Arrival

ARRIVAL is thrilled to open our sophomore festival with a special collaboration and launch for Radio Cazimi – a new community-focused online radio platform and creative space being brought to life by esteemed selectors Montana & Ephacy in Walyalup/Fremantle. At its heart, Radio Cazimi is about connection, creating a space where people can come together through sound, creativity and shared experience. It is a platform for expression, transmission and collaboration where music, stories and ideas can be explored and shared in a way that feels open, inclusive and deeply rooted in community. This fundraiser is ticketed at a sliding scale. Pay what you feel/can afford.

Featuring:
DJ Sliding Doors
R. Glacken (Live)
Rok Riley
Yikes

Fundraiser details: Funds & donations raised on the night will be going directly into the start up costs of the radio station and its early stage running costs. Donations are not tax deductible at this stage (non-incorporated). Every little bit is extremely appreciated in helping bring Radio Cazimi to life. Donations can also be made on the night.

Set in an unassuming room in the heritage Phillimore Chambers, right where the port meets Manjaree and the heart of Fremantle’s West End, Café Music is a space in-the-making. Previously run as a small Italian café and on its way to becoming something new, for now it hosts eight nights only of the particular kind of surreptitious pleasure found only within the makeshift. Look for the door with the horseshoe and the glowing yellow leadlights, and enter a room where walls and tables alike are draped with cloth, inspired by the jazz cafés of old but stripped down to bare essentials. It’s not quite a listening bar and not quite a dance party, but something in-between. $1 from every sale will go towards ARRIVAL’s Australian Cultural Fund Campaign for 2027.

4PM – Late

Wed May 27: Josh Hills, Alex Malkovic
Thu May 28: Mitchell J Benson
Fri May 29: Montana
Sat May 30: John Tanner
Wed June 3: DJ Sliding Doors
Thu June 4: Paul Bilsby
Fri June 5: Rok Riley
Sat June 6: PMI

Acclaimed Brooklyn ambient techno trio Purelink bring their immersive live show to ARRIVAL, delivering a hypnotic blend of dubbed ambience, experimental rhythm and atmospheric electronica.

Formed by Tommy Paslaski, Ben Paulson and Akeem Asani, Purelink have quickly become cult favourites for their fluid approach to electronic music drifting between brittle ‘90s drum & bass textures, dub techno and vaporous post-rock atmospheres. Early releases caught the attention of tastemakers including Pitchfork and Resident Advisor, establishing the trio as one of the most exciting voices in experimental electronic music.

Since their acclaimed debut album Signs, Purelink have expanded their sound further on 2025’s Faith, layering live instrumentation, organic textures and guest vocals (including contributions from Loraine James) over their signature cascade of dubbed ambience and gently propulsive rhythms.

Join them for their Australian debut at ARRIVAL with special guest Mei Saraswati for a transportive festival opening performance.

Welsh songwriter, producer and avant-pop visionary Cate Le Bon brings her singular world of art-rock to ARRIVAL, performing music from her beguiling seventh album Michelangelo Dying.

Written between Hydra, Cardiff, London and Los Angeles and completed in the Californian desert, Michelangelo Dying is Le Bon’s most emotionally direct work yet – a shimmering meditation on love, loss and the strange afterlife of both. The record expands the idiosyncratic sonic universe she’s carved across acclaimed releases including Reward and Pompeii, blending warped guitars, spectral saxophone, motorik rhythms and surreal lyricism into something unmistakably her own.

Over the past decade, Le Bon has emerged as one of modern pop’s most compelling voices both as a performer and as a sought-after producer helping shape records for artists including St. Vincent, Wilco & Dry Cleaning. Her work nods to iconoclasts like David Bowie, Nico and Laurie Anderson, while remaining entirely her own strange and beautiful language.

On stage, Le Bon’s band transforms these intricate recordings into a hypnotic live experience that weaves saxophone, jagged guitar, analogue textures and stark vocals into a performance that is equal parts art-rock theatre and emotional exorcism. For ARRIVAL, expect a spellbinding set from one of contemporary music’s most distinctive and visionary artists.
Joined by hypnotic electronic pop artist No Bride. This performance includes an Acknowledgement of Country from Michael Spratt.

North Carolina’s Wednesday, led by generational songwriter Karly Hartzman, bring their ragged, storytelling driven Asheville sound to ARRIVAL.

