Ecstatic, extreme and staunchly experimental, Soft Centre returns to Carriageworks for another full precinct takeover on Sun 11 Jun. Traversing leftfield club, noise and ambient music, contemporary dance and endurance performances, immersive A/V concerts, cutting-edge digital art and large-scale lightworks, Soft Centre is a multi-sensory festival experience unlike any other.
1pm: Doors open
Tickets: $109 + fee
A transaction fee of $4.40 applies to all bookings.
Tickets: $109 + fee
A transaction fee of $4.40 applies to all bookings.
For ticketing enquiries, please contact our Box Office on (02) 8571 9099 or via email at info@carriageworks.com.au
This is an 18+ event. Proof of age will be required for entry.
Tickets will only be available through the Carriageworks website and Ticketbooth. Please DO NOT buy from any unauthorised re-sellers such as ViaGoGo, Ticketmaster resale, gumtree, eBay or otherwise. They are not authorised sellers and you may be refused entry. In NSW it is illegal to resell a ticket for more than 110% of the face value of the ticket, as regulated by NSW Fair Trading.
Once you purchase your tickets you will be emailed a ticket confirmation ONLY. Your E-ticket will be sent to your email address 48 hours ahead of the event.
This performance contains haze, loud music and flashing lights.
Carriageworks will host a pop-up bar and eatery in collaboration with Atomic, Orlando wine and Archie Rose Distilling Co. throughout the duration of the festival alongside a rotating list of Sydney DJs.
Ace Hotel Sydney and TFE Hotels, our local accommodation partners, are pleased to offer a 15% discount on room rates during Vivid Sydney. Book your room at the below link using the following codes to claim your discount:
Book now: Ace Hotel Sydney
Code: CCWORKS
Book now: TFE Hotels
Code: TH15555894
Presented by Carriageworks, Soft Centre and Vivid Sydney with Soft Centre Program Partners City of Sydney and CreateNSW, and Official Carriageworks Partners Atomic, Orlando and Archie Rose Distilling Co.
Media Partners: Broadsheet and FBi Radio.
Accommodation Partners: Ace Hotel Sydney and TFE Hotels
Amber McCartney x Tasdance pres. BABY GIRL
Amber is a Naarm/Melbourne-based dancer and choreographer. Her practice incorporates prosthetics, mask-making, film and practical special effects to create new augmented bodies foreign to both the performer and viewer. Amber has worked extensively with Chunky Move, Lucy Guerin Inc and is a creative associate of Tasdance.
Amber is a Naarm/Melbourne-based dancer and choreographer. Her practice incorporates prosthetics, mask-making, film and practical special effects to create new augmented bodies foreign to both the performer and viewer. Amber has worked extensively with Chunky Move, Lucy Guerin Inc and is a creative associate of Tasdance.
amby downs (live)
amby downs is an ambient/drone/noise project from Tahlia Palmer. Named after the Queensland station on which Palmer’s ancestors worked in servitude, amby downs combines distorted noise, cavernous reverberations, found sounds and field recordings. Immersive and challenging, these soundscapes invite listeners to interrogate their own relationship with colonised lands, waters and peoples.
amby downs is an ambient/drone/noise project from Tahlia Palmer. Named after the Queensland station on which Palmer’s ancestors worked in servitude, amby downs combines distorted noise, cavernous reverberations, found sounds and field recordings. Immersive and challenging, these soundscapes invite listeners to interrogate their own relationship with colonised lands, waters and peoples.
Amnesia Scanner x Freeka Tet: kaaos.in (live A/V) (FIN, FRA)
Amnesia Scanner is the Berlin-based Finnish duo Ville Haimala and Martti Kalliala. At Soft Centre, they will perform with NYC digital provocateur Freeka Tet to present a never-before-seen live A/V performance titled ‘kaoss.in’, fusing grotesque online aesthetics in hyper detailed 16K fantasy colours with AS’ signature avant EDM, lullabies, overheated doombahton and nu-metal-gabba.
