Alt-country boogie rockers Chelsea Hotel return to Cactus Room to launch their second single ‘Love On The Radio’, a fuzzy, disco inspired follow up to their debut single ‘Lilly-Anne’.

Supporting them in their endeavour are up and coming local punks Rat Bucket and brand new supergroup Absent Lovers making their live debut, featuring members of The Unknowns, Fruit Tones, Sin City and The Cavemen.

Chelsea Hotel - 'Love On The Radio' Single Launch

Unscored

Laura and the Hell Cutz

Black Wattle Witches

Dead Ed

CACTUS ROOM - SAT AUG 15

Tickets:

Presale - $10 + bf

Doors - $15

Unscored at Cactus Room

Thunder Speaks make their Melbourne debut at the Cactus Room to celebrate the launch of their brand new EP, HOURS.

Hailing from Adelaide, Thunder Speaks are an electronic psych rock ensemble delivering a powerful fusion of twin bass attack, epic synths and hypnotic beats. Renowned for explosive, high-energy live performances, the band creates immersive sonic landscapes that demand to be experienced loud.

Having shared stages with The Crystal Method (US), Minami Deutsch (Japan), Regurgitator and Party Dozen, Thunder Speaks continue to build momentum following the release of their 2024 debut album FIRST DANCE. The new EP HOURS marks the start of the next chapter and pushes the band's psychedelic electronic sound even further.

The band will be joined by their favourite Melbourne staples Shepparton Airplane and Sweet Nothing.

Shepparton Airplane are a Melbourne post-punk band made up of members from bands including The Peep Tempel and Graveyard Train. Their music blends jagged post-punk guitars, driving rhythms, fuzzy garage rock with sharp melodies and catchy hooks.

On their latest album Forecast, they've expanded from straightforward post-punk into broader sonic territory while keeping their rough-edged, high-energy style intact.

Sweet Nothing deliver a hypnotic collision of synth-driven rock, dance music, jazz and Eastern-inspired psychedelia. Armed with just two synthesizers and a drum kit, the duo's enormous sound blurs genre lines with fearless abandon, earning their reputation as a 'seductive synth-punk force' and fast becoming one of Melbourne's most captivating live acts.

Expect a night of hypnotic grooves, soaring psychedelia, jagged post-punk, explosive live energy and wild visuals.

TICKETS:

Presale - $20 + bf

THUNDER SPEAKS – HOURS EP LAUNCH

SFL return with new music and a fresh look, supported by Esther Henderson in solo mode and Esther Rivers with her band. Don some polyester and get on down to sweat in the Cactus Room

Tickets:

$25 + bf

Sugar Fed Leopards at Cactus Room

Microtonal Fuzz

A fuzzy afternoon of microtonal exploration with 3 completely different acts: Navā duo, Driftwood and A Temporary

Navā duo

Indian Classical melodies interact with Contemporary Guitar fingerpicking. A fusion world band, this duo/trio comprises of, but is not limited to:

Mohan Veena (Indian slide guitar) player Poly Varghese

@polyvarghese

Belgian guitarist Alec Ilyine on Acoustic Steelstring Guitar and

Japanese Taishogoto

@alecilyine

Listen: https://ramblerecords.bandcamp.com/album/rainflower

Driftwood

@avivaendean

@kcin_doowhsa

Driftwood is the duo project of Naarm-based experimental musicians Nick Ashwood and Aviva Endean. Performing face to face, with back to back organs, Driftwood meets in a microtonal, buzzing, blurring landscape. Their unique instrumental line up features two re-tuned antique pump organs, which create a resonant backdrop for their primary instruments of clarinets (Aviva) and guitars (Nick), complemented by modular synths and electronics. Their slowly evolving music draws influence from minimalist, drone and folk traditions to create a generous and shimmering sound, inspiring a hypnotic and transformational quality of listening in their audiences, who are momentarily immersed in this harmonic expanse.

Listen:

https://room40.bandcamp.com/album/driftwood

A Temporary

@alecilyine

@evelynidamorris

Microtonal Polyphonic Guitar with Industrial Drums Insinuating Groove. Momentary lapses of space and time Memento.

TICKETS:

$15 + bf - concession

$20 + bf

DOORS at 2pm.

