François X at Now or Never 2024
Now or Never teamed up with Untitled Group to curate a seven-hour party at Melbourne’s Royal Exhibition Building on Saturday 24 August.
Now or Never’s 2024 program revolves around four consecutive gigs at Carlton’s 140-year-old Royal Exhibition Building. The lineups are non-hierarchical in structure, with the programming reflecting an aesthetic vision rather than one rooted in status. Saturday’s seven-hour party is a case in point: while the shows on either side place experimental music side-by-side with more pop- and dance-oriented sounds, this event is squarely focused on continuous dance floor grooves.
It’s co-presented by Untitled Group, the touring and events company behind Beyond the Valley and Pitch Music & Arts, and it’s a sell-out, meaning four-thousand people stream into the building in the course of the afternoon and evening. Though, given REB’s cavernous size and a capacious outdoor smoking and portaloo zone, it never feels like you’re crammed inside a humid club.
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Estella Boersma at Now or Never 2024
Naarm-based Yorta Yorta man DJ PGZ gets started in the fading daylight before Zurich-via-Berlin bass music devotee DJ AYA rattles the foundations of the heritage-listed exhibition pavilion. The crowd is well-oiled by the time Estella Boersma comes on at 6.30 p.m. The Dutch-born, Berlin-based DJ fills her set with contemporary electro and rave music. She throws in a few crowd-pleasers, including the set’s closing track, Peggy Gou’s global hit “(It Goes Like) Nanana”. Phones reach into the air as people strive to tap into a feeling they can’t erase.
There’s a definite shift in tone with the arrival of Paris’ François X, who burrows deep into techno’s machine funk toolbox. X’s choices are all itchy and agitated, sending an uninterrupted torrent of tumbling beats through the pop-up venue’s mammoth sound system. Cymbals and hi-hats clang like sheets of metal while bass lines provide mean resistance, preventing the whole thing from descending into cacophony.
A friend, enjoying the general lack of resolve, comments that “a good night out depends on discontent.”
François X at Now or Never
By now, plenty of people are sucking on Chupa Chups. We see a few folks fall limply to the floor or into the arms of friends. The people surrounding them clear a space and the on-site medics are alerted. Elsewhere, ravers are in a positive, convivial mood. Fashionably dressed, but unafraid to make ugly faces when the music calls for it.
Italian producer Donato Dozzy has earned a place in techno history for his minimal and ambient compositions, which, although occasionally academic, often evoke the rhythms of nature. But tonight, tasked with following François X’s rolling techno blitz, Dozzy turns his attention to harder and more muscular techno.
The sense of unease is retained, but Dozzy introduces a bit more light, loosing a flute sample here, a bell chime there, and even permitting the odd melodic hook to slip out. The visuals are spectacular. Early in the set, bordered arrangements of colour shoot up and down the 40-foot screens behind Dozzy, recalling a frenzied Mondrian animation. Later, huge slabs of contrasting colours fill the screens in a nod to Mark Rothko’s colour field abstractions.
Despite being a sell-out, there’s still ample room to flail one’s limbs around. When Dozzy pulls his USB stick out at 11 p.m., it’s hard to imagine anyone who’s not satisfied.
Donato Dozzy at Now or Never
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