Amnesia Scanner is the Berlin-based Finnish duo Ville Haimala and Martti Kalliala. At Soft Centre, they will perform with NYC digital provocateur Freeka Tet to present a never-before-seen live A/V performance titled ‘kaoss.in’, fusing grotesque online aesthetics in hyper detailed 16K fantasy colours with AS’ signature avant EDM, lullabies, overheated doombahton and nu-metal-gabba.
aya (live) (UK)
aya's work is primary concerned with the transfigurative power of experience and memory on the physical body. Her critically acclaimed debut album ‘I’m hole’ (Hyperdub) burns with raw autobiographical vignettes, contorting language, dialect, gender and sexuality between controlled bursts of rhythm, noise and aural goop.
aya's work is primary concerned with the transfigurative power of experience and memory on the physical body. Her critically acclaimed debut album ‘I’m hole’ (Hyperdub) burns with raw autobiographical vignettes, contorting language, dialect, gender and sexuality between controlled bursts of rhythm, noise and aural goop.
Bract x Bayang (tha Bushranger)
Industrial Doom band, Bract’s current work seeks to break away from the nihilism that often characterises heavy music, an attempt to find calm within the chaos of life and envision a future where the natural and industrial worlds exist in harmony. Bayang will be joining Bract to perform collaborative work that is dedicated to resistant Sydneysiders who grew up freely remixing punk, hip-hop, noise, gabber and delinquency.
Industrial Doom band, Bract’s current work seeks to break away from the nihilism that often characterises heavy music, an attempt to find calm within the chaos of life and envision a future where the natural and industrial worlds exist in harmony. Bayang will be joining Bract to perform collaborative work that is dedicated to resistant Sydneysiders who grew up freely remixing punk, hip-hop, noise, gabber and delinquency.
Corin x Tristan Jalleh pres. Lux Aeterna (live A/V)
Corin Ileto presents the Australian premiere of Lux Aeterna Live AV show featuring music from her forthcoming release ‘Lux Aeterna’ with accompanying visuals by video artist/director Tristan Jalleh. Lux Aeterna [translation ‘Eternal Light’ in latin] is a speculative fiction named after a choral work by Gyorgy Ligeti that appears in 2001:Space Odyssey.
Corin Ileto presents the Australian premiere of Lux Aeterna Live AV show featuring music from her forthcoming release ‘Lux Aeterna’ with accompanying visuals by video artist/director Tristan Jalleh. Lux Aeterna [translation ‘Eternal Light’ in latin] is a speculative fiction named after a choral work by Gyorgy Ligeti that appears in 2001:Space Odyssey.
Cutting Room
Cutting Room is a Melbourne based trio, comprised of vocalist Cosmo Feltham and producers Connor McCloud-Gibson and Eugene Brockmuller. A mainstay of the record label Steeplejack. Once described as techno-hooligans, Cutting Room’s sonic palette can be described as a high-tech, rock-laced amalgam of feedback, noise, post-digital sounds, and jolting rhythms. Expanding on the energy of their records, Cutting Room’s live performances are a highly charged experience that is accentuated by Cosmo’s enigmatic and frenetic stage presence.
Cutting Room is a Melbourne based trio, comprised of vocalist Cosmo Feltham and producers Connor McCloud-Gibson and Eugene Brockmuller. A mainstay of the record label Steeplejack. Once described as techno-hooligans, Cutting Room’s sonic palette can be described as a high-tech, rock-laced amalgam of feedback, noise, post-digital sounds, and jolting rhythms. Expanding on the energy of their records, Cutting Room’s live performances are a highly charged experience that is accentuated by Cosmo’s enigmatic and frenetic stage presence.
daine
Filipino-Australian artist daine is the new soundtrack for a disillusioned generation navigating life in an unforgiving world. Harbouring an almost obsessive passion for midwestern emo and skramz in the likes of Tigers Jaw, William Bonney, American Football and more, daine takes those references from the past and transposes them to something more future facing. Harnessing all the emotion that comes from those early 00s icons, Daine blends those wrought atmospheres with trap, hyperpop and a saccharine vocal that provides a bittersweet edge.
