Hear The Machine

Volume #2 of the ongoing HTM compilation series is here!!! Check it out: /album/hear-the-machine-volume-2 Featuring artists from the 2025 concert series, and artwork designed by the excellent Luke Kerr aka @rats.in.paradise

Join us for the twentieth edition of HEAR THE MACHINE, a monthly series showcasing experimental synthesiser music, including drone, ambient, noise, and other electronic music practices being explored by artists in Naarm and the wider community. HEAR THE MACHINE happens on the last Sunday of the month, at Nighthawks Bar - 136 Johnston street Collingwood. HEAR THE MACHINE #20 May 31st 2026 7pm doors $15/10 (no presales) The artists: r hunter. r hunter is the production project of Naarm-based artist Asher Elazary. His work navigates the tangled landscape of technology, neurosis, and desire, connecting the ruptures between computer music, deconstructed club, drone, and ambient. Informed by improvisation and collaborative exchange, r hunter’s practice is both intimate and fragmented, exploring moments of musical instability through shifting textures and abstract rhythmic frameworks. Robinson & Robertson Robinson & Robertson are an electroacoustic duo consisting of Jaslyn Robertson (Drealm, WE1XAM) and Robinson Watt (HOT PISS). They will be presenting the second iteration of their performance piece for electronics, service bell and chess clock. DyLAB DyLAB, a UK-born acid producer now based in Melbourne, draws on roots in the free party scene. His DIY background informs a practical yet creative production style. dyLAB will be performing a live rework of his Detroit Underground release Mechanization Singularity. This set will be a textural, ambient detour built from acid fragments manipulated in real time, in an attempt to create an evolving, immersive soundscape. We acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, the true owners and custodians of the land where this event takes place. Always was. Always will be.

Introducing Justin Ashworth and Abi Lee, performing this Sunday, April 26th at HEAR THE MACHINE. Abi grew up with a love of music, taking up piano at age 5. In 2021, she relocated from Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland to Naarm/Melbourne drawn by her love of Australian Jazz. She has become well known as an emerging pianist and artist in Naarm, performing her original music regularly. Her musical voice and improvisational approach are reminiscent of pianists Paul Bley and Keith Jarrett. In this collaboration Abi will be exploring the possibilities with the sounds of the Korg poly800 Justin Ashworth has been haunting the fringes of the Melbourne experimental music scene for over 25 years, in the bands Glasfrosch, and of, or pertaining to… and spearheading projects and events including Little Songs of the Mutilated and Hear The Machine. His current obsessions involve modular synthesis, rhythmic minimalism, and the aesthetic extremes of ambient and noise musics. For this collaboration Justin will be exploring the rhythmic possibilities of a small generative eurorack system patched to interact with Abi’s actual musicality.

Introducing Kristin a Behrsin, performing this Sunday April 26th at HEAR THE MACHINE. Kristina is a multi-instrumentalist, performer, composer, and music educator. She has been performing since the age of four and has explored various performance styles and approaches, from avalanche pop to bespoke instrument building and scoring, and avant‑garde electronica. Her untrained, raw vocal technique blends with her use of both analogue and digital synthesisers to create hyper-dynamic works guided by her love of minimalist electronic composing approaches and abstract beat‑building. Kristina has composed synthesiser parts for her own works, often under the moniker Niine, and has played keyboards for bands such as Jolistics, Tamar Murphy and the Golden Retrievers, Brian Campeau, The Terrifying Lows, Messy Mammals, and BLUME.

Introducing Mallee Songs, performing this Sunday April 26th at HEAR THE MACHINE. Mallee Songs is the fifteen-year musical project of Michael Skinner, alongside frequent collaborators Casey Harnett and Pascal Babare. Across four albums, the group has moved through ambient folk and psychedelic country to arrive at Instrumentals—a suite of synth-based pieces balancing analog warmth with glassy digital shimmer. Michael and Casey will perform in this vein for Hear the Machine on April 26

Join us for the ninteenth edition of HEAR THE MACHINE, a monthly series showcasing experimental synthesiser music, including drone, ambient, noise, and other electronic music practices being explored by artists in Naarm and the wider community. HEAR THE MACHINE happens on the last Sunday of the month, at Nighthawks Bar - 136 Johnston street Collingwood. HEAR THE MACHINE #19 April 26th 2026 7pm doors $15/10 (no presales) The artists: Mallee Songs. Mallee Songs is the fifteen-year musical project of Michael Skinner, alongside frequent collaborators Casey Harnett and Pascal Babare. Across four albums, the group has moved through ambient folk and psychedelic country to arrive at Instrumentals—a suite of synth-based pieces balancing analog warmth with glassy digital shimmer. Michael and Casey will perform in this vein for Hear the Machine on April 26. Kristina Behrsin. Kristina is a multi-instrumentalist, performer, composer, and music educator. She has been performing since the age of four and has explored styles from avalanche pop to bespoke instrument building and scoring, and avant‑garde electronica. Kristina has composed synthesiser parts for her own works, often under the moniker Niine, and has played keyboards for bands such as Jolistics, Tamar Murphy and the Golden Retrievers, Brian Campeau, The Terrifying Lows, Messy Mammals, and BLUME. Justin Ashworth & Abi Lee. Abi grew up with a love of music, taking up piano at age 5. In 2021, she relocated from Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland to Naarm/Melbourne drawn by her love of Australian Jazz. In this collaboration Abi will be exploring the possibilities with the sounds of the Korg poly800. Justin Ashworth has been haunting the fringes of the Melbourne experimental music scene for over 25 years, spearheading projects and events including Little Songs of the Mutilated and Hear The Machine. For this collaboration Justin will be exploring the rhythmic possibilities of a small generative eurorack system. We acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, the true owners and custodians of the land where this event takes place. Always was. Always will be.

