This event took place on Wurundjeri land at Abbotsford Convent’s Magdalene Laundry as part of Midsumma Festival 2020.
All photos © Gianna Rizzo, reproduced with permission.
Famili was described in its publicity as a visual EP launch highlighting contemporary electronic music from Pasifika communities. Fresh hip hop, new wave R&B, Oceanic musicality, words, and movement and on Oceanic, LGBTQIA+ and diaspora experiences.
But Famili is more than that: it is an intersectional, queer space that both speaks to and includes all present. This space is not forced upon its audience: rather, it lightly moves around it. There is lightness, spirituality and at times a certain necessary heaviness that hits hard. Colonialism is present in so far as this is an aesthetic of defiance of its damages, mostly experienced in the moments of spoken word which act as transitions between musical tracks.
The evening began with a set by DJ Crdio playing RnB classics edited crisply into bassy club tracks. Plant-like tendrilled forms hanging from the ceiling of the Magdalene Laundries at the Abbotsford Convent is the work of Mossy Jade Johnson, which together with the lighting gave the very large space an outside, tropical feel.
The room filled in gradually. Elders arrived first and seated themselves regally at the back. Parents with children arrive next (after dinner rituals are taken care of), making sure they found a spot closer to the front. All of a sudden this huge laundry room, once housing cloth and puddles of water, is filled to the brim with an excited audience. And in that community way familiar to most of us present, we assumed position.
A lulling intro of ambient music guided our attention to the stage which itself slowly began to fill up with artists as we hear “We take back our mother tongues”: a strongly harmonised acapella which also included a Karakia, and acknowledgement of country in Te Reo (Maori) language. Before we knew it the space between the crowd and performers began to feel somewhat ceremonial. Not one of the proselytising varieties nor the awkward neo-shamanistic, but something surpassing this. Something a little more cultural. Political, embodied and almost futuristic.
A perfect time for a live RnB moment to hit us. The collection of voices coming together then dissolving smoothly from one solo to the other not missing a beat. The lyrics like an introduction: “Come with us. We will take you home.” and then, everything goes quiet for a second—the articulation of silence and build-ups to loudness are one of the biggest strengths to this show—someone in the audience obviously floored by the power of this shift in mood shouts out “Oh my god!”
“Underwater I can hear the truth of what it means to be here” then resonating through the room—water and sky are significant conceptual cross points and metaphor for this shared space of Indigenous culture and interconnectedness in Famili.
The acknowledgement of a shared heaviness is received in an attentive audience silence then dissipates into a sexier tone as the hip hop bass line care of Paul Gorrie’s live drums hit, setting the pace for the words “You want me to sway my hips and be an ocean breeze for you? Breath fire for you?”. The electronic track like foamy waves of soft bass in a polyrhythmic crashing out of the speakers. This is one of the gem tracks as is Pull Our Hair Back produced by Wahe in collaboration with Lonely Speck and sung alongside the power voice of Daisy Catterall. Lastly, another polythmic electronic beauty incorporating spoken in both Papuan malay, Ambai language and English giving voice to the ongoing struggle of West Papua via the track Morning Star. The evening moving on to a bumping and grinding set by DJ Creamy Mami.
Famili was a success, a collective effort and an embodiment of celebration, of togetherness, sensuality, reclamation, and survival. If we are going to go by the audience response to the live event, its EP form will be well received. Until we get the goodness that is the EP though, you can follow them on Instagram: @famili_collab
About the author
Lucreccia Quintanilla is a Salvadoran/Australian artist, writer, researcher and DJ.