda, + the halcyon days of Australia’s CD underground, shared across this one-off Q&A + DJ set.
Support comes from scene angel + PBS FM’s The Blend co-host Emelyne. 7PM–11PM. Limited tix now available at RA.
@tender_place_@atone________@extr.emelyne
Kenji Takimi touches down this weekend for a pair of happenings at @abercrombie.sydney + @otoya_bar .
His 8th innings in 14 years, Kenji forever keeps me guessing with his baggage allowance. This week’s new club arrivals meet white label bootlegs, overlooked remixes, neo-acoustic B-sides, big nostalgic FM curveballs + thoughtful lyric deployment ~ all served in that maniac, fix-it-in-the-mix style. The ultimate payoff is always his biblical closing tracks ~ a UK gothic pop cover of I Feel Love, garage house ecstasy + The Velvets’ Sunday Morning (5AM at Golden Plains) still hit. What’s he packing this turn?
Flyer by @twowhiteopals
Lineup + set times for all the freaks on Sunday. Catch the Australian tour finale for Ariwa boss Mad Professor, performing live dub alchemy on an expanded YL Hooi (Valya YL Hooi, Tarquin Manek + special guest Rama Parwata on percussion), followed by an extended solo session. Yunzero rounds out this bonkers bill with an opening DJ/visual set.
Keanu Nelson’s at Sydney Observatory last month would have to be one of his standout shows so far. Two sets including one built entirely from previously unheard material previewing album two (!).
Among the museum’s collection are meteorite fragments from Henbury in the Northern Territory ~ remnants of a 4,200-year-old impact site that Luritja people recount as the “fire devil” descending from the sun, removed from Country by colonial scientists in the early 20th century. ☄️
@manzac_future@spinifex_moments@powerhousemuseum
