The Avatara Festival brought Sweden’s Human Blue, Switzerland’s Sensual Squeak and Virtual Attack, from Israel to play in Melbourne’s hidden gem, Roxanne Parlour, along with an impressive local line-up of progressive, psy-trance, dubstep and glitch DJs.

I arrived at Roxanne around 12, and found Spoonbill had just started playing in the main room, which was lit by a single central green laser and had an awesome visual display consisting of vertical streaks of white and coloured lights moving up and down, matrix-like, on an LED board. This dancefloor was already quite busy, with several dozen people checking out the area.

I was hoping to see Sun Control Species, but the back room was not open yet. While it was a bit disappointing, Spoonbill kept it funky in the front room. Around 12:30am, things kicked into gear and the back room opened too, with Sun Control Species playing deep, rhythmic progressive basslines. There was