Filipino-Australian artist daine is the new soundtrack for a disillusioned generation navigating life in an unforgiving world. Harbouring an almost obsessive passion for midwestern emo and skramz in the likes of Tigers Jaw, William Bonney, American Football and more, daine takes those references from the past and transposes them to something more future facing. Harnessing all the emotion that comes from those early 00s icons, Daine blends those wrought atmospheres with trap, hyperpop and a saccharine vocal that provides a bittersweet edge.
D-Grade x Wingnut pres. Wings of D'sire
Wings of D’sire is the sonic bi-product of the friendship between party-enjoyers / closed-eyed dancers / Gadigal-based DJs / Boof organisers Maria Wang (D-Grade) and Liam Taylor (Wingnut). Inspired by a frenetic spectrum of bossy beautiful sounds, Wings of D’sire pursue dance music’s margins, circumnavigating us through waves of boisterous emotive sub-bass.
Wings of D’sire is the sonic bi-product of the friendship between party-enjoyers / closed-eyed dancers / Gadigal-based DJs / Boof organisers Maria Wang (D-Grade) and Liam Taylor (Wingnut). Inspired by a frenetic spectrum of bossy beautiful sounds, Wings of D’sire pursue dance music’s margins, circumnavigating us through waves of boisterous emotive sub-bass.
deli girls (USA)
Combining industrial dancefloor forms with nu-metal, rap and noise, Deli Girls is the brainchild of NYC’s Danny Orlowski. At Soft Centre, Orlowski will be joined by Las Vegas-born DJ-producer Hatechild. Motivated by activism as much as hardcore music and rave, Orlowski and Hatechild bring a unique energy to the DIY landscape, turning away from mindless image-led self-promotion in favour of incisive lyrical content and barbed dancefloor weaponry.
Combining industrial dancefloor forms with nu-metal, rap and noise, Deli Girls is the brainchild of NYC’s Danny Orlowski. At Soft Centre, Orlowski will be joined by Las Vegas-born DJ-producer Hatechild. Motivated by activism as much as hardcore music and rave, Orlowski and Hatechild bring a unique energy to the DIY landscape, turning away from mindless image-led self-promotion in favour of incisive lyrical content and barbed dancefloor weaponry.
Hand to Earth
Hand to Earth was formed in 2019 during a residency in the remote highlands of Tasmania. Yolgnu songmen, Daniel and David Wilfred, and Korean vocalist, Sunny Kim, developed an effortless rapport that spans continents and cultures and yet expresses a deeply human commonality.Their vocal approaches are melded into the electronic atmospheres created by trumpeter and composer, Peter Knight, who draws on the minimalism of Brian Eno and Jon Hassell to create a bed for these beautifully contrasting voices, along with clarinet virtuoso, Aviva Endean, and David Wilfred (yidaki). Hand to Earth was developed with, and originally produced by, the Australian Art Orchestra (AAO).
Hand to Earth was formed in 2019 during a residency in the remote highlands of Tasmania. Yolgnu songmen, Daniel and David Wilfred, and Korean vocalist, Sunny Kim, developed an effortless rapport that spans continents and cultures and yet expresses a deeply human commonality.Their vocal approaches are melded into the electronic atmospheres created by trumpeter and composer, Peter Knight, who draws on the minimalism of Brian Eno and Jon Hassell to create a bed for these beautifully contrasting voices, along with clarinet virtuoso, Aviva Endean, and David Wilfred (yidaki). Hand to Earth was developed with, and originally produced by, the Australian Art Orchestra (AAO).
BC by Harrison Hall, Sam Mcgilp, Naxs Future with PrairieWWWW (A/V)
BC is a choreographic work with (re)animated bodies, stretching the bounds of our newfound digital corporeality. It transmutes dance, motion capture and CG animation into a simultaneous, shared performance between Sydney and Taipei, in the flesh and online. Long time collaborators Harrison Hall and Sam Mcgilp will team up with NAXS FUTURE, a Taipei-based media art collective to present a hybrid live/digital dance work of impossible choreography, biomimicry and techno-morphology.
