Lines Of Flight 2025 Festival - First Lineup Announced

Ground zero for Aotearoa's freeform noise-loving underground from the year 2000 onwards, Ōtepoti's legendary Lines of Flight festival have just announced their initial lineup for 2025. Celebrating a quarter century of convention-defying "sonic exploration and underground community building" at Port Chalmers Town Hall, Port Chalmers Pioneer Hall, and Dunedin Public Art Gallery over three nights (plus a free daytime artist talk), delve downwards for the third ear-opening official lowdown and make your own pilgrimage in mid-October...

"We are excited to announce that experimental music festival Lines of Flight is returning to Otepoti this October. A mandatory event on the musical calendar for many, we will be celebrating 25 years of sonic exploration and underground community building.

The 2025 line-up features diverse approaches to sound-making, and spans multiple genres.

The first announced acts are as follows, with more to be announced in the next month or so:

Anthony Guerra (Australia) is one of the leading figures in the Australian experimental music scene. He will be performing twice: a solo set, and a duo with long-time collaborator Mark Anderson.

Dream Chambers uses modular synthesisers and her voice to create soundscapes full of warmth and emotion.

Electronic improvisers Finance are just in it for the money.

Guitar maestro Kahu (Tristan Dingemans of HDU) conjures layer upon layer of hypnotic ambient guitar trance-states.

Microsoft Voices is a punk laptop trio of Nell Thomas, Daniel Beban and Jonny Marks. They use only the text-to-speech function of Apple Mac's very basic 'Text Edit' software to create multi-layered machine vocalisations.

Misled Convoy (Mike Hodgson of Pitch Black) will take the audience on a real-time dubbed out multichannel journey, harking back to his Tinnitus days.

Pumice bring their ramshackle pop magic back to LOF for the first time since 2011, and Kraus’ psychedelic universe joins the party. Both acts have decades of international releases and touring under their belts.

Rosy Parlane makes beautiful abstract electronic based laptop music, manipulated from field recordings, pianos, guitars, household objects and other instruments.

Shape of a Mouth combines the prepared piano of Hermione Johnson with Ro Ruston-Green’s violin to create improvised magic.

Slightly Imperfect (Greg Malcolm and Jenny Ward) theatrically deconstruct the joyously nonsensical sings of Ivor Cutler.

The Aesthetics, fronted by Crude’s Matt Middleton, play guitar/saxophone/bass/drums scum-rock, infused with their own shambolic majesty.

The Escalation is the guitar noise duo of Bruce Russell and Peter Wright, taking an axe (or two) to any preconceived notions of what guitar music is.

Tjopi create dark industrial soundscapes made from field recordings, synth and feedback, as a backdrop to powerful toi kupu and waiata.

Acts will be accompanied by experimental film, with projections by Beth Hilton and Lady Lazer Light."

Lines of Flight

Thursday 16th October – Dunedin Public Art Gallery (7pm start)
Friday 17th October – Artists’ Talk, Port Chalmers Pioneer Hall (1pm, free)
Friday 17th October – Port Chalmers Town Hall (7pm)
Saturday 18th October – Port Chalmers Town Hall (1pm start)
Saturday 18th October – Port Chalmers Town Hall (7pm start)

Festival passes and tickets for individual events on sale HERE via UTR

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