Live at The Lock-Up / A Deep Listening Experience

A Deep Listening Experience comes to The Lock-Up on Friday 6 November, a collaborative experimental ambient performance that puts listening itself at the centre of the night. It's not a gig in the usual sense — there's no band playing a set while you stand and watch. Instead, it's a live sound performance built around the act of listening, with the audience as much a part of the room as the people making the noise.

The sound is built from a mix of acoustic and electronic sources. Vocals, violin, piano and synthesisers all play their part, and they're layered together in real time. Because it's ambient and experimental, the focus is on texture and space rather than melody or a steady beat, and the whole thing is played out as a single, evolving piece. The 'deep listening' part of the title isn't just a description of the music — it's the point of the evening. It's about sitting with the sound and noticing where it goes, rather than waiting for a hook or a chorus.

It's the kind of night that works best if you're happy to just sit and let the sound wash over you for a few hours. If you're into ambient music, drone, or just the more textural end of experimental sound, this is right in that wheelhouse. The combination of voice, strings, piano and synths means the sound can shift from something quite organic and familiar to something more electronic and abstract, and it's the way those different elements pull and push against each other that carries the performance.

It runs from 6:30 to 9:30pm at The Lock-Up in Newcastle, so you've got three hours to settle in. Tickets are A$20 for the first release, A$30 for the second, and A$40 for the final release, so it's worth grabbing yours early if you're planning to go.