BC is a choreographic work with (re)animated bodies, stretching the bounds of our newfound digital corporeality. It transmutes dance, motion capture and CG animation into a simultaneous, shared performance between Sydney and Taipei, in the flesh and online. Long time collaborators Harrison Hall and Sam Mcgilp will team up with NAXS FUTURE, a Taipei-based media art collective to present a hybrid live/digital dance work of impossible choreography, biomimicry and techno-morphology.
Lydian Dunbar x Garden Reflexxx (live A/V)
Lydian Dunbar’s ambient assemblages mix Zoom and EMF recordings into meditative soundscapes accented by harmonica, melodica, synth, and modular. At SOFT CENTRE, Dunbar will be accompanied by Garden Reflexxx, the Queer filmmaker duo whose A/V creations upend mono-director banality, meditating on group play and experimental making. Their works cut resourcefully between improv, videographic imagination, spiritual logic, impulse, and the mistakes-curious family movie.
Lydian Dunbar’s ambient assemblages mix Zoom and EMF recordings into meditative soundscapes accented by harmonica, melodica, synth, and modular. At SOFT CENTRE, Dunbar will be accompanied by Garden Reflexxx, the Queer filmmaker duo whose A/V creations upend mono-director banality, meditating on group play and experimental making. Their works cut resourcefully between improv, videographic imagination, spiritual logic, impulse, and the mistakes-curious family movie.
mad miran (NLD)
A child of the Dutch underground, mad miran has been on an exceptional rise of late, playing stand out sets at the likes of Dekmantel Boiler Room, Solstice and Primavera. An infectious energy behind the decks, miran has an ear for leftfield novelties and obscurities, connecting strains of Electro, Bass music, IDM, Dubstep, and Breakcore.
A child of the Dutch underground, mad miran has been on an exceptional rise of late, playing stand out sets at the likes of Dekmantel Boiler Room, Solstice and Primavera. An infectious energy behind the decks, miran has an ear for leftfield novelties and obscurities, connecting strains of Electro, Bass music, IDM, Dubstep, and Breakcore.
Marcus Whale pres. Needlemouth (feat. Eugene Choi & Megan Hanson)
On the fifteenth night of the seventh lunar month, the gates of hell open and hungry ghosts cursed by insatiable desire enter our realm. "Needlemouth" depicts the quiet, tense realm of a mournfully singing hungry ghost (Marcus Whale) tormented by Yama, king of hell (Eugene Choi). Accompanying this dance of chains, bondage and yearning is the narration of a beloved grandfather's death. With costumes by Megan Hanson, "Needlemouth" imagines the unreachable void left by cultural silence.
On the fifteenth night of the seventh lunar month, the gates of hell open and hungry ghosts cursed by insatiable desire enter our realm. "Needlemouth" depicts the quiet, tense realm of a mournfully singing hungry ghost (Marcus Whale) tormented by Yama, king of hell (Eugene Choi). Accompanying this dance of chains, bondage and yearning is the narration of a beloved grandfather's death. With costumes by Megan Hanson, "Needlemouth" imagines the unreachable void left by cultural silence.
Nerdie
Nerdie is a producer, DJ and member of Korean-Australian hip hop group 1300. His DJ sets have gained notoriety for their unrelenting pace and spontaneity. Operating on Gadigal land, Nerdie's mixes mash modern releases with genre classics from digital hardcore and industrial terror. Expect hakken, clenched fists and gritted teeth.
Nerdie is a producer, DJ and member of Korean-Australian hip hop group 1300. His DJ sets have gained notoriety for their unrelenting pace and spontaneity. Operating on Gadigal land, Nerdie's mixes mash modern releases with genre classics from digital hardcore and industrial terror. Expect hakken, clenched fists and gritted teeth.
Sote x Tarik Barri pres. Majestic Noise (live A/V) (IRN, NLD)
Iranian electronic musician Sote and Dutch artist Tarik Barri, who is known for creating striking visuals for the likes of Thom Yorke and Nicolas Jaar, are coming together for a mesmerising audiovisual presentation of 'Majestic Noise Made in Beautiful Rotten Iran’, Sote’s record lreleased on Sub Rosa in 2022. Sote’s hyper-emotive IDM is enveloped by Barri’s intricate generative visuals, transporting viewers into ecstatic emotional states.