Blending Southern rock twang, shoegaze noise and gut-punch lyricism, Wednesday have quickly become one of the most vital guitar bands of the 2020’s. Their breakthrough album Rat Saw God was widely hailed as one of the decade’s defining indie rock records, while new album Bleeds (2025) pushes their self-described “Creek Rock” sound even louder, sharper and more emotionally unfiltered.

At the centre is Hartzman’s vivid, hyper-specific songwriting shaped by small-town memories, dark humour and heartbreak delivered with disarming honesty. Around her, MJ Lenderman, Xandy Chelmis, Alan Miller and Ethan Baechtold stretch those stories across pedal steel twang, slacker hooks and towering walls of fuzz.

We are thrilled to bring their at times explosive and tender live show to the Naval Store for ARRIVAL. Joined by indie pop favourites Smol Fish + emerging prog-folk three piece Symmetrical Dogs.

Arnhem Land’s Drifting Clouds make their Western Australian debut at ARRIVAL, led by Yolŋu singer, songwriter and keyboardist Terry Guyula.

Dubbed “the most chill band in Arnhem Land,” Drifting Clouds fuse 80s-inspired synth-pop, dreamlike funk, big saxophones and coastal grooves with ancient Songlines sung in Guyula’s first language, Liyawulma’mirr-Djambarrpuyngu. Rooted in the homelands of Bunhungura/Gapuwiyak, their sound draws on millennia-old Dreamtime stories refracted through contemporary textures and infectious, ethereal melodies.

Their gorgeous 2025 debut single Bawuypawuy wraps Arnhem Bay ocean Songlines in shimmering grooves and hypnotic vocals, establishing Drifting Clouds as one of Australia’s most unique and exciting new acts. They have performed at Meredith Music Festival, Yabun Festival, Party in the Paddock and St Kilda Festival, have supported Cut Copy and will perform their Sydney Opera House headline debut for Vivid Sydney.

Joined by improvisational instrumental dance duo Bad Whip + Agapantha (DJ)

Kindred Spirits is a casual dance affair soundtracked lovingly by buddies. Long weekend, long dance, long lasting friendships. For this edition, we set sail across the Derbal Yerrigan for a 4 hour cruise departing Barrack Street Jetty and arriving at East Street Jetty.

Helmed by Montana (Skylab Radio, Radio Temponara) & Nape, Kindred Spirits is pleased to welcome interstate guests Naarm/Melbourne’s Bridget Small & Nick Ure. Their shared approach is intuitive, drawing from shelves of well-loved records that drift between understated guitar music, chuggy electronics and off-centre dance floor moments. Their shared musical palette can be heard together as hosts on Good Morning Skylab, as well as Bridget’s residencies on PBS & NTS, and Nick’s record label Southern Exposure Records. Their sets feel like a shared conversation that is cohesive but for listeners as much as dancers.

A warehouse fit for a purpose, the Naval Store transforms into a cathedral of dance with Wax’o Paradiso + RONA. on the Public Holiday Eve.

Over the past 10 years, Simon TK & Edd Fisher have built, curated and cultivated the institutional Wax’o Paradiso. The duo present a sonic frontier with unparalleled synergy through their performances, ever reliable event series and recently formed record label. Each rapturous journey, a cosmic concertina of rare groove and psychedelia that illuminates the vast reservoir that is Wax’o’s ineffable musical knowledge and technical skill. The resultant long-lasting, high-impact performances (including a monumental sunrise set at Meredith 2025) almost always unfurl in moments that push exultant crowds to soar together in shared states of dance floor freedom and energetic ecstasy.

RONA. Is a Kaytetye producer and DJ whose sound is deeply grounded in the vast desert landscapes of her home, Mpartntwein central ‘Australia’. Blending the rhythms and landscapes of desert Country with the pulse of club culture, she crafts immersive sonic experiences that are driven from her life moving between many worlds. Her latest release Raise It and Burn It pushes sonic boundaries in her practice whilst amplifying movements for First Nations justice and liberation. She has left her mark on major festivals including Meredith Music Festival, Laneway, Pitch Music & Arts , Sugar Mountain & Strawberry Fields with her music and sets centring connections to Country, self and place across generations.