2:30 - A Temporary

3:30 - Driftwood

4:30 - Navā duo

Microtonal Fuzz -  Navā duo / Driftwood / A Temporary

Mosaic Rebellion is the brand new pop project of prolific Melbourne-based songwriter, producer and visual artist darby (Bec O'Brien).

Following the release and tour of her debut record Suburbia in 2020 (Evening Records), darby relocated to Melbourne and found herself in a period of deep reflection, years later releasing her deeply personal sophomore album Wonderbeams - a record about moving on and moving in, recorded at home using vintage electronic instruments, drum machines and analogue gear. Those methods laid the foundations for Mosaic Rebellion: electronic outsider pop - dreamy, chaotic and fragmented.

darby's music has featured on Bump and Underbelly, been played on radio stations across the globe, and performed throughout Australia.

Produced in her home studio and written chaotically all over town, Mosaic Rebellion distils years of experimentation and laptop demos into a new world.

Join the fragments of an insatiable mind.

http://mosaicrebellion.bandcamp.com/

Lostii

Lostii is a queer femme singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer based in Naarm. She brings dreamy alt, trip- hop, and psych flavoured offerings inspired by the likes of Portishead, Chelsea Wolfe and Massive Attack with ethereal vocal harmonies, rich synth textures, and whimsical arrangements.

https://lostii.bandcamp.com/

Maxine Gillon

https://maxinegillon.bandcamp.com/music

Melbourne-based artist Maxine Gillon has made a name for herself through her accomplished songwriting, literate lyricism and distinctive guitar work. Her sound draws from 80’s Australiana, folk rock & western twang, creating an inimitable blend that’s all her own.

TICKETS:

Presale - $10+bf

Doors - $15

Mosaic Rebellion - Project Launch

Neon Goblin

Fungoose

Cassettes

TTTDC

A celebtration with some of Melbourne's finest:

TTTDC

Neon Goblin

Fungoose

Cassettes

Get In early, doors from 6pm, music from 7pm

Tickets:

Presale: $12 + bf

TTTDC at Cactus Room

CACTUS CULT V

The ceremony returns.

The Black Heart Death Cult

Buried Feather

Spawn

Plus visuals by Electric Light Brigade

SAT SEP 5

TICKETS:

Presale - $15 + bf

Cactus Cult V

As another winter passed, Flower Extract descended on Cactus Room for a celebratory evening of friends, warmth, and tastefully unhinged indie, rock and folk.

Flower Extract

Hailing from the east coast of Lutruwita/Tasmania, Flower Extract are a distinctly Vandemonian indie quartet, operating between Nipaluna/Hobart and Naarm/Melbourne.

Flower Extract inhabit the in-betweens - not quite indie rock, but not far off, they straddle a handful of familiar genres with no pre-meditated agenda. The result is an idiosyncratic 80’s-esque synth fueled sound, quirky guitar-centric songwriting and freudian lyrics that weave an atmospheric, emotive musical world.

Neatly packaged their sound into a powerful, quietly chaotic live show, Flower Extract have made notable performances at Party in the Paddock, The Great Escape, A Festival Called George and Bonzaki, and have supported mainlanders such as The Grogans and Johnny Hunter.

Constantina

A shining light of the Nipaluna scene, Constantina has the power to stop you in your tracks. Connie’s tender, evocative alt-folk carries an emotional weight and musical wisdom that belies their years. Gracing a mainland stage for the very first time, it is worth going out of your way to catch Constantina’s set.

Tom Skalicky & Band

Thomas is a songwriter who crafts a 60s-esque imagining of folk-rock for the strange days ahead. Think end-of-the-world synth musings dressed up with an indie-folk and alt

Oyster Botanics proudly presents Flower Extract, Constantina and Tom Skalicky (and his band) live at Cactus Room.

Gentle Ben and His Shimmering Hands grease their skis and pick up speed for the long slide southwards this October.

On Friday October 9th the band careen into Melbourne, bounce off Northcote Plaza, lose traction on High Street, over correct and drift sideways into Cactus Room. Pussy Horse and Techno666 sweep the debris into the beer garden on a tsunami of sleaze before Gentle Ben and His Shimmering Hands attempt to pay for damages the only way they know how- the worthless medium of song.

TICKETS:

Pre-sale: $26 + bf

Cactus Room

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