Blacksound Records and Cipher Productions present the black helicopter power electronics of CHRYSALIS (Hobart, TAS), tensile sonics unit RESIDENT PISSANT, the intensive analog drone of TREACHEROUS BONE WISDOM and debut live performance of death industrial outfit DEATH APPEAL. Free, live and all ages heavy noise in-store at BLACKSOUND RECORDS. From 2PM, November 16, 2025. 351 Sydney Road, Brunswick.

With a body of work spanning nearly two decades, Aotearoa based multidisciplinary artist Alexander 葉 L. Brown's immediately recognisable ultra-detailed ink drawings — commissioned for album covers, merchandise, posters and more — showcase the painstaking texture and surrealist form the artist has become known for since the late 2010s. Presented here in their true form, inclusive of subtle tonality and human detail often lost in digital and reproduced print media, this exhibition serves as an outward meditation upon his existing canon, as well as a gateway to further inner exploration and expression. Opens September 25, running through until October 22, 2025 at Blacksound Records — 351 Sydney Rd, Brunswick VIC 3056. 

Blacksound Records is pleased to present a special panel discussion on the state of DIY music and the rise of streaming service Spotify. The panel will be moderated by Blacksound’s very own Lewis Fischer, alongside local musicians and artists Reece Prain and Cher Tan who will be joined by a secret special guest. No Streams No Masters is an attempt to interrogate the issues DIY musicians have to contend with in today's stream-centric industry environment, but also discusses possible solutions around reclaiming the public square in the face of platforms such as Spotify, who continue to devalue art by reclassifying it as 'content' within algorithmically-centric corporate digital enclosures. Cher Tan is an essayist and critic, DIY musician and the vocalist for Melbourne synth-grind band ESP Mayhem. She is also the author of Peripathetic: Notes On (un)belonging — a collection of essays about punk, zines, shit jobs and file sharing. She's been published in The Guardian, Hyperallergic, The Age, Kill Your Darlings, Overland, Meanjin, The Lifted Brow and many more. Tan's recently published review-essay Spotify is Worse Than You Think (KYD – 4 Aug, 2025) critiques Spotify and delves into the platform's inherent exploitation of artists, manipulation using pseudoscience and the funnelling of profits into the war machine. Reece Prain is a DIY touring musician who has performed for more than a decade in local Melbourne bands such as Diploid, Tumour and more. After successful tours in Australia, New Zealand and the United States, Diploid chose to remove their music from Spotify in direct response to the platform’s inner workings.The discussion will be moderated by Lewis Fischer, former journalist and critic, DIY musician (Altars, Whitehorse, Ignivomous) and of Blacksound Records. His work has been published in the New York Times, Overland, The Quietus, ABC, SBS and more. Our special guest for this panel discussion comes to us from the United States, and has written extensively about Spotify for nearly a decade.