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Watch Kirin J. Callinan's Teaser for His Upcoming Sugar Mountain Show "Terrible Love"

The compelling and charismatic performer returns to Sugar Mountain.

Kirin J Callinan has been called many things over his career; creative, charismatic, unconventional, and provocative. Last year at a performance at Melbourne’s Sugar Mountain festival the musician was called all these along with other colorful adjectives after a stunt that he and collaborator, video artist Kris Moyes were involved in ended in a spectacular wave of controversy.

During their performance a gentleman named Billy who suffers from photosensitive epilepsy was invited to the stage. The plan was at some point during the show to, unleash a barrage of strobe lights, thus inducing a fit in Billy. Footage showed a strobe light being waved in Billy’s face, and Billy going into violent, prolonged convulsions before the show ended with heckles, walkouts and the Sugar Mountain organisers issuing an apology about the performance breaching a duty of care to the festival patrons.

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After spending most of 2014 traveling and living oversees Callinan is back. Back with a new record, a new video, touring with his friends in Jack Ladder & The Dreamlanders and like a modern day prodigal son back to Sugar Mountain to take part in a ‘Terrible Love’ a special collaboration created exclusively for the festival by Kirin and Sugar Mountain Creative Director Pete Keen. Check the premiere video below.

We caught up with Kirin and Pete over pizza to find out more about that infamous Sugar Mountain show and the new video and poem that includes the line, “Bursting into the crowd, reappearing in the face of the wave”.

Noisey: Hey Kirin, what’s been happening?
Kirin J Callinan: I just got back from Paradise Festival which was good. A fair bit has been going on. I have a new record but it won’t be out for a while as I’m in no rush. I’ve been touring with another band Jack Ladder & The Dreamlanders. The shows have been going great, so I will wait until the end of that cycle before putting out my new record. Is your own band changing much?
Kirin J Callinan: Yes, it’s always evolving and changing which I love. The one constant member is my little brother Tex, who is a beautiful and very talented man. Will the upcoming Sugar Mountain performance be an end to the Embracism shows?
Kirin J Callinan: The Sugar Mountain show will be a one off show. It’s a show between the Embracism shows and the next album so I guess it’s a transitional show. It’s a conceptual show. Pete Keen: It’s us expanding on our tormented past. Was the last Sugar Mountain experience tormenting?
Kirin J Callinan: There were no problems with the last Sugar Mountain show. Pete Keen: [Laughs]

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I think there were. Particularly between the level of communication between yourself and the organisers. Will they have more of an idea what to expect next year?
Kirin J Callinan: Yes, they will this time, but for me personally and an artistic perspective I loved the last Sugar Mountain performance. It was definitely polarizing and not everybody loved it but I didn’t expect everyone to love it. What Kris [Moyes] and I wanted from that show was to create conversation and debate. In that sense it was an overwhelming success. However one fair criticism, and not that this was it’s intention, but that it came across as a bit mean spirited. People have told you this?
Kirin J Callinan: Yes, but then I saw a lot of people in Melbourne who were at the show and they really enjoyed it. I saw Helen and Quincy from Bakehouse Studios the other night and they were saying how they saw it and recalled it. Does it go back to the fact that those with a negative experience are usually more vocal?
Kirin J Callinan: Yes, but it also comes back to creating a discussion. I think a lot of people had a problem with it being deliberately provocative?
Kirin J Callinan: We wanted to provoke conversation, discussion and debate, and raise some questions. We weren’t even sure what questions they would be. And questions that were asked of us as well. Moving onto the new show I still want it to be full of surprises, however, I want this show to be joyous and inclusive, rather than loaded and exclusive. Peter, after the controversy of the last performance why did you invite Kirin back? Redemption, ticket sales?
Pete Keen: The performance received a lot of mixed responses, and we weren't comfortable with aspects of it, and the communication of it to us. That was quite hard for us initially when moving forward. But having said that, I’m very proud to be involved in a festival that is open and facilitates unique performance, and gives artists a platform to experiment and present thought provoking work.

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Kirin’s was only one of many performances that year.

Rather than dwell on any negativity, I wanted to address it head on, and turn it around, so we could turn it into a positive outcome, I think Kirin is an important artist in Australia, and we both wanted to work together again.

In the following months after the last festival, I had decided to invite Kirin along to be part of a showcase at Festival NRMAL in Mexico, which I was curating. I was proud of Kirin’s work in Australia, standing tall and pushing boundaries. I wanted to work through any bad blood, and move forward with our heads held high.

I feel the Melbourne and Australian music scene is a small, positive community, and no place for grudges. I wanted to openly move on, clean the slate, and have the opportunity for Kirin and I to work together.

…And then a love blossomed overseas [ha!] This year we want to take the audience on another journey, one with a positive twist from the last. Kirin J Callinan: Pete and I didn’t really know each other before or in the wake of the last Sugar Mountain performance. He reached out to invite me to the Festival NRMAL that he was helping to curate in Mexico and he ended up coming on the road and tour managing us in the States. It’s testament to him and the festival that no matter what headaches were caused he has embraced it and not let it deter him from his path. Now that you are friends would your next Sugar Mountain performance be more respectful?
Kirin J Callinan: There was no disrespect intended for anybody in the last show. As a musician it takes a lot to put together an album and build a live show. Was it frustrating that all the focus was away from that?
Kirin J Calinan: For that show specifically we were lucky to have a small budget for the performance which was rare. To Kris and I the idea of merely doing a predictable audio visual collision is the word I think they like to use, seemed pretentious and self absorbed so from the outset we tried to make from what would be seen from the surface as the most pretentious self absorbed self obsessed show possible but take it somewhere else and it involved a cast and crew. Is Kris still involved?
Kirin J Callinan: No he isn’t. I actually haven’t been in touch with Kris for a while now. I believe he just had a child. I’ve been overseas for most of the year and so has he but in different parts. What is the new video like?
Pete Keen: The video has just been shot and it’s yet to be edited. It’s about love ..about terrible love. It involves a hopeless romantic. The pressure of competition. A few beauties. One named Eric.

Kirin J Callinan: There are some knockouts. If you are reading this with the video you will see for yourself.

Kirin, you are friends with Ariel Pink, an artist who has also courted some controversy in recent times.
Kirin J Callinan: Do you mean the Grimes thing? That was a beat up. That is totally silly and absurd. He didn’t care what he said and he was direct and it was very easy to make that sound controversial. Both you and Ariel are performers who don’t toe the line of what is expected from a performer. So do you think that may put you under extra scrutiny?
Kirin J Callinan: Yeah I don’t really care. I actually cringe when I see an interview that is really polite and respectful and just talking about being in a studio or something is boring for everyone concerned. I would much prefer to make something that makes people think and talk.

Kirin J. Callinan will perform at Sugar Mountain on January 24.