My Costume is a Culture: DIY Branding, (Narrm) World and Pop Spectacle

Post-lockdown, I can’t tell if Melbourne’s rock scene is dead or if I’ve just grown bored by it. I can still name a few bands I like, and recently, a handful of Zoomers seem to have revived it in an interesting way (more eclecticism and less machismo, though the same middle-class, white demographic pervades). Now, the local artists I’m really taken by are different, musically. They exist in the same scene, but they’re not by any means part of rock or its subsidiaries. Pop, albeit experimental pop, is how I would describe the sound. It’s made on home software with a combination of digital and live instruments. It’s hyperpop played on a dying Casio through a bad speaker—actually DIY, rather than just employing the aesthetic, à la Brat. These artists are Hyena (Coco Aboukhater), Pillow Pro (Christobel Elliott and Jude Millis), Nite Fruit (Prani Harrison and Kitty Chrystal), and Soft Approach (Tiaki Teremoana, Mladen Lalić Milinković, and Jourdan Hickey). Though some of these acts began years ago, or have warned of final shows in recent times, their music feels pertinent in 2025.