Unlocking the Vault

How the Australian Music Vault brought music to Melbourne in the darkest days of lockdown.

In early July 2020, venues across Melbourne were beginning to close as a hard lockdown for Victoria loomed. With artists and audiences alike about to be confined to their homes, the Australian Music Vault and Arts Centre Melbourne looked for ways to support the music industry as it entered a very uncertain time.

The idea? A new creation named Vault Sessions. The premise was simple – provide artists with the opportunity to perform and be paid for their work, while bring music to a community facing unprecedented uncertainty.

“In contrast to the more informal live streams that had been popping up we wanted to give artists a chance to do a full production,” says Carolyn Laffan, Senior Curator, Australian Music Vault & Music, “A full-set live concert in an empty Hamer Hall for audiences to enjoy from the comfort of their own homes.”

With much of the entertainment industry on hold at this time, Vault Sessions emerged as particularly special opportunity to perform during lockdown. A decision was made to showcase artists who make a strong statement – blazing their own distinctive paths in the music industry

“When Vault Sessions hit my desk, I reflected on the many incredible artists who were once the first slot of a festival or playing small capacity venues but have now come into their own,” says Kat Murphy, Associate Producer, Contemporary Music. “These artists have a strong following but importantly are still evolving creatively – I wanted to work with them to create something special for the beautiful Hamer Hall stage.”

The first three shows in July 2020 featured Australian artists – Alice Skye, Ziggy Ramo and Cash Savage and the Last Drinks. Embracing the opportunity to perform after many, many weeks of unexpected downtime, each experienced their session as something strangely therapeutic.

“My performance for Vault Sessions was almost dream-like. It’s so surreal especially because it was probably two weeks before Melbourne had the second wave and went into lockdown,” says Ziggy Ramo. “The timing was crazy. We had a week to prepare and get it together. We flew down, smashed out the performance and flew back to Sydney on the same day. It was almost like it didn’t happen. The Vault Sessions gig is something I’ll never forget.”

From its first run, Vault Sessions created a place for musicians to connect with their audiences regardless of distance. But importantly, it was an environment for artists to freely and joyously create art that was distinctive, urgent and absolutely of the moment.

“When I got this opportunity with Arts Centre Melbourne for Vault Sessions the biggest thing was that I could present [my album] Black Thoughts in the way I wanted,” says Ziggy. “I really wanted to perform it top to bottom with no backing tracks; everything needed to be completely live because I wanted it to feel like a living and breathing entity. What we deemed a successful release wasn’t deemed as a financial success [but] it was about presenting art and it was really liberating.”

One of the other surprises to come out of the program was the November release of Cash Savage and The Last Drinks Live at Hamer Hall, an album on vinyl, recorded during the band’s Vault Session in June. Released through Mistletone Records via Inertia, the album is a thrilling example of the power evoked in this performance, and will serve as a permanent reminder of an incredibly unique time and place.

As 2020 marched onwards, Vault Sessions evolved even further to showcase musicians from across the musical spectrum, and to encourage unexpected partnerships. In December, The Teskey Brothers partnered with Orchestra Victoria to present their raw, soulful music with a full orchestral backing.

“The idea of an orchestra and contemporary music might seem poles apart but we have seen great examples of this in history,” says Kat. “When I first spoke to Nathan Smith from Orchestra Victoria about the collaboration, we both got giddy like two teenagers and remembered how obsessed we were with S&M, the Metallica collaboration with San Francisco Symphony. The opportunity to have an orchestra realise your songs is extremely rare and generally inaccessible for an up-and-coming artist. I felt like this collaboration was the ultimate platform to take their music to a new and different place – moving both band and Orchestra out of their comfort zones.”

After the success of Vault Sessions in 2020, the Australian Music Vault naturally looked towards the progression of the series. As Melbourne and beyond began to gradually emerge from lockdown, the program made its first steps towards live audiences with a special performance from Mo’Ju and Orchestra Victoria at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl.

Similarly, a special summer offer, Vault Sessions: Live & Lo-Fi, allowed the program to scale right back, presenting a series of local independent artists on the Arts Centre Melbourne forecourt. The free performances every Friday and Saturday evening provided a relaxed and informal return to live music as the Melbourne Arts Precinct stirred back to life.

“I think that one of the things we’ve all learnt over the past year is that a beautifully produced live-streamed performance has the power to eliminate so many of the barriers that restrict people from enjoying live music – physical, emotional, financial or geographic,” says Carolyn. “We’d love to be able to build on that even as we return slowly to live performance.”

“I think that we really captured a moment in time forever with the Vault Sessions show,” says Ziggy. “You can see how haunting the scale of it was and how it captured the energy of that time. It felt like history as we were doing it and it will be something in 10 years that I’ll look back on and feel pretty connected to. I was so grateful for the opportunity because our art moves beyond us and to know that we captured something of that quality is amazing.”