Introducing TAK aka Todd Anderson-Kunert. Performing this Sunday March 29th at HEAR THE MACHINE. Todd Anderson-Kunert (TAK) is a sound artist, who works across performance, installation, and releases. Common to all these is an exploration of texture, frequency and silence, and a curiosity about how sound can convey emotion/s. He also hand makes stereo & custom contact microphones. To see and hear things visit:

Introducing Jannah Quill. Performing this Sunday March 29th at HEAR THE MACHINE. Jannah Quill is a Naarm-based multi-disciplinary artist who critically expands the possibilities of electronic technologies to present boundary-pushing works of experimental music, audio-visual installation and sound art. She is a notable figure in contemporary modular synthesiser music in Australia, undertaking several projects with Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio and a coveted residency at Elektronmusikstudion in Stockholm. She carves a uniquely feminine voice in this field, through her longstanding and sensitive practice on the historically significant synthesiser, The Buchla and ongoing research into intuitive composition and its relationality to generative computational histories. She has been widely acknowledged for innovative methods of transmuting light into audio in her radical audio-visual practice, with major presentations at Soft Centre Festival, Arts House and The Lab. Jannah has been platformed by several major arts festivals including Liquid Architecture, Unsound, Now or Never, Rising and Underbelly Arts and presented at Melbourne Recital Centre, AGNSW, Museum of Contemporary Art, The Substation, Arts Centre Melbourne, Ian Potter Museum of Art, Artspace, ACMI, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (TW), Ting Shou Hear Say (TW), Korner (TW), Kyoto Art Center (JP), Forest Limit (JP), Fruity Space (CH) and Nonagon (SE) among others. On top of a thriving individual practice, Jannah has lent her distinctive voice to many collaborations, including several projects with Australian experimental lighting designer House of Vnholy and numerous improvisatory experimental performances with leading musicians including Fujui Wang (TW), Chris Corsano (US), Rohan Rebeiro and Kusum Normoyle. She has contributed sound design for choreographers Sarah Aiken, Bec Jensen and Anna Seymour and released music on independent record labels Sumac, New Weird Australia, Paradise Daily and Body Promise. photo credit: KeelanO'Hehir

Introducing Tilman Robinson. Performing this Sunday, March 29th at HEAR THE MACHINE. Tilman Robinson is a composer, producer and sound designer. He creates dark ambient and maximalist electro-acoustic music drawing from a wide musical palette. Tilman’s diverse output focuses on the psychological impact of dense sound incorporating acousmatics and psychoacoustic principles. His music ranges from drone heavy ambient meditations, to pointillistic flurries of electronically altered acoustic sound, to rich immersive field recordings. Tilman has released several albums and has worked extensively as a cross art-form collaborator for well over a decade. He is one of the most in-demand creative professionals in his field, having contributed scores and sound design to innumerable artworks, events, films and television.

Join us for the eighteenth edition of HEAR THE MACHINE, a monthly series showcasing experimental synthesiser music, including drone, ambient, noise, and other electronic music practices being explored by artists in Naarm and the wider community. HEAR THE MACHINE happens on the last Sunday of the month, at Nighthawks Bar - 136 Johnston street Collingwood. HEAR THE MACHINE #18 March 29th 2026 7pm doors $15/10 (no presales) The artists: Todd Anderson-Kunert (TAK). Todd Anderson-Kunert (TAK) is a sound artist, who works across performance, installation, and releases. Common to all these is an exploration of texture, frequency and silence, and a curiosity about how sound can convey emotion/s. He also hand makes stereo & custom contact microphones. To see and hear things visit: Jannah Quill. Jannah Quill has been making experimental electronic music and systems based audio visual installation and sound art for over a decade. Her sound is shaped at the intersection of computer music and modular synthesis, combining complex and considered rhythm making with synthesiser experimentation. /album/jannah-quill Tilman Robinson. Tilman Robinson is a composer, producer and sound designer. He creates dark ambient and maximalist electro-acoustic music drawing from a wide musical palette. Tilman’s diverse output focuses on the psychological impact of dense sound incorporating acousmatics and psychoacoustic principles. His music ranges from drone heavy ambient meditations, to pointillistic flurries of electronically altered acoustic sound, to rich immersive field recordings. / We acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, the true owners and custodians of the land where this event takes place. Always was. Always will be.

Introducing Null Hypothesis & Pathological Function, performing as a duo this Sunday Feb 22nd at HEAR THE MACHINE. null hypothesis is a SERIOUS artist, weaving kaleidoscopic rants of odd time signatures and deep dive sound design... with gabber kicks and donks. Notable performances include Bangface, Breakcore Gives Me Wood, Fuk the Borders and Soft Centre. pathological function works with ambient industrial sounds and is bringing a keytar.

Introducing Ciarán Geoghegan, performing this Sunday Feb 22nd at HEAR THE MACHINE. Ciarán Geoghegan performs under his own name for the first time in several years, stepping out of the shadows of their more darker/extreme sound projects to present a set of ambient drone electronic excursions!