After what was a rowdy New Year's Eve for thousands of scattered attendees, Melbourne nursed its wounds with a taste of the good life at Sun Cycle New Year's Day.
As punters poured into the Coburg Velodrome that blissful sunny afternoon (1 January), the sounds of the Now Here This All-Star Band set the stage for the night to come, with Sophie Forrest bringing the heat between the day's early sets.Miss Kaninna tore the afternoon wide open with a show ranging from sultry R&B to Rage Against The Machine-level rock, much of which was infused with equal parts hedonistic fire and a humanitarian, First Nations sense of purpose.
On record, her songs have a much more electronic, hip hop, and house production sound, which is why it was both surprising and refreshing to see every track performed with a full band. Supporting her fiery stage presence were two pitch-perfect backing singers, a bassist, guitarist, and live drums, all of which made for a raw and engaging experience.
Closing out the set with her popular single, 'Blak Britney', the band had the crowd pumped and loose. The track is one of only two songs officially released online from Miss Kaninna. Let's hope there's much to come in the New Year, as it's safe to say she left the crowd wanting plenty more.
Next, Melbourne's most relaxed psychedelic fusion groove group Mildlife took to the stage in style. Ever on the pulse, the band brought the perfect blend of electronic, jazz and funk to usher in the sunset.
Tunes such as the jiving 'Vapour' summoned the funk from the crowd, where 'The Magnificent Moon' evoked a more ethereal, cinematic, and psychedelic mood, transporting Sun Cycle to an outer-space disco on the planet known as Earth. Tracks integrating spaced-out arpeggiators, breathy harmonies and vocoder-driven vocal lines took the energy of Inner Orbit (the largest stage at the Sun Cycle event) into the next phase.
It's no wonder why Mildlife routinely bridge the gap between live bands and DJs at festival circuits. The group's depth of groove and bass-led instrumentation gives them a chameleon-like quality, standing out while blending in and working side by side with many genres.
After Mildlife on the main stage and Baby G's groovy DJ stocking stuffer, it was time for international jetsetter Erika de Casier to shine. A major standout at an event packed with brilliant artists, Erika de Casier's set conjured up a mixture of calming, captivating and danceable pop songs.
Filtered through the lens of numerous genres including house, trip hop and R&B, the influence of the likes of Aaliyah and Sade were complemented by deep rhythms laden with wind-chimes and harp samples on tracks as 'e-motions'. The song was backed by gentle images of water, perfectly complementing the lyrics. 'I'd cross the ocean / You wouldn't even cross puddles for me.'
Elsewhere, the set infused elements of drum & bass, with the group's incredible drummer rounding out the sound with a combination of sampled and live drum elements. More early 2000s hip hop-oriented tunes like 'Do My Thing' rode gracefully on this backbone, with a unique assortment of snare and kick sounds anchoring the songs through a kaleidoscope of sounds. But it was de Casier's smooth and honeyed voice that brought it all together, crafting the perfect union of hard-hitting groove and hypnotic vocals.
It was soon after Erika's set that, waiting in line for a drink, I overheard from a distant stage that this would be the last year of Sun Cycle. Sure enough, checking the event page, I noticed it was listed as the festival's fifth and final rotation.
Having been my personal first, this was disappointing to discover. It's always important to support smaller and middle-sized festivals, and as the evening progressed, it showed all the signs of a much beloved and popular event among all patrons.
And by no means was this an underpopulated event. The audience was seriously massive, packed with thousands of diverse and well-dressed partygoers. We even spotted the beautiful Nai Palm of Hiatus Kaiyote, hanging in the crowd for at least both Mildlife and Erika de Casier's sets.
A consistent highlight of Sun Cycle 2024 was the incredible energy brought in the spaces between main sets on the Inner Orbit stage by both its host for the evening, Cazeaux Oslo of Northside Records, and Naarm-based producer-DJ, Baby G.
The selector brought a relentlessly well-curated slathering of both deep cuts and classics, keeping the crowd happy with brilliant remixes and live mixes of such disco hits as the Diana Ross version of 'Ain't No Mountain High Enough' and 'Freak Like Me' by Adina Howard. In fact, this was where the NYD experience was felt in the most typical, yet perhaps rewarding sense, offering up a warmly received dose of familiar yet never overplayed classics.
Though the sunset took its time, it wasn't long before the evening crept in, nearing the night's final few acts. Over on the Body Heat stage, Objekt turned up the temperature, pushing the thermostat with blistering levels of heavy IDM electronica. Meanwhile, Marcellus Pittman brought the Simmer Down stage up a few steps, dropping intense beats throughout a stacked two-hour set.
At around a quarter to 10, The Chemical Brothers masterpiece 'Galvanise' had the whole place jumping. Back at Inner Orbit, Welsh electronic duo Overmono rang in the new with a slew of classics, bring both original and well-sampled material. With the stage both metaphorically and literally lit, tunes dropped in tandem with deliriously glitchy analog visuals. With fireworks overhead, deep house, techno, and plenty in-between gave way to the new year.
Much like any closing of one chapter and starting of a new, the festival gave fans plenty to look to forward to, and plenty to miss. Being the last Sun Cycle for the foreseeable future, there was a twinge of sadness as its final notes rang out into the night. But in glancing at the crowd of smiling faces and dancers from all walks, there was beauty abounding far beyond the melancholy – and that's the way it should be.
