The extraordinary fare served up in Hobart’s annual Dark Mofo Festival continues to astound and delight. Set in the dark mid-winter Hobart, the southernmost point in Australia, the Festival must be one of the most unique and eclectic festivals in the world, both in terms of its setting, its motifs and its events that deliberately …

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Dark Mofo, the world’s most extraordinary festival, returns to Hobart – the city on the edge of the world – in the middle of the deepest darkest winter from 7 through to 24 June. The Festival is a series of events, concerts, light shows and installations that deliberately encompasses the weird, the controversial, the obscure …

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The last time I saw Blixa Bargeld, the lead singer of Einstürzende Neubauten (literal translation “Falling New Buildings), he was moonlighting with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. He was a gaunt, terrifying presence on stage with a piercing, eviscerating stare and dressed in a rubber butcher’s apron and battering, not playing, guitar. Here in …

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There was a full moon, it was bitingly cold, there was siren-singing over loudspeakers at dusk with weird lights on the horizon across Hobart, the town at the edge of the southern world. The streets were filled with roaming packs moving from one art installation to another, amassing at the indulgent medieval Winter Feast and …

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Over the past few years, the city of Hobart in the Australian state of Tasmania has been transformed by the building of a privately-funded art museum called the Museum of New and Old Art (MONA) on the banks of the Derwent River. The museum has achieved international recognition for its innovative and eclectic collection and …

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‘Hell on Bent Street’, title track for Georgia Knight‘s forthcoming EP, is a prowling track that ebbs and flows with a visceral cutting edge, teetering on the brink of a dark chasm. The guitars clatter with an ominous intent over the driving rhythms, and Knight’s vocals are wrought with a resolute despair, from a whisper …

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A. Swayze and the Ghosts are undeniably one of Tasmanian’s finest exports (along with a horror-tinged brand of southern gothicism, unfiltered Gin and the Dark Mofo Festival) and create an immensely satisfying new wave punk affront that is both dynamic and visceral. Their debut album ‘Paid Salvation’, released back in 2020, was itself a long time …

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Like a patient etherised on a table, prior to the iconic Dark Mofo Festival it has been alleged that winter in Hobart showed little signs of life, with only a discernible pulse. And to push the analogy more than is strictly necessary – this year, Dark Mofo was undergoing restorative surgery – it was not …

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Mick Harvey, founding member of seminal and legendary bands, The Birthday Party and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, has made a profound and lasting contribution to indie music. His ability to write and co-write some of the classic songs of these bands have only been matched by his cool and collective demeanour – a …

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Kid Congo & the Pink Monkey Birds are in the middle of a tour of Australia and I caught up with the irrepressible Kid Congo Powers on the the day before he ventured to the deep south to play in Hobart. Born Brian Tristan, Kid likes to be called Kid – even my sister calls …

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