Documenting Sound System Culture in Melbourne: Behind the Lens of Francesco Vicenzi

In the last decade, Australia has experienced a literal explosion in the presence of sonic street technologies, as can be seen on the SST Sonic Map, with its current epicenter in the city of Melbourne. This cultural surge has drawn the attention of documentary filmmakers, cultural operators, and curators of various kinds, enabling a detailed documentation of the scene’s evolution—from its underground roots to its entry into prestigious venues. In this blog, Dr. Moses Iten from the SST Australia team introduces the work of photographer and documentary filmmaker Francesco Vicenzi.

by Moses Iten

This blog introduces the work and vision of photographer Francesco Vicenzi, one of the primary documentarians and archivists of sound system culture in Melbourne, Australia, where sound systems have proliferated over the past decade (Figure 1). This boom was documented in 2021 in a prior post: Introduction to Sound System Culture in Melbourne. The Melbourne scene is hugely diverse and evolving in various directions: there are custom-built rigs being built for techno, drum n’bass, roots reggae but also Colombian champeta, reggaeton and more. The culmination of this boom was a historic session which brought together ten of these diverse sound systems, also documented in the 2022 blog post Heavy Congress: Convergence of Sound System Tribes. However, Heavy Congress now appears to have been a precursor for an even bigger boom, with more sound systems being built in one of the world’s most multicultural cities [1].Vicenzi’s work documents and reflects on the behind-the-scenes of this context, and has made a crucial contribution to sound system culture in his adopted city.

Figure 1: Selfie in a mirror at a Forward Ever session, Melbourne, 2014. Photo by Francesco Vicenzi.

Francesco Vicenzi arrived in Melbourne in 2009 from Italy. Born in Genoa, he studied in the city of Bologna, where he first became “involved in reggae, dub and in the activist, political scene” where “sound systems were a staple”. Documenting his passion for reggae and sound system culture helped build his early experience as a photographer. In Melbourne “on my first night out, a friend took me to a Heartical’s Basement Session. I remember riding my bike through town, amongst the lit skyscrapers and then caving into this pitch-black underground club in a graffiti clad alleyway. Once inside, the music was so present and loud, that blew me away”. Vicenzi had walked into the heart of reggae culture in Melbourne, where, in a former bank vault, the Basement Sessions took place from 2008 to 2014. These monthly dances were instigated by Derek Marr (also known as selector Stryka D) of Heartical Hi-Powa (originally as Heartical Hi-Fi Outernational), who since completing the build of his sound system in 2004 has hosted numerous formal and informal sessions (Figure 2).  Today, Heartical Hi-Powa is respected as one of Australia’s pioneering and most reputable sound systems dedicated to reggae music [2].

Figure 2: Heartical Hi-Fi Outernational informal session, Brunswick, Melbourne, 2012. Photo by Francesco Vicenzi.

Employed as a commercial photographer by day, in his free time Vicenzi attended every Basement Session he could, documenting the community being built around this custom-built sound system [3]. “Taking photos has always been my way of creating connections and giving back to the community. I was really into the Basement Sessions, that was my monthly highlight. I started to take photos there so that Derek could use them as promo for future dances. At the time the venue was pitch black, the only light often being a dim bedside table lamp casting light over the turntable. I had to set up a remote-controlled flash at the other end of the room, often on one of the speaker stacks, to get some directional light into the room without altering the overall mood”.

Looking over Vicenzi’s shoulders as he flicks through his extensive archive of black and white photographs, there are the familiar faces of numerous local reggae personalities: from well-known radio DJs to the dancefloor ‘massive’ and a generation of kids who have meanwhile become recording artists or gone on to found their own sound system inspired by these sessions (Figure 3). The fifteen years of documentation is stored on dozens of hard drives, an impressive archive of local sonic street technologies and popular music history (Figure 4). Vicenzi’s documentation extends beyond the city of Melbourne and covers the whole state of Victoria, as he also photographed the ‘bush doofs’ of the ‘free tekno’ and rave scenes, which have been analysed in several publications by the scholar Graham St John [4]. Vicenzi’s commitment to sound system culture led to his involvement in documenting and producing publicity for Heavy Congress, Australia’s largest ever sound system event.

Figure 3: At the studio with Vicenzi. Photo by the author.

 

Figure 4: Photographic archive stored on hard drives. Photo by the author.

Heavy Congress was originally scheduled to take place in and around Melbourne’s Town Hall in June 2021 as part of Rising, a festival established in the wake of the global Covid-19 lockdowns of 2020 [7]. “My initial brief was to interview the sound systems and create a minute or so clip for each sound, as a way to introduce them to an extended audience ahead of Heavy Congress. I worked with Stick Mareebo as the interviewer on this one. It was only four sound systems to be interviewed initially”, recalled Vicenzi. However, just two days out, the event was cancelled again and rescheduled for the following year.  “We had another year to expand the interviews component, as more sound systems were included in the new lineup. Alongside the strictly Heavy Congress questions, I had the foresight to pose a few more general questions about sound systems in Melbourne”. The result was a feature length film featuring interviews with all ten participating sound system crews screened at Heavy Congress at the Forum Theatre on 4 June 2022, playing in a loop at the cinema upstairs while the bass from ten sound systems below reverberated through the floor.

