We’ve arrived at Echo and Bounce, a prolific creative hub in Meanjin’s techno and dance music scene. The crowd began rolling in around 3 pm for Caustics – an immersive audio/visual experience presented by Eternal Love Records X Vertigo.
When you’re a regular at Echo and Bounce, you become part of a family. Echo and Bounce is part performance space, part record store, and part cafe. Behind the scenes is a dedicated team who pride themselves on facilitating a safe, familial space to platform their community’s creative endeavours.
Caustics is the brainchild of Meanjin-based independent record labels Eternal Love Records and Vertigo. This is the first show that ELR has put on since their inception, and will showcase some of the scene’s most innovative artists from Brisbane and beyond. We spoke to the owners of ELR and Vertigo, Dan and John, about how Caustics came to fruition and their collaborative process:
“The collaborative process was super easy. We both (ELR and Vertigo) feel we never really clashed on ideas at any point throughout the planning process. I think we both had a similar plan in mind for how we wanted the show to play out, especially with the programming of the day, starting off with more ambient sounds and, as the night progressed, moved into darker territory.”
Straight off the bat, the crowd’s energy is infectious – stomping and swirling on the concrete dancefloor as the afternoon’s DJs, Greer, aWhina, and RomiInDaHouse perform their sets. As evening looms, more bass heads enthusiastically pile in to boogie and bear witness to the night’s stellar performers and electric atmosphere. The music is thumping, the drinks are flowing, and a sense of camaraderie is practically bursting at the seams.
One of the night’s stand-out performances came from Naarm-based producer and DJ, Beckett. Beckett dished out tasty morsels of manic drum and bass, jungle and everything adjacent. Beckett’s transitions were flirtatious, incorporating evolving textures and rhythms with hints of moombahton. His performance entranced the audience as they feverishly bounced around the decks.
Up next was Amphetamine Sound Crew (Idle Air & Update Prayer), a dynamic duo hailing from Meanjin. ASC’s energetic set was masterfully mixed, blending elements of drum and bass, jungle, footwork and old-school half-time moody tunes. ASC expertly walked the line between laid-back-head-nodding and ferocious-hard-hitting techno: Truly the best of both worlds. Reminiscent of dank UK clubs and industrial trap aesthetics, ASC wasn’t afraid to let their buildups breathe, allowing the audience to writhe in anticipation. Monotonal sub-basses with heavily syncopated rhythms provided a backdrop of menacing excitement. They had the crowd eating right out of the palms of their hands.
Closing Caustics is Jungist, an Eora-based producer and DJ. Jungist’s set was a genre-pushing exploration of sound firmly planted in broody and cinematic grittiness. Incorporating elements of noise and ambience, Jungist seamlessly married industrial metal and witch house influences with organic, wet-sounding chugs to deliver an intense performance that had the crowd in a frenzy. Jungist did not hesitate to harness as many BPMs as tastefully possible towards the beginning of her set, which punctuated her meticulous injections of low-fi ambience. Jungist’s set was dynamic and nuanced, which made for an incredible closing act.
While Caustics’ solid lineup and Echo and Bounce’s unparallelled hospitality set the tone for the evening, it should be noted that a large portion of Caustics’ success and overall vibe rested on Interlooper’s shoulders. A visual artist and audio engineer, Interlooper (Kevin Ngyuen) painstakingly produced immaculate live visuals throughout the entire evening. With his eyes unwaveringly glued to his laptop, Interlooper provided a non-stop visual feast that perfectly accompanied each artist’s respective sets. ELR‘s Dan spoke of Interlooper:
“He absolutely knocked it out of the park with capturing the essence of each artist’s set and pairing them with his visuals. We knew when we started working on the visual elements of the project we wanted it to move from more natural imagery and evolve into a more twisted form of imagery that the audience would have seen earlier in the day. And I think we did a good job at communicating that.”
Caustics was a raging success and a formidable debut for Eternal Love Records X Vertigo. Dan and John are chuffed with how the evening played out and how Echo and Bounce facilitated ELR and Vertigo’s vision coming to life:
“We both felt like we showed Brisbane two really exciting new artists (Beckett and Jungist) who are definitely gonna be ones to watch over the next 12 months, and we felt so blessed to be able to give both the artist the debut Brissy shows.
Also, a massive shout out to the Echo and Bounce team. They were so accommodating throughout the event process, and it’s amazing to have a space that is so versatile in Brisbane.”
Coming off the back of Caustics, Eternal Love Records and Vertigo show no signs of slowing down. The future looks bright and busy for Dan and John as they continue to spearhead the underground electronic scene and provide ethical and highly curated avenues for their community to consume the best music:
“For Eternal Love I’m just focusing on a bunch of new label releases, got a few big projects in the works that I think people will really enjoy. Also kicking off a new series of releases that will start later in April, so watch this space.”
– Dan
“Looking ahead, Vertigo’s mission will remain the same: to shine light on and amplify the voices of local and international artists pushing the boundaries of leftfield bass and electronic music. Through carefully curated events that celebrate soundsystem culture, we aim to create an immersive platform that equally embraces sharing and discovering new sounds within our community. As we move forward, we are excited to explore opportunities to expand our reach and collaborate with artists at home and around the globe.
Our partnership with Eternal Love will continue to flourish, and we hope to work with other like-minded individuals and collectives in our community to continue to deliver amazing dancefloor experiences for all of our supporters. In the meantime, be sure to keep an ear out for our “Expressions” mix series, which will feature some very special sets from talented UK-based and local artists in the very near future.
This is definitely not the end of this collaboration we have a few things that are starting to plan for sometime bigger and better.”
– John
John and Dan would also like to extend their appreciation to the team at HEX for supplying Caustics’ state of the art sound system. As advocates for high-quality event sound, Dan and John wanted to introduce some sound system culture into their community, and knew that HEX was perfect for maximising their audience’s experience and immersion. HEX is renowned for its deep, low-end power and distinctive, organic look.
“(HEX) not only delivered flawless sound for the event, but also complimented the aesthetic perfectly. By putting emphasis on the sound system, we aimed to create a truly immersive experience for our audience, where they could not only hear the music but feel it too and connect with the energy of the event on a visceral level. We’d like to thank the gents from HEX for going above and beyond for us, and getting amongst the event too. It was so awesome to see!”
– John
