Music and renewable energy solutions – it is not the most obvious combination that springs to mind when thinking of live events, but it is exactly what the crew at Melbourne’s Finding Infinity have planned for their upcoming OFFtheGRID festival which will be kicking off this Monday December the 22nd.
Cashing in (sun wise) on this year’s summer solstice, the iconic Australian Centre for Contemporary Art forecourt will be transformed into a fully-fledged fiesta site, with entertainment from Cut Copy DJs, Banoffee, Tornado Wallace and more all int he name of raising awareness and funds for a nearby solar powered project – celebrating renewable energy solutions, as opposed to focusing on the problems.
To celebrate, Aussie electronic music royalty, and mixtape kings Cut Copy have curated a very special mixtape tribute to the sun. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any hotter. Check it out below and pop by the Finding Infinity Facebook page for more info.
Ron Trent – ‘Sundance’
Sometimes you think that people lose their mojo after they’re making music for a long time. Ron Trent put out ‘Altered States’ in 1990, one of my favourite early house records, but this recent release goes to show he’s still making amazing music. It’s a perfect sprawling deep house jam, which sits nicely next to new stuff as well as classic older house tracks.
The Beloved – ‘The Sun Rising’
This might actually be my favourite early British Balearic house track. It’s hard to imagine music better suited to the vision of the sun rising while late 80s party kids are still dancing in the courtyard of some Ibiza nightclub ushering in a new day… or perhaps I’m just being hopelessly nostalgic. But either way it’s a fantastic track. I love the operatic vocal sample and the way the baseline locks into a repetitive groove but somehow never seems to get old.
Amon Duul – ‘Snow Your Thirst And Sun Your Open Mouth’
Amon Duul were a German psych rock band that was born out of members of a hippie commune who (as you do when you’re in a commune) took loads of drugs, hung out and had improvised jam sessions. And that’s more or less where this particular song came from. For an improvised work, it’s a pretty mellow and well-realised piece of music.
Pond – ‘Sunlight Cardigan’
I’m not entirely sure what a sunlight cardigan is, but in my mind I’m sort of imagining it’s a bit like ‘Golden Boy’, Jerry’s favourite shirt from Seinfeld. The kind of cardigan that makes you feel a million bucks and somehow life goes a bit more smoothly when you’re wearing it. This really is a great song, along the lines of classic Bowie or T-Rex. Pond churn a lot of material, but the great stuff is really awesome and this is a good example.
Cut Copy – ‘Sun God’
It’s probably a horrible faux pas to put your own song in your ‘favourite songs’ list, but this is one of my favourite Cut Copy songs to play live (so I’m going to justify it that way). Plus at over 15 minutes long it’s one of the strangest singles we’ve put out. I’m sure some of the record label execs were scratching their heads over that one.
Off The Grid Festival
Cut Copy Djs
Banoffee
Sui Zhen
Tornado Wallace
Silent Jay + Jace XL
Prequel
Wax’o Paradiso
Dec 22nd – ACCA Forecourt, Melbourne
Tix on sale at: FINDING INFINITY
