INTRODUCING KIWI FEST: Melbourne’s Festival for New Zealand Music, Culture, Arts, Food and Drink
Saturday 15th February 2020 – Footscray Community Arts Centre
All Ages – 2pm-10pm
Meet the newest Music, Culture, Arts, Food and Drinks festival on the block: Kiwi Fest is an All-Ages annual one-day celebration of NEW ZEALAND culture, bringing together Melbourne’s Kiwi communities for a diverse festival of all things AOTEAROA. This week the festival will also be donating $10 from every ticket sold between 15 January – 19 January to the Victorian Bushfire Appeal.
On Saturday 15 February Kiwi Fest is taking over the lush, green, outdoor riverside lawn at Footscray Community Arts Centre, the perfect setting for live music, cultural performances, traditional and artisanal food and drink from New Zealand’s world-renowned industry, as well as a Kiwi mākete village (markets) selling a wide array of Kiwiana, Māori, Pacific Island and contemporary goods and wares.
Kiwi Fest 2020 aims to bring together and share all classic beloved Kiwi things to the suburbs of Melbourne. Created by old high school friends and Wellington Ex-pats Jacob Howard and Chris Lemeulu, the pair reconnected over a few beers watching an All Blacks game, lamenting the lack of events serving the large community of Kiwis in Melbourne.
Together Jacob and Chris started gathering the local community and business figureheads with a clear vision to make Kiwi Fest an annual celebration of Melbourne’s New Zealand community. “We began crafting an event that offered a bit of a ‘Slice of Heaven’ for both Kiwis here and anyone else who wanted to taste a little sample of New Zealand culture. It was important for us that this was community based at its heart, was 100% outdoors and captured our relaxed ethos, great products and rich culture” says Creative Director Jacob Howard.
THE MUSIC
The inaugural event is to be headlined by Che-Fu, the legendary hip hop and RnB icon.
With the most top ten songs of any individual in New Zealand musical history, Che-Fu is one of New Zealand’s most successful and beloved recording artists.
Originally coming to attention as a founding member of the iconic Kiwi band Supergroove, Che went on to forge a solo career unrivalled in its success and the trail that it blazed not only for hip hop but Kiwi music.
Audiences will also be treated to other local and Pasifika artists
Including roots heavyweight Israel Starr, the soulful Iva Lamkum, beatmaker and DMC World Champion DJ SPELL, the Polynesian roots infused reggae vibes of The Refugees, and Amin Payne will be brining his G-Funk and disco sound along with very special guest vocalist and fellow Kiwi Stacey.
THE FOOD
Hangi boys is the story of 4 guys from the North Island showcasing their heritage and culture through traditionally cooked NZ cuisine. With over 40 years of combined experience in Hospitality internationally, living here in the renowned food capital of Australia. The unique flavour of Hangi stems from pre-colonialism days passed on through generations of Maori, it was a staple diet for many celebrations. Using spices such as horopito, fresh market produce and native wood from our homeland we aim to capture the attention of both international guests and kiwis living abroad right here in Melbourne.
THE DRINK
Garage Project was started in Wellington by two best mates with a passion for the good stuff. Within a few short years, they turned their microbrewery into the widely acclaimed best brewery in New Zealand. Garage Project dominated the GABS Hottest 100 Kiwi Craft Beers for 2019, taking out first place with its Pernicious Weed, second with its DFA, and landing a total of 25 beers on the list overall.
THE CULTURE
The inaugural Kiwi Fest celebrates the diverse Kiwi community with Māori and Pacific Island Cultural Performances from Ngā Mātai Pūrua, Collateral Culture and Nga Uri Whaioranga all Highlighting bringing people together through shared history and culture, learning forgotten histories and the education of traditional rites and practices.
Kiwi Fest is an all-ages cultural event paying tribute to the Land of the Long White Cloud. Join the festivities and share the Kiwi love for the environment and respect of Maori and Pacific Island traditions and culture.
