Modulations

A new addition to Sydney’s Vivid Festival will host a collaboration of electronic music, performance art and installation.

Modulations is an initiative of Modular and Carriageworks and will take place over the June long weekend.

Organiser of Modulations, Stephen Pavlovic, thought up the idea after curating Vivid in 2011: “We wanted to do some things that were more expansive, I said I’d like to do something that would engage a little more of the visual, food, wine and lifestyle. Carriageworks approached me a year ago about doing a music event for them, my idea was Modulations.”

Electronic duo The Presets will support iconic UK pop duo Pet Shop Boys. The Australian Chamber Orchestra will also provide accompaniments, taking audiences on a time altering musical odyssey through 42,000 years.

Pavlovic says: “It’s a toe in the water at the moment but it will be a weekend of exploring different interests across food and music.”

Sydney restaurant Porteño will supply a rockabilly pop-up bar and grill, with Los Angeles-based experimental band, Liars, also set to play.

Liars frontman Angus Andrew says, “The essence of art is the mixture and the collision of different mediums. Modulations works with a lot of the ideas we’ve had as a band.”

Liars have been experimenting musically for 15 years now says Andrews, “Our music isn’t defined by any particular style, its all about the exploration. I want to feel like a child when I pick up a new idea because that’s a really exciting position to be in.”

Mess is the band’s seventh studio album and has seen them pushing the boundaries more than ever before.

“It was an exciting record to make because I put the parameters down. I wanted to make it really fast and I didn’t want to spend too much time overthinking decisions, in that way it became a very impulsive record.”

Andrews says their recording process can sometimes feel Schizophrenic.

“As soon as something starts to feel like I’m learning or I’ve figured it out and it starts to become easy then I feel the need to switch things up and start in a completely different direction.”

It seems as though Liars and Pet Shop Boys are the perfect headliners for an exploration of how music performance, art, installation and contemporary ideas intersect, overlap and influence at Modulations. (GF)

Modulations, June 6-9, Carriageworks, 245 Wilson St, Eveleigh, free-$135.60, carriageworks.com.au