Boris and Merzbow. Artist supplied.
Just quickly, do you like Pulp? Jarvis Cocker do it for you? Lovely. Pulp will be playing for free at Elder Park, as part of the Adelaide Festival (AF), and those with the 1990s in their souls will, I'm sure, be in attendance. Many, of course, will simply go because it's a big gig, it's free, and they're curious.
If you were going to see Pulp out of curiosity, might I suggest you spend money and choose a more interesting and likely worthwhile bunch of gigs?
The Adelaide Festival runs from 27 February to 15 March and, as a rule, there's very little for most folks. Why? Well, partly it's that not everyone is into culture and investigating same. Yes, it's down to taste generally, and there's only a few things you can do about that.
I mean, the sporty sorts have to be catered for, of course, but they have it all their own way for months, what with cricket, tennis and Olympic stuff cluttering up the telly (which, of course, I no longer watch).
Fortunately for them there's yet another city-clogging car race so they can avoid culture: like an army of the undead, the Adelaide Motorsport Festival will occupy the east edge of the city between 28 February and 1 March. Yes, it sounds about as useful as a squid on a bicycle (apologies to Jack McDevitt) but I'm sure some folks will enjoy it.
I mean, waaaay back when the Adelaide Grand Prix was a new thing, Adelaide was a mecca for a wide diaspora of folks. Apart from all the American dills festooned with cameras and laminates, folks from all around the country rolled up just for the local parties - not at venue you understand, but at people's houses.
Yes, alright, alright, so I was partly wrong about bagging the Adelaide Festival a few articles ago. Don't make such a big deal about it. This time (2026) there are a few things I really would like to see. This is because the AF have introduced what they call "our new contemporary music program ... perfect for anyone who wants to experience cutting-edge and daring electronica music from around the world".
What this means in practice is that, with the traditional presumably limited budget, they've imported some significant musicians, along with some interesting and intriguing ones from around the country. This can only be A Good Thing.
It's in three events, so they've called it "Tryp'" Presumably being clever with the word "triptych", but not realising more than a few punters will pronounce it "tripe", a type of offal, which is also slang for rubbish.
Either way, the three events take place on Friday 27 February, and Saturday 28 February.
Which threw me for a second. Only a second, because in the first of the three events, Boris &Merzbow are playing. I confess I am a bit confused, as "Tryp I" starts at 8pm, and "Tryp II" starts at 10.30 in an adjacent venue, but since you can buy tickets for all III Tryps, this implies that "Tryp I", involving four outfits, goes for a mere two hours. Which I sincerely hope is not the case.
So, to "Tryp I". Harry Freeman is a famous name, so you'd be forgiven for confusing him with the chap on the humansoflismore website, who writes, "I’ve always been a professional piano player as well as a doctor so I never really wanted to work full time in Psychiatry. The two of us came up here and we started the service. I was the Robin to his Batman act. I was living on a commune, playing piano and doing Psychiatry three days a week in the Richmond Clinic. I came up here for the sex, drugs and rock and roll but I have been very lucky to be able to still do music and work." I hope he's not related to the sought-after deranged dingbat 'Dezi Freeman'.
Assuming it's not this chap (or the emblematic Dezi Freeman), it must be the bloke on Facebook and Soundcloud (AKA Harrison Freeman, from Taswegia). The press release promises a "thunderous soundscape". A quick listen reveals that this particular Harry Freeman takes his inspiration from rave and dance club stuff. If it's your thing, it's your thing.
"Tryp I" continues with Jannah Quill x House of Vnholy, and Takkak Takkak, and then presumably Boris and Merzbow.
JannaH Quill etc have posted a few videos on Instagram. "Continuing on from their previous collaboration SIGHT, which was a direct translation of light into an audible signal, DsO1.2 introduces video into the collaborative process to explore translations of RGB colour. By sending the video to an LED light, a solar panel is used to capture the waveform of the complex patterns of shifting RGB colour. The envelopes of these recordings are then applied to a range of synthesisers and noise generators, as well as capturing the unique high-pitched sound of the LED light itself."
Takkak Takkak. Photo by Eunice Maurice.
Fascinating, and intriguing, and certainly worth viewing. But it's Takkak Takkak who seem far more involving to me: "Prolific Berlin-based Japanese producer Shigeru Ishihara (aka Scotch Rolex) and Vilnius-based Indonesian composer and instrument builder Mo’ong Santoso Pribadi, best known as one half of Raja Kirik.
