SAFE IN SOUND 2026: Day 2
Safe in Sound 2026: Inclusive Experimental Sound Event Returns to Melbourne
Safe in Sound, the celebrated experimental music event, is returning to Melbourne’s public venues for the fourth year, curated by renowned experimental artist and SIS Artistic Director Robbie Avenaim.
Presented in partnership and co-curated with Jolt Arts, Make It Up Club and Liquid Architecture, the festival showcases Melbourne’s thriving experimental music and sound art communities whilst providing a platform for mentored and professional artists with disabilities to perform alongside seasoned professional sound artists from around Australia.
Who's playing
Day 2
Sun 1 November
Jolted Arts Space - 342 High St Northcote, Melbourne
Doors: 4–9 pm
- Victor Meertens with the Noise Scavengers featuring: Astrid Meurer, Stuart Flenley and Esther Tuddenham — 4:40 pm
- Tête-à-tête, Anthony Riddell, Robbie Avenaim, Ernie Althoff, Jim Denley and Robyn McGrath and special guest Lucas Powell — 5:20 pm
- David Shea and Jay Euesden — 6:00 pm
- Karina Utomo, Steven Hagiliassis & Mat Watson — 6:45 pm
- MC Stuart Flenley with Charlie McCarthy
- DJs Antediluvian Rocking Horse & Astrid Hullick
Tickets
Day 1
Full Price: $30
Concession: $20
Day 2
Full Price: $20
Concession: $15
Weekend Pass $40
Support workers: Free
About the artists
Day 2
Sun 1 November · Jolted Arts Space - 342 High St Northcote, Melbourne
Victor Meertens with the Noise Scavengers featuring: Astrid Meurer, Stuart Flenley and Esther Tuddenham
4:40 pm
A meeting of sculpture, sound and invention. Legendary Australian sculptor, sound artist and experimental musician Victor Meertens brings decades of exploration with found materials, discarded objects and unconventional forms into dialogue with The Noise Scavengers' adventurous approach to sound.
Known for transforming industrial materials into expressive sculptural works, Victor's practice has always explored the hidden life of objects — their textures, histories and unexpected possibilities. Together with The Noise Scavengers, a collective of sound artists exploring the space between rock, electronics, improvisation and sound art, this collaboration turns objects, machines and materials into a living sonic environment.
Tête-à-tête, Anthony Riddell, Robbie Avenaim, Ernie Althoff, Jim Denley and Robyn McGrath and special guest Lucas Powell
5:20 pm
Ah... Good evening , Your table is ready.
It has been reserved exclusively for tonight's sonic dégustation. Whether the audience has reservations is entirely their affair.
Your waiter this evening, Mr Ernie, waits patiently in the wings. He's been instructed not to explain anything. Should he accidentally become helpful, please alert management immediately.
Tonight's menu is à la carte. There are no entrées, no mains and absolutely no dessert. Instead you'll be served a carefully curated sequence of vibrating metals, amplified objects, reluctant percussion, prepared mechanisms and sounds whose provenance remains delightfully uncertain.
Every course has been tasted for resonance rather than flavour.
Please refrain from feeding the instruments.
The bells are genuine. The whistles are mostly genuine. Everything else is subject to spontaneous revision.
We trust you'll find the evening both satisfying and impossible to digest.
Bon appétit.
David Shea and Jay Euesden
6:00 pm
David Shea and Jay Euesden come together in a deeply immersive meeting of sound, voice and vibration. David Shea is a vital figure in the legendary New York Downtown experimental music scene that exploded out of Manhattan's Lower East Side in the 1980s and 90s. A pupil of the iconic minimalist composer Morton Feldman, Shea became a premier sonic architect of the era. He radically elevated the sampler and turntable from hip-hop tools into legitimate instruments of high-art avant-garde composition. David Shea's long exploration of meditation,resonance and acoustic phenomena draws on the rich tones of Tibetan bowls,prepared piano and subtle sonic textures, creating spaces for deep listening and contemplation. Jay Euesden's trance-like vocals weave through this landscape, creating a hypnotic interplay of voice, breath and sustained sound.
Together, they create a slow-burning sonic journey where ancient resonances meet experimental practice. A performance that invites audiences to listen differently — moving between meditation, improvisation and the transformative power of sound.
Karina Utomo, Steven Hagiliassis & Mat Watson
6:45 pm
Karina Utomo, Mat Watson and Stephen Hagiliassis collide in a live encounter where shattering electronics meet the human voice at its most primal.
Melbourne-based vocalist and composer Karina Utomo works across extreme metal, experimental music and avant-garde improvisation, pushing the voice into territories of distortion, noise and extra-normal voicing, with aspects of her practice informed by Javanese mythology and storytelling.
Mat Watson is a Naarm/Melbourne-based artist working across modular synthesis, drums and electronic composition. His practice explores the possibilities of electronic sound through improvisation, texture and process, moving between Kosmische-inspired electronics, noise, drone and large-scale experimental works.
Against and within this comes Stephen Hagiliassis’ extraordinary vocal practice, drawing on Greek folk traditions, prayer and chant, alongside the raw physical force of the scream. His voice moves between the ritualistic and meditative, visceral and confronting, carrying cultural memory alongside an immediate bodily presence.
Together, Hagiliassis, Utomo and Watson create a volatile landscape of voice, fractured electronics, shifting rhythms, distortion and noise—a sound world capable of erupting, collapsing and reassembling without warning.
Both days
31st Oct & 1st November · Drill Hall and Jolted Arts Space
Stuart Flenley with Charlie McCarthy
Master of Ceremonies
Taking on the prestigious role of Master of Ceremonies is Stuart Flenley — host, guide, commentator and keeper of festival order (at least in theory).
Joining Stuart is Charlie McCarthy, a charmingly opinionated ventriloquist doll following in the grand tradition of Charlie McCarthy — the legendary wooden wit who became one of the most famous figures in the history of ventriloquism.
Together, Stuart and Charlie will navigate the unpredictable world of Safe in Sound Festival, introducing artists, offering observations and attempting to maintain control over an event where anything can happen.
One has the microphone. One has the moving mouth. Neither can be completely trusted.
Expect charm, chaos and a little wooden wisdom.
Appearing both on the 31st Oct and 1st Nov
31st Oct & 1st Nov · Footscray Drill Hall & Jolted Arts Northcote
DJ Antediluvian Rocking Horse & Astrid Bolcskey Hullick
DJ 2 (aka Paul Wain), from the legendary duo DJs Antediluvian Rocking Horse, joins forces with Astrid Bolcskey-Hullick
Spinning records and specially prepared records side by side, Paul and Astrid will constantly interrupt, collide with and hijack each other’s mixes—layering beats over noise, sound effects over songs, and records over records.
Part DJ battle, part improvised sound collage, the pair will build an eclectic, unpredictable and increasingly tangled mix, where interruption becomes composition and almost anything might find its way onto the turntables.
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