KIWI FEST 2020
Saturday 15th February – Footscray Community Arts Centre
2pm – 10pm
FEATURING:
Che-Fu, Israel Starr, Iva Lamkum, DJ SPELL, The Refugees, Amin Payne, Stacey
Ngā Mātai Pūrua, Collateral Culture and Nga Uri Whaioranga
Hangi Boys and Garage Project
All Ages Event – (All children must be accompanied by a responsible adult)
Tickets: $30-$55+BF
Children Under 3 Free
Ticketing via: www.eventbrite.com.au/e/
![Credit: Charlotte Patmore King Krule today announces the release of his forthcoming album Man Alive! with his first ever self-directed video. Following on from last year’s ‘Hey World!’ video in which Archy Marshall performed acoustic versions of four new songs, Man Alive! (set for release on 21 February 2020) will be the third King Krule titled studio album. Archy Marshall’s long-time love of cinema seeps out in his first foray into directing, with a video for ‘(Don’t Let The Dragon) Draag On’ that pulls influences from Carl Theodor Dreyer’s classic The Passion of Joan of Arc while still creating a typically wry King Krule visual. Presave / Pre-order Man Alive! https://kingkrule.ffm.to/manalive Archy Ivan Marshall has the world at his feet. After two feverishly received albums as King Krule, plus another low-key outing under his own name, this extraordinarily gifted 25-year-old from Peckham in South London adds further depth and substance to his oeuvre with another wondrous long-player called Man Alive!. It arrives packed full of his trademark sonic ambition and compositional skill, as well as the now-familiar corrosive lyricism and lurid social observation. Marshall has emerged as a pack leader amongst his peers, leading the charge in a fearless blurring of genre divisions, one minute seeming to drag the listener through the trashiest punk experience, the next ushering in a soundworld that’s apparently hi-tech and forward-looking. Like any great artist on the rise, Archy’s life is moving fast. There’s a lot to catch up on, after 2017’s sprawling masterpiece, The Ooz, broke through amid Mercury Prize nominations and minds-blown media plaudits. Unlike that record, Man Alive! doesn’t aim to present any kind of narrative thread, or Brexit-era state-of-the-nation address, just a collection of snapshots and stories, artfully sequenced into a dazzlingly coherent whole. This third King Krule album was written as a direct reaction to the non-stop energy of touring The Ooz, and then partly recorded at Shrunken Heads in Marshall’s native stamping ground of Nunhead, with ‘Ooz’ co-producer Dilip Harris. Midway through those sessions, however, Archy found out he was going to become a dad for the first time, and he decided to move up to the North West to be near the mother’s family, ready for the baby’s arrival. “I should’ve had it all wrapped up before my daughter was born,” says Marshall today with a sheepish grin. Impending parenthood came at a felicitous moment for him, as he was beginning to feel trapped in South London’s suburban lifestyle of all-eclipsing drunkenness and depression, which existing fans will know was a recurring theme in his earlier music. “It was just the easiness of it,” he reflects today. “There really is nothing else to do here, especially when it turns to winter. Everyone I know has jobs, whereas I’d sit on my arse all day sometimes not doing anything, then I’d go to the pub with them when they finished work. It became a bit habitual. Then, right in the middle of the record, this big change came in my life that I didn't really comprehend initially. It was like, ‘Oh, I’d better get my shit together!’ To be honest, I was really glad to get away from all that so I could focus on more pressing matters – like keeping a child alive and stuff.” The new album’s title, he explains, “is an exclamation, about the times we live in. Like, ‘Fucking hell, man!’” He stole the title from a CD that his uncle gave him back in 2013 with some of his uncle’s own music on it, and originally planned to use it for his last album. “More and more,” he explains, “I've been put off by the intention of speaking about what's going on in society as a black-and-white thing, or trying to get to the bottom of why we’re in this position. So the album is mostly made up of snapshots and observations. There are a lot of real-time-and-place moments, songs talking about walking through the park just over there and getting a head injury [don’t ask! – Ed.], then there are other tracks which are just simplicity, looking at one particular situation and reflecting on it as somehow being super-profound.” Just as the lyrics are diverse in theme and purpose, so is the music: ‘Comet Face’ lopes along with irresistible unease like a wonky New Wave hit, and ‘Stoned Again’ packs all the inspired beatmongery of ’90s hip hop, while much of the record’s sparser second half recalls the lo-fi intimacy of Robert Wyatt’s ’80s solo work, or indeed the recordings of mass-murderer Charles Manson. As the concluding ‘Please Complete Thee’ sails out on upliftingly twangsome slide guitar, you’d be forgiven for imagining that some of the more agonizing preceding numbers have served as a kind of therapy for their creator. “Oh yeah,” he freely admits, “once you’re able to discuss things and talk honestly, there is no better way than just shouting it out at a bunch of people. I was always empowered by lyricism and getting my aggression out in some way, or any kind of emotion. That has always been a process for me. This time I felt like I had gotten out of a dark place, and I was on a high. I appreciated the depression, and the low times I’d been through, but I also liked how I felt better in the here and now. So it was about reaching that new plateau.” King Krule - Man Alive! 1. Cellular 2. Supermarché 3. Stoned Again 4. Comet Face 5. The Dream 6. Perfecto Miserable 7. Alone, Omen 3 8. Slinky 9. Airport Antenatal Airplane 10. (Don't Let The Dragon) Draag On 11. Theme For The Cross 12. Underclass 13. Energy Fleets 14. Please Complete Thee King Krule - Man Alive! is out Friday 21 February via XL Recordings / Remote Control. xlrecordings.com remotecontrolrecords.com.au](https://thepartae.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/KING-KRULE-1170x776.jpg "KING KRULE")
