Australian Premiere
Okkervil River
A Night with
Aesop Rock and
Kimya Dawson
(USA)
Roller One (Australia)
ft. Rob Sonic
and DJ Big Wiz (USA)
The Narcicyst
and Omar Offendum (Iraq/Syria)
The poster kids of high concept alt-country,
Texan six-piece Okkervil River can also lay
claim to being amongst the most critically
lauded indie bands of the past decade. This
Austin-based outfit combine rambunctious
country underpinnings with flecks of
drunkenly melancholic rock, but their
musical sorties often range into surprisingly
lyrical and complex territories. Touring on
the back of their sixth studio album, I Am
Very Far, a magisterial assortment of paeans
to the difficulties of being alive, Okkervil
River return to Australia in typically
raucous fashion, proving to be exuberant in
loneliness and exultant in defeat.
Melbourne-based gypsy folk balladeers
Roller One form the perfect aside
to Okkervil River’s singular brand of
boisterous gloom. Wielding guitar, piano
and double bass, and featuring frontman
Fergus McAlpin’s startlingly intimate voice,
Roller One sing simple songs of things lost
and love forgotten. Sparsely composed
and precise, these are soft and bittersweet
hymns to the occasional beauty of the
sorrowful moment.
“All human life is teeming about
in Sheff’s songs, which untangle
the roots of Americana with
sublime narratives and a diverse,
musical heft. Fifty-one literate,
intense minutes long, I Am
Very Far isn’t very far short of
magnificent.” BBC (UK)
“One of indie rock’s most
ambitious thinkers: a romantic
anti-romantic weighing highly
literate lyrics against an endlessly
bleak worldview.” Pitchfork (USA)
Event Information
Forum Theatre
Fri 14 Oct at 9.30pm
Doors open 9pm
All tickets $50
Transaction & booking fees may apply
Save up to 20%. See page 73 for details.
Over 18s event only
Ticketmaster 1300 723 038
melbournefestival.com.au
Supported by
Regional Performance
Meeniyan Town Hall
Sat 15th Oct at 8pm
(03) 5664 9239
lyrebirdartscouncil.com.au
Okkervil River will also take their
brand of gritty lyricism to Gippsland,
playing at Meeniyan Town Hall on
Saturday 15 October.
Aesop Rock, the enigmatic poet-laureate
of hip-hop, is rightfully regarded as one
the premiere lyricists to have emerged
from the rap scene. Combining haunting
samples, densely woven rhyme schemes and
a brimming intellectual brio, Aesop’s spidery
drawl has left an indelible mark on hip-hop,
drawing new boundaries in a field so often
ruled by convention.
Aesop Rock appears at this year’s festival
in the company of Kimya Dawson, former
member of Moldy Peaches, singer of the
Juno soundtrack and leader of the so-called
anti-folk movement. Her catchy but complex
ditties mesh perfectly with an inimitable
brand of rambling, raw storytelling, bright
even as it shines a light onto the darker
aspects of the human condition.
From wildly different backgrounds, but
linked by a richness of wordplay and
anecdote, their collaboration sounds
startlingly new and unexpected. Part
intimate folk jam, part art-hip-hop party,
this is a unique meshing of two of the
brightest minds currently working in
indie music.
Bastions of the Arab-American hip-hop
scene, The Narcicyst and Omar Offendom
present their new collaborative show, the
Hobson Jobson experience, especially for
46
Melbourne Festival. Hailing from Iraq
and Syria respectively and rapping in a
combination of Arabic and English, theirs
is a furiously political and cerebral brand
of hip-hop, marked by the currents of a
post-9/11 world and the strangeness of their
cross-cultural experiences.
“Aesop Rock is a terrific MC.
His flow is rapid but clear; his
interjections, double-time verses
and sing-song bits are arranged
with near-symphonic skill. Aesop
Rock says more astoundingly
intelligent things per minute than
the entire combined rosters of a
lot of other labels.” Pitchfork (USA)
“Dawson is a formidable talent.”
The Guardian (UK)
“[The Narcicyst] reminds you
why you fell in love with hip hop
all those years back.”
The Independent (USA)
47
Event Information
Forum Theatre
Sat 15 Oct at 9.30pm
Doors open 9pm
All tickets $35
Transaction & booking fees may apply
Save up to 20%. See page 73 for details.
Over 18s event only
Ticketmaster 1300 723 038
melbournefestival.com.au
Supported by