Masked Cowboys And Japanese Punk: Our Guide To The MONA Foma Line-Up
Some of the most exciting artists in the world are descending on Launceston next year. Here are five you shouldn't miss.
MONA Foma is one of the premiere cultural events of the year.
The brainchild of David Walsh, a Tasmanian entrepreneur and owner of the MONA gallery in Hobart, MONA Foma is the brighter, sunnier twin of Dark Mofo. A summer festival that highlights music, culture, cinema and art, MONA Foma has a chirpier outlook than its sibling festival — more of an emphasis on pop, albeit of the strangest possible kind, and one that heads north to Launceston.
The 2020 lineup is no different. Spanning from January 10, 2020, to January 20, the festival is all about artists who explore joy. Admittedly, for some of these performers, that can involve pleated masks, A.I. mainframes and sped-up rockabilly. But still: pure ecstasy remains the name of the day.
Not, mind you, that a lighter festival means a less niche one. The MONA Foma lineup is somewhat baffling, the kind of confusing deluge of artists that you can’t muddle your way through easily without a guide. So: a guide! Here are our top five picks of the festival highlights, with primers on Foma’s most fascinating new talents.
Orville Peck
Imagine Hank Williams Jr. strained through the back catalogue of Southern gothic outlaw Flannery O’Connor and mashed up with the queer American subversion of John Waters and you have something like the music of Orville Peck.
Something like, but not completely, because Peck remains in a league of his own. The OG masked singer — he solely performs while wearing a pleated string piece covering his face — Peck is one of the true originals of the new country movement.
If you can’t make it to Tasmania, he’ll be slinging his way across the country, playing Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne.
The best song to get you started: ‘Dead of Night’, complete with its haunted music video.
Flying Lotus
For the last few years, Flying Lotus has followed the sound of no drum but his own. Evolving from an already distinct and idiosyncratic artist into an even more distinct and even more idiosyncratic one, he released Kuso, a bizarre and singularly repellant horror movie starring infected anal pustules and his friend and fellow collaborator Thundercat.
The album that he released this year was just as off-beat. A collection of eerie skits and brief, oddball hooks, Flamagra might be one of the standout releases in an already standout career.
The best song to get you started: ‘Ready Err Not’
CHAI
Japanese four-piece Chai make the kind of music that lays out its pleasures before you, simply. Skewed, sped-up pop spurted out by singularly talented musicians, this is the future of indie rock: unpretentious, raw and real.
They’ve only been around for two years, but in that time they’ve dropped a brace of short, sharp records. It’s something of a cliche to say that a band have the whole world at their feet, but how else to describe the career trajectory of Chai, who are teetering on the edge of total world domination? See them before they blow up.
The best song to get you started: ‘CHOOSE GO!’
Holly Herndon
Holly Herndon might be the only artist on the MONA Foma lineup with a PhD in computer research (note the ‘might be’; hedging our bets here.) The electronic artist has spent her career combining beats with academia, creating work that can either be enjoyed immediately, unthinkingly, or by deep-diving into her encyclopaedic knowledge of contemporary theory and philosophy.
Case in point? Her new record Proto, a deeply involving collection of mood-pieces that so-happens to have been partially created with the help of a singing A.I.
The best song to get you started: ‘Godmother’
The Native Cats
The Native Cats have been one of Hobart’s most exciting acts for years now. Stripping down avant-garde rock to its most necessary composite parts, a song like ‘Nixon Nevada’ takes one emotional note and nails you to it.
The result: some of the nerviest, most paranoid, and groundbreaking music coming out of the Southern hemisphere, like an old noir paperback put through a blender, poured into a jar of instant coffee and eaten raw, with a spoon.
MONA Foma 2020’s Full Line-Up
Laibach
Ludovico Einaudi
Flying Lotus
King Ubu
Amanda Palmer
Paul Kelly
James Ledger
Alice Keath
Seraphim Trio
Aki Onda
Akio Suzuki
Ann O’Aro
Annette Krebs
Architects of Air
Alice Potts
Tarryn Handcock
Alexandra Bachzetsis
Tarryn Gill
Pilar Mata Dupoint
Jess Olivieri
Hayley Forward
Ali Kazma
Liz Magic Laser
Katy B Plummer
Khaled Sabsabi
Tony Schwensen
Dominik Jalowinski
Piotr Wysocki
Hissy Fit
Chai
Jo Lloyd
Deanne Butterworth
Tina Havelock Stevens
Evelyn Ida Morris
Fernando De Campo
Hiromi Miyakita
Holly Herndon
James Rushford
Jeremy Dutcher
The Native Cats
Ora Clementi
Orville Peck
Philomath
Ripple Effect
Tim Hecker
William Barton
Zeloite
Joseph Earp is a staff writer at Junkee. He Tweets @Joe_O_Earp.