50+ Labels To Host At Melbourne’s Inaugural Independent Music Exchange

After being announced last month as part of The Eighty-Six, organisers of the Independent Music Exchange have today (August 1) announced the full details of their inaugural event.

Running over the weekend of Saturday October 28 and Sunday 29 – the former of which also being The Eighty-Six’s flagship festival day, Super Saturday – the Independent Music Exchange comes as the brainchild of three DIY label owners and longtime indie music fans: Michael Kucyk of Efficient Space, Maryos Syawish of Research Records and the Butter Sessions, and Corey Kikos of the Butter Sessions.

It’ll be held at Masaya Reception in the Naarm/Melbourne suburb of Thornbury, with a total of 52 independent labels hosting stalls. According to a press release, those that attend will have “an unmissable opportunity to pick up vinyl, cassettes, merch, zines, test pressings, posters, warehouse finds, artist signed items and other limited editions”.

Among the labels down to rep the event include Chapter Music, Cooking Vinyl, Domestic La La (the passion project of ex-Violent Soho guitarist James Tidswell), KGLW (the label run by members of King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard), N&J Blueberries (the label helmed by HTRK), Our Golden Friend, Poison City, Remote Control, Mushroom Group and UNFD. See below for the full list.

Entry to the Independent Music Exchange will be free, however you’ll need to have a Super Saturday pass to attend – you can RSVP for your spot here. The event itself will be much more than just a record market, with official materials describing it as an effort to “foster community between the like-minded risk-taking labels, encouraging collaboration and the sharing of ideas and experience”.

In a press statement, Kucyk said of his and his team’s ambitions for the event: “The Independent Music Exchange celebrates the inspiring record labels that have established themselves from grassroots, operating on their own terms while disregarding any rule books, the mainstream and the industry at large. This is an opportunity for our peers to share their successes and failures, while casually hanging out with our compatible audiences. We’ve long watched similar events happening aboard with envy and are proud to finally offer our unique version with the support of The Eighty-Six.”

The full program for The Eighty-Six itself – a new music and arts festival taking over the streets of Melbourne this October – was detailed last week. As hinted by its name, The Eighty-Six will be held across venues, theatres, record stores, bars, restaurants and bowls clubs that regularly present live music along the 86 tram route in Westgarth, Northcote, Thornbury and Preston. 

At the centre of the program is Super Saturday, an insane-sounding event where more than 200 acts will perform at venues along High Street over the span of 22 hours; it’ll kick off at 7am on Saturday October 28, with individual showcases right up until 5am the next morning. Shows will be curated by more than 40 programmers, with every single one of them free to attend.

The first events for The Eighty-Six were announced back in May, when shows confirmed for the itinerary included performances from Otoboke Beaver, Makaya McCraven, Los Bitchos, Connie Constance and Built To Spill, as well as a live taping of the podcast How Long Gone.

A second announcement came earlier in July, with new additions featuring shows from Unknown T, Ros Bandt and Ariel Kalma, Denis Bovell, and Theo Parrish, plus an in-conversation session with Bez (of Happy Mondays fame) and an event paying tribute to Graeme Thomas – renowned member of The Prestones and founder of both Preston Records and Preston Studios – by The Preston Records Revue.

INDEPENDENT MUSIC EXCHANGE 2023

VENDORS

Albert's Basement
Altered States Tapes
Animals Dancing
Anti Fade
Bedroom Suck
Butter Sessions
Chapter Music
Cheersquad
College Of Knowledge
Companion
Cooking Vinyl Australia
Cool Death
Domestic La La
Domino
Dot Dash
Efficient Space
Elations
Finders Keepers (UK)
Fresh Hold
Good Company
Good Morning Tapes
Holiday Maker
Hopestreet
It
KGLW
La Sape
Love Above
Love Police
Lulu's Sonic Disc Club
Moontown
Music In Exile
N&J Blueberries
Northside
ONO
Our Golden Friend
Pointer
Poison City
Ramble
Remote Control
Research
Rice Is Nice
Snail Editions
Sorcerer
Southern Exposure
Spoilsport
Mushroom Group
The Roundtable
Tiny Town
UNFD
Vessel
Wax’o Paradiso

Saturday October 28 + Sunday 29 – Masaya Reception, Thornbury (Naarm/Melbourne)
Tickets: oztix.com.au