A new festival embracing everything from pioneering musicians to post-genre artists, ΩHM Festival Of Other Music offers an innovative programme and cultural experience at Brisbane Powerhouse across two months in early 2023.
The line-up features Baltimore indie alternative act Future Islands, feminist icon and pop provocateur Peaches, Flying Nun jangle pop legends The Chills, British musician, author and poet Kae Tempest, English jazz fusion-math rock black midi, London-based South African singer, songwriter, actor, and novelist Nakhane who'll each headline their own concert, plus much more.ΩHM (pronounced OHM) is curated by Lawrence English (founder of independent Australian label Room40) and Brisbane Powerhouse Arts Program Director Brad Spolding.
"As the leader of contemporary art and culture in Queensland, we're bringing some of the world's most innovative creators and performers to Brisbane," Brisbane Powerhouse CEO/ Artistic Director Kate Gould says.
"Building on the cultural legacy of our iconic venue, audiences can expect to see more inspired art that agitates and connects."
According to English, ΩHM traces the lines between practices that fall beyond the usual realms and genres we encounter.
"Works like Zimoun's kinetic sound sculptures, Robin Fox's expansive audiovisual laser environments and Hear My Eyes: Pan's Labyrinth x Sleep D exist at a special nexus of sight, sound and space," English says.
"These dynamic pieces capture intensity and energy matched with a fearless sense of focus. The works are simply mind-blowing."
Other highlights of the ΩHM programme includes the latest venture from Hear My Eyes (No Country For Old Men x Tropical F*ck Storm and Suspiria x King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard) who have collaborated with Melbourne underground act Sleep D who'll perform live the soundtrack to Guillermo del Toro's Academy Award-winning movie 'Pan's Labyrinth'.
Enter a space of epic proportions with large-scale audio-visual creations that merge light, laser and sound when Robin Fox presents the Australian premiere of 'Triptych' that's described as an audio-visual space-time carving.
Yann Novak is an interdisciplinary artist and composer whose work is guided by his unique perspective as a queer autodidact. Informed by his partial colour blindness and dyslexia, Novak uses sound and light to explore how these intangible materials can act as catalysts to focus our awareness on our own direct experience.
The work of New Zealand-based Iranian sound artist mHz (aka Mo H. Zareei) highlights the beauty in the basics of sound and light production and audio-visual elements that draw inspiration from material and architecture.
In what will be his first time exhibiting to Australian audiences exclusively for ΩHM, Swiss artist Zimoun presents Material Concerns. Zimoun builds architecturally-minded platforms of sound using commonplace industrial objects such as cardboard, DC motors, cables, welding wire, wooden spars or ventilators, and develops small apparatuses which generate a tonal and visual complexity once activated.
ΩHM Festival Of Other Music takes place at Brisbane Powerhouse throughout February and March 2023.
ΩHM Festival Of Other Music 2023 Line-up
Wed 15 Feb - The ChillsFri 17 Feb - Peaches
Sat 18 Feb - Future Islands
Tue 21 Feb - Kae Tempest
Sat 4 Mar - Nakhane
Fri 24 Mar - Hear My Eyes: Pan's Labyrinth x Sleep D
Sat 25 Mar - Monolake & Electric Indigo
Thu 30 Mar - Black Midi
Fri 31 Mar - Robin Fox, Yann Novak & mHz
Mar-Apr - Zimoun
