Sonder was, honestly, one of the best festivals I’ve ever been to. The kind of festival you almost want to gatekeep. It’s small, grassroots, and somehow feels too good to be widely known. Between morning yoga, a chill-out tent serving chai and ambient soundscapes, and the deep, driving techno that takes over at night, it struck a rare balance. 

We were served up a piping hot multi-genre smorgasbord at Golden Plains Eighteen; Basement Jaxx’s cacophony of early 2000s sound and energy next to Marlon William’s swoon-worthy croon plucked from a bygone epoch, and more…

Jalen Ngonda has the type of voice that takes seconds to fall in love with. And if seconds is all it takes, anyone in Melbourne who hadn’t heard it prior to his soulful showing at The Forum on Friday night, alongside Melbourne’s own WILSN, had the time of their lives over the hour and a half of his set, among the tightest I’ve seen at the historic venue.

At 8pm on Valentine’s Day, while couples filtered into candlelit restaurants across Melbourne, I walked through the doors of Northcote Social Club, beer in hand, ready for something far more romantic: live music. This was Daezy’s night.

I saw Spacey Jane for the first time in Brisbane, in 2018. I remember thinking ‘this band will take off because they use the stage really well. That’s a sign of a great band–they make use of the stage.’ Nothing has changed - in a good way.