Iranian electronic musician Sote and Dutch artist Tarik Barri, who is known for creating striking visuals for the likes of Thom Yorke and Nicolas Jaar, are coming together for a mesmerising audiovisual presentation of 'Majestic Noise Made in Beautiful Rotten Iran’, Sote’s record lreleased on Sub Rosa in 2022. Sote’s hyper-emotive IDM is enveloped by Barri’s intricate generative visuals, transporting viewers into ecstatic emotional states.
Utility x t Breezy x Walkerboy
T-Breezy teams up with Walkerboy and Trackwork's label boss Utility for a special performance previewing tracks off their hotly anticipated forthcoming mixtape ‘Souths Most Wanted’. The Gamilaraay rappers deliver relentless bars over early Neptunes-infused rhythms crossed with grime, Memphis-rap, and left-field club influences.
T-Breezy teams up with Walkerboy and Trackwork's label boss Utility for a special performance previewing tracks off their hotly anticipated forthcoming mixtape ‘Souths Most Wanted’. The Gamilaraay rappers deliver relentless bars over early Neptunes-infused rhythms crossed with grime, Memphis-rap, and left-field club influences.
Violent Magic Orchestra
VMO is a juggernaut exercise in stomach-turning sub bass assaults, pneumatic blast beats and violent black metal barrages. Hailing from Osaka, Japan, the supergroup features members of 10 piece ‘brutal orchestra’ Vampillia, fronted by vocalist ZASTAR with visuals by Kezzardrix. Intense hardcore sounds and stultifying visuals crank up the level of cataclysm with delicious hyperbole, inciting moshing and stage diving. VMO have ravaged audiences at festivals such as CTM, BANGFACE, and Asian Dope Boys’ infamous Sheepman party, and have left innocent bystanders devastated at countless venues throughout Europe and Asia. Chip King (The Body) and Attila Csihar (SUNNO))) lent guest vocals to their first album Catastrophic Anonymous with more recent releases appearing on Gabber Eleganza’s NEVER SLEEP imprint.
VMO is a juggernaut exercise in stomach-turning sub bass assaults, pneumatic blast beats and violent black metal barrages. Hailing from Osaka, Japan, the supergroup features members of 10 piece ‘brutal orchestra’ Vampillia, fronted by vocalist ZASTAR with visuals by Kezzardrix. Intense hardcore sounds and stultifying visuals crank up the level of cataclysm with delicious hyperbole, inciting moshing and stage diving. VMO have ravaged audiences at festivals such as CTM, BANGFACE, and Asian Dope Boys’ infamous Sheepman party, and have left innocent bystanders devastated at countless venues throughout Europe and Asia. Chip King (The Body) and Attila Csihar (SUNNO))) lent guest vocals to their first album Catastrophic Anonymous with more recent releases appearing on Gabber Eleganza’s NEVER SLEEP imprint.
Zourrybot
Zourrybot for Soft Centre mutates as an appendix of Zourry’s interest in lurking music-art-meme-pol online communities and Zourry’s desires to facilitate generous and generative online spaces. As SOFT CENTRE's Discord guardian-in-residence for a second year in a row, Zourry will incite meme maelstrom, deep artist dives, peer-2-peer exchange, vibe reports, and real-time artist Q&As. Moving beyond the restrictions of both the grid-reel-gram landscape and ‘real’ world bodily space, the SOFT CENTRE Discord is a space to keep the conversations churning, to banter, exchange, incubate, share, and glean. Join the discord here.
Zourrybot for Soft Centre mutates as an appendix of Zourry’s interest in lurking music-art-meme-pol online communities and Zourry’s desires to facilitate generous and generative online spaces. As SOFT CENTRE's Discord guardian-in-residence for a second year in a row, Zourry will incite meme maelstrom, deep artist dives, peer-2-peer exchange, vibe reports, and real-time artist Q&As. Moving beyond the restrictions of both the grid-reel-gram landscape and ‘real’ world bodily space, the SOFT CENTRE Discord is a space to keep the conversations churning, to banter, exchange, incubate, share, and glean. Join the discord here.