The duo found common ground with their borderless enthusiasm for rhythm - hence their tongue-in-cheek, onomatopoeic moniker - and tasked themselves with hacking contemporary and traditional musics, fusing eardrum-piercing club sounds with wiry Asian traditional patterns and howling vocals." Check them out on Bandcamp.
But the headliners, Boris, and Merzbow, who I would think most folk would be delighted so see play for 90 minutes, and preferably in a more intimate space than the cavernous Hindley Street Music Hall, are prolific and undisputed leaders in their field. And pretty much have been since 1979 (Merzbow) and Boris (1992). If you're not familiar with these folks, I suggest you prowl Youtube with the volume up.
But it's Boris you'd probably be shelling out for. 29 full LPs so far, with another 17 collaborative LPs (including one with Sunn O))), and 8 with Merzbow), Boris wield the kind of variety, skill and power that any western rock band would pretty much sell their souls for - and those of their family. All the heavy rock bands you think are so cool? They love, or deeply envy, Boris.
There's a raft of algo-enhancing terms/ definitions which have been used to confine them, which I won't use - Boris simply use chunks of whatever appeals, and continue forth (their jackdaw musical nature has been obvious from the cover of their very first CD, 'Absolutego'). Overall, Boris are magnificent. They're also very odd: their 18th LP,; "Noise" is anything but, and if there was any justice in the world, it would have shot up the US and European charts because it's crossover heavy rock which would get the fussiest old fart wetting their incontinence pads, and have the most jaded of aural wallpaper streamers sitting up in their gaming throne muttering: "WTF".
The Boris/ Merzbow piece that's being advertised by the AF is "Dronevil". This was Boris' seventh LP, a double: two sides of spectacular drone, with two sides of "Evil": the idea was that both LPs were intended to be played simultaneously. One assumes that Merzbow will handle one side, while Boris the other.
And no, I don't think Pulp are really up to the musical challenge on this night.
"Tryp II" is club music. H34VEN0N34RTH (AUS), DJ Haram (USA), SOVBLKPSSY (AUS) and SKORPION KING and Mr. John (AUS). I enjoy listening to music, but these days, not dancing. Clubs of any sort aren't my thing, and never have been - any more than skateboarding ever was, or footy, or computer games, or getting pierced. But the description from the AFF press release promises a jolly night for those who do: Haram's "experimental bass, Jersey club, and Middle Eastern percussion" sounds interesting, as does SOVBLKPSSY's "percussion-heavy club rhythms with a dose of musical nostalgia" and SKORPION KING and Mr. John's "mix of deep bass and underground dubstep".
"Tryp III" is held at the following day at 3pm in Adelaide University Cloisters, and promises "a restorative blend of deep listening, heavenly hymnals, intelligent dance music and mystic folksong". Are the AFF implying that we'll have been so off our tits we'll be in serious need of recovery by the following afternoon? Gosh.
Maryam Rahmani. Artist supplied.
The musicians I confess I've never heard of, but that's really not surprising: James K (USA), Lyra Pramuk (USA), Barker (UK), DJ /rupture (USA), D-Grade (AUS), Wilson Tanner (AUS), Maryam Rahmani x Sebastian Collen (IR/AUS) and Romi (AUS).
To be completely honest, the AF's description sounds more like aural wallpaper, the sort of thing that sad Spotifiers put on when they want to have background music to study to, or while they do the dishes. Isn't that what Spotify caters to now anyway? Bots and algos doing a merry-go-round with band/ musician names which no-one remembers because they're just there to mumble away in the background?
However, several of these musicians do sound interesting: "Multidisciplinary artist Lyra Pramuk draws on her own blend of symphonic devotional and gospel music, while local Santur player and vocalist Maryam Rahmani joins with composer and pianist Sebastian Collen to share mystical folksong and fresh takes on classical traditions [followed by] Barker’s beatless trance arpeggios."
Certainly "Tryp III" is a hearty antidote to the previous night's excesses of "Tryps I" and "II" or Plup, sorry, Pulp, and certainly anathema to the car race nuisance. The Tryps are surely worth taking a punt on, which is basically what cultural festivals are all about.
It's nice that Pulp are playing, though. They're ever so popular overseas.