This film formed the backbone of the ten-minute documentary Heavy! A Congress of Sound Systems in Melbourne/Naarm, which Vicenzi produced for the SST research project and was premiered at SSO#10: Frames and Frequencies as part of the 8th annual Global Reggae Conference in Kingston, Jamaica in February 2024 [6]. “The initial film for Heavy Congress was a seventy-minutes linear, slow-paced edit, where each sound system was talking freely for a few minutes. I loved that format despite the lack of    structure and layering. For the Global Reggae Conference, I intended to create a concise, intertwined narrative that spanned the early days of sound systems in Melbourne to Heavy Congress in a more textural visual form”. The creation of this film became an opportunity for Vicenzi to expand from photography to film making. “A few stars had to align to make this project happen, and I think it was very time-specific to the post-COVID phase–I’m not sure I would be able to achieve the same today with everyone’s busy schedules”. The rapport Vicenzi established in his fifteen years of documenting the close-knit but competitive sound system community was crucial to the enthusiastic response he received when making the film: “Only good vibes! Every operator is proud of their contribution to the scene, as they should be. Looking back, I can appreciate how much commitment everyone poured in, setting up their stacks for the interviews and the photoshoots, often involving several crew members, transportation etc”. The passion and commitment of the various crews is palpable in Vicenzi’s short film.

Just like the largely self-taught nature of custom-building sound systems, Vicenzi was also forced to rely on a do-it-yourself approach to produce his film: “From a technical point of view, the whole project was filmed and edited by myself operating multi-camera interviews, doing lights, audio… single-handed”. As the culture expands, so does the significance of the role of those documenting its growth.

There are more than fifty sound systems from across the Australian continent represented on the SST Sonic Map, reflecting the significant growth from a handful of custom-built sound systems from a bit over a decade ago. The current momentum of the sound system community is also reflected in the short film’s fast-paced editing, jumping from crew to crew and trying to contextualise a huge diversity: “I think that reigning in the narration to fit a ten-minutes format was the biggest challenge, with cuts needed to shave off just a few seconds at times…I would love to let the narration breathe more openly for the existing material. I would also expand the archival section and have more of my old grainy black and white photos on display, as well as find some archival footage from the early Basement Sessions. Most importantly I would like to add a segment at the end about the ripple effect that Heavy Congress had in Australia. It looks like the scene has reached singularity!” While the majority of sound systems reflect traditions from beyond Australia, their proliferation is setting the foundations for unique and innovative approaches, as each sound systems aims to carve their own niche to represent a specific space within the convergence of the broader community.

New custom-built sound systems being launched are now venturing into unprecedented territory, such as the Mahikai Sound System, an “ethnographic audio sculpture specialising in Pacific sounds and fusion” built and operated by the Orquidea Collective [7]. “There are now more sound systems and sound system events than ever, and sound systems are part of art exhibitions, council-sponsored events, festivals, shop displays, you name it.  I was walking down my local park in inner Melbourne a few weeks ago and I bumped into a sound system party I didn’t even know about (the sound system nor the party)”, reflected Vicenzi, recognizing the close-knit community’s expansion. The experience of producing the Heavy Congress documentary and looking back on fifteen years of sound system history in Melbourne has given him visions of the culture’s future. “The last (amazing) sound system gig I went to, I had this epiphany where I looked around and realised that the majority of the crowd was half my age, being served impeccable tunes.  The next generation is already standing on the shoulders of giant speakers’ stacks!”

About the author:

Dr Moses Iten is a researcher and DJ/producer (aka Cumbia Cosmonauts) based in Australia. He investigated the roots of digital cumbia music in Mexico’s sonidero culture for his PhD and has recently been appointed the Managing Editor of Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture.

References

[1] See City of Melbourne present itself as “one of the world’s most harmonious and culturally diverse communities” on their website, alongside statistical data of its diverse population: https://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/multicultural-communities, accessed 2 August 2024.

[2] Heartical Hi-Powa can be followed at https://www.instagram.com/hearticalhipowa and https://www.facebook.com/hearticalhipowa

[3] See Francesco Vicenzi photography website at https://www.organicphoto.com.au

[4] See St John, Graham (edited by). 2001. FreeNRG: notes from the edge of the dancefloor. Melbourne: Common Ground Publishing; also St John, Graham. 2009. Technomad: Global Raving Countercultures. London: Equinox Publishing.

[5] See https://www.jasonmaling.com/heavy-congress, accessed 29 July 2024.

[6] See full program of films screened at SSO#10 Frames and Frequencies as part of the 8th annual Global Reggae Conference films on 15 Feburary 2024 at https://sites.gold.ac.uk/sound-system-outernational/sso10-film-screening-programme/, accessed 29 July 2024.

[7] See https://orquideacollective.net/designs/, accessed 29 July 2024.

 

 

 

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