Joined by YESNA

Oren Ambarchi is an Australian multi-instrumentalist based in Berlin whose practice focuses on the exploration of the guitar. He is a prolific solo artist and consummate collaborator who has performed and recorded with a diverse array of artists over the last three decades including; Fennesz, Charlemagne Palestine, Sunn 0)), crys cole, Thomas Brinkmann, Keiji Haino, Alvin Lucier, John Zorn, Annea Lockwood, Alvin Curran, Loren Connors, Manuel Gottsching/Ash Ra, Merzbow, Jim O’Rourke, Keith Rowe, David Rosenboom, Akio Suzuki, Phill Niblock, John Tilbury, Richard Pinhas, Evan Parker, Fire! and many more. He has released numerous recordings over the years for labels such as Touch, Editions Mego, Drag City, PAN, Kranky, Staubgold and Tzadik. Since 2009 Ambarchi has run the Black Truffle record label. Ambarchi’s latest album (together with Johan Berthling and Andreas Werliin) is Ghosted III released via US label Drag City.

Joined by Pale Ribbons Tossed Into The Dark. This event is proudly co-presented by Tone List,  a Boorloo-based label for exploratory music. Tone List’s operations are supported by the WA government.

At once a hazy relic and a digital snapshot of the human experience, Chanel Beads’ 2024 debut album Your Day Will Come announced Shane Lavers as a new force in experimental music. Throughout the album, Lavers captures the many contradictions of modern existence and the strange infiniteness of the digital world blurring lines through unconventional song structures of post-punk, pop and electronic. As he intentionally prints his songs down to embed fried artefacts and ghostly remains, the resulting songs have a time-collapsing quality, both transitionary and timeless.

Continuing to break new ground together with support from collaborators singer-songwriter Maya McGory and classically trained experimental violinist Zachary Paul, Chanel Beads has toured with headline shows in the UK and North America, opened for Lorde, Mount Kimbie and played Pitchfork Music Festival and SXSW. A self-observational project that offered an insightful philosophy into focusing only on what we can control, we are thrilled to welcome Chanel Beads for their debut Australian performance at ARRIVAL.

Joined by special guest Blood Knows

“Was he a beast, that music could move him so? He felt as if the way to the unknown nourishment he longed for were coming to light.”

Rich atmospheres and angelic vocals meet blast beats and anguished shrieks, lead by Berlin via Sydney’s Alias Error – a singer, songwriter and DJ known for her eponymous and timeless debut album a.s.o released to critical acclaim in 2023. Alia’s signature hypnotic vocals speak of restraint and release, moving fluidly from the elegiac to the euphoric. Collaborations with RIP Swirl, JASSS & James K have further cemented her position as an uncompromising star spanning effortlessly between ethereal dream-pop to the more moodier corners of electronic spaces.

Music by:
Alias Error (Berlin/Sydney) [Trip Hop, Ambient]
AFFIRMATIONS [Black/Death Metal]
Bort Sampson [Ambient, Noise]
Melanija (Ambient/Electronic)
Dreamspeed [Doom Metal] 

Wonky beats for horny freaks. Proud parents of the illustrious Smoked Trout queer party and (mostly) platonic besties Ellie & Liv join us for ARRIVAL! Smoked Trout is a Walyalup based queer party with the HOTTEST DANCE FLOOR this side of the river. Their parties are known for their quirky themes and progressive dance music, but mostly its warm and inclusive energy. Join them for a full venue take over of the treasured Buffalo Club with two floors of hedonism, local market stalls, merch debuts and more.

Ningaloo Records B2B Ruff Jams
Brie
Augie Was Here
Denny

Dry Cleaning need little to no introduction. Their latest record Secret Love (produced by fellow ARRIVAL artist Cate Le Bon) cements the London four-pieces place in rock’s avant-garde catalysing the Reaganite paranoia of early 80s US punk and hardcore with the dry strut of Keith Richards, stoner rock, dystopian degradation, playful no wave and pastoral fingerpicking, while Florence’s,delivery, meticulously calibrated to her bandmates’ soundscapes, asserts her in a lineage of spoken-word artists stretching from Laurie Anderson to Life Without Buildings’ Sue Tompkins. The follow-up to 2021’s New Long Leg and 2022’s Stumpwork started life in Peckham rehearsal spaces, all four members writing, playing and responding to each other in the room: in Dry Cleaning, music and lyrics form an inseparable, generative whole. We are thrilled to have them close the second edition of ARRIVAL.

Joined by enigmatic POND frontman Nicholas Allbrook’s new project Walrus