HAPPY NEW YEAR!
May your evenings be filled with joy, transformations & hedonistic abandon, and your hangovers be mild....
WHAT A YEAR 2024 WAS.
This year it felt like we really levelled up the shows & found some amazing collaborators & artists. We rebranded from Sex Ropes & Rock’n’Roll to Flesh Rituals & Siren Songs, and found a new home in Melbourne at Stay Gold!
These events are the shows that I would want to attend, the birthing of imaginative collaborations, connections & beautiful, chaotic magics. An act of resistance in a world that wants to sanitise & package comfortable, safe & homogenous experiences. I want us to dance along the edges, lock eyes & truly see each other & the raw joy, ugliness & uniqueness of each other’s souls.
Feeling truly lucky to be surrounded by so much talent, artistry & determination as well as truly good people, & I just want to say a deep, heartfelt thank you to everyone involved with this project in 2024.
Enryka & Cheap Coffins - you were there from the start & we love you dearly! Amazing music from SVLEM, Buzz Kull, The Safety Word, The Omega Point, ZCluster & Dane Blacklock & the Preacher's Daughter!
Our talented performers were the ever present Infernal Desire Machine, Precipice Malum, Mistress Tokyo, Baby Voodoo, Von Riga Kinbaku 緊縛, Mistress Sin, Himboy, Red Rakia Dance & Erodisi.
Special gratitude to BonnieQueans Photography, Lux & Lumens, Photoyunist, Nicholas Bexter Photography & I love it LIVE for capturing these precious moments in still & moving images!
Thanks to the venues who support & condone these wild nights, The Vanguard in Newtown (NSW) & Stay Gold in Brunswick (VIC) - without your support we literally couldn’t do this.
For the first time we included DJ’s - Koil Statik & Syme Tollens saw out the night at the Melbourne Flesh Rituals & Siren Songs.
Giant hugs & thanks to Demasque Magazine for supporting us from the beginning, & places like Max Black, Eagle Leather, Lucrezia & De Sade & Sax Fetish for promoting our events.
An extra special thanks to Carina Rosenoire for their ongoing work in promotion & admin, & to my beloved Eve X for diving into the depths with me on yet another wild project!
2025 is going to bring bigger & better things, but we’re going to take a break to gather our energies to create the next beautiful monstrosity.
Much love, & look forward to more hedonistic explorations of art, temptation & sin ❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥
THE SOFT MACHINE