Anna Bortionist-"lean into the possibility of disappearing quite seamlessly into the atmosphere of the music" DARK AMBIENT BRILLIANCE.
Anna Bortionist-"lean into the possibility of disappearing quite seamlessly into the atmosphere of the music" DARK AMBIENT BRILLIANCE.
ANNA BORTIONIST- DARK AMBIENT BRILLIANCE
AS PART OF:
BLACK PLANET
25TH JULY TWO VENUES THREE STAGES 21 BANDS
O come, creatures of the night!
Bear witness to BLACK PLANET: A Celebration of Australian Dark Music.
Descending for the first time as a full-spectrum gathering of darkness, Black Planet hosts 3 stages across two iconic venues: The Bendigo Hotel & Nighthawks. Built for devotees of sonic extremity and shadow culture, this inaugural edition transforms the night into a living cathedral of sound, atmosphere, and chaos.
The night will be separated into 3 spaces:
The Ossuary (Bendi Main Room) - A shrine to brutality and all things heavy
The Void (Bendi Upstairs) - A chamber devoted to noise, ambient, drone and experimental
The Black Hearts Lodge (Nighthawks) - A sanctuary of goth, darkwave, post-punk and nocturnal romance
Headlining Black Planet 2026 is THE AMENTA - One of metal's most uncategorizable acts, THE AMENTA have been synthesising the ugliest aspects of death, black, and noise into a unique maelstrom for over 25 years. Well-known across the world for their intense live shows, THE AMENTA combine speed, anger, and a weird sound with smoke and strobes to create a brutal, overwhelming experience.
Joining them across the 3 stages are: Mammon’s Throne, Hybrid Nightmares, Victoria K, Küntsquäd, Bentham’s Head, Knife, Npcede, Živa, Inaugural, Chiffon Magnifique, Blood In The Champagne, Dystropolis, Palliative, Blood of a Pomegranate, Military Position, Anocht, AnnaBortionist, Serene Ailment, Angellis Taliuu, and Koolooz.
ARTIST:
The Void — Bendigo's upstairs room — is arguably where Black Planet gets most interesting. Noise, ambient, drone and experimental work rarely gets billed with this kind of confidence at a mainstream-adjacent event; usually it's the room nobody quite knows what to do with. Here it's one of three pillars holding the night up, which says something about the event's actual commitment to "diversity" as more than a marketing word — genuinely difficult, non-song-based work gets the same real estate as the headline-friendly heavy stuff.
Artist intro: Anna Bortionist is a Melbourne noise artist working in noise music soaked in what she describes as Lilith energy — antifascist, neurodivergent, unfiltered. She's been active across the DIY noise/experimental circuit, including a recent split release with Séraphitüs-Séraphîta and a contribution to Compilation II: Noise for Trans Lives, a benefit comp supporting LGBTIQ+ youth services. Her live sets sit at the darker, rawer, more confrontational end of the Void's remit — noise as unfiltered signal rather than composed atmosphere. DARK AMBIENT BRILLIANCE.
INTERVIEW:
1. The Void is framed as a chamber, not a stage — something more enclosed, more about atmosphere than spectacle. How do you think about the difference between playing to a room and playing inside one?
That’s a really interesting question! In some ways when I’m really in the thick of a performance, I’m almost out of the space altogether, whatever it is- once I played with trains thundering directly over me and didn’t really notice because I was so “within” what I was doing. So being in this space seems like an opportunity to really lean into the possibility of disappearing quite seamlessly into the atmosphere of the music, and for the audience to be able to do that too.
2. Noise/drone/ambient work often lives or dies on what it does to time — does it stretch, collapse, disappear? What's AnnaBortionist doing to the room, ideally, forty minutes in?
Hopefully, the room is dissolving by that point. And people are unaware of time. Sometimes when playing a moment can seem endless and unreal to me. I hope people end up in a state that is similar.
3. Black Planet's being pitched as a "living cathedral of sound" — where does your most recent release, or whatever's next in the pipe, sit inside that? Anything dropping around the show we should know about first?
I’ve always felt there is an element of ritual to what I do- I’m trying to tap into the memory of creating a sense of wonder and magic, the way that private songs and games would feel to a rather solitary child entranced by the mysterious world of nature. And a feeling that more conventional “spiritual” experiences seemed desperate to shut down and deny.
Fire/flower is inspired by the idea of the growth that can sometimes come out of destruction, and there’s a new release coming very soon that is working through some similar concepts.
4. This is billed as a celebration of Australian dark music specifically. What does that qualifier — Australian — actually mean to what AnnaBortionist does, if anything? And why does this underground still matter to you, this far in?
Being “Australian” means very little to me at all- I’m appalled by so much that currently seems to be considered part of “belonging” here, because those defining the “belonging” are driven by exclusion, hate, fear and a desire for an existence that is desperately narrow and cruel. I want no part of that- and I never want my art to be claimed by people who feel this way. We are living on an ancient land and it is a stolen land. Acknowledging that is vital.
Becoming an underground artist at a fairly late age has been eye-opening- I’ve found such an accepting environment to have my artist growth-spurt occur in. It’s not a utopia (nothing is), but my art and my quirks as a person have been made very welcome here. I wouldn’t want to warp myself into some more “pleasing” version to be heard- and I haven’t had to do that, thankfully.
5. Bendigo and Nighthawks are two venues, three rooms, one night. What are you actually trying to do to a room when you play it — what's the physical or psychic effect you're chasing?
Timelessness and placelessness. I want people to leave the performance feeling like they’ve gone somewhere within themselves that they didn’t know existed- somewhere without words. Something closer to dreaming.
6. Your project is super original, it is sublime art and audio, it is equally comforting as unsettling and sounds like a master at work-what’s the aim of Anna bortionist, it’s driving inspiration and motivation, and what compels you to make such wild and grim brilliance?
Thank you!
anna bortionist started when I became aware that I had something to create- I wasn’t sure what, but as it began to emerge, an emotional theme of freedom seemed to run through all the work.
Coming from a background of an extremely confining, conservative and misogynistic religion (it was also a very strange background in ways too complicated to explain quickly), I felt a sense of urgency and honesty about what I was making.
I had no background in performance at all and only rudimentary knowledge in music theory, but l was determined to not get in my own way- hence I keep performing even though it’s very nerve-wracking to do so. Somehow getting out of that small and confined space that was allotted to me as a younger person was more important than all the fears of failure or feelings of unworthiness.
LINKS:
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SO GRAB A TICKET ASAP AND START WORKING OUT HOW YOU CAN SEE EVERY BAND...SOMEHOW
KILLER PRICES TO BE HONEST;
Both venues: $75+BF
The Bendigo Hotel Only: $45+BF
Nighthawks Only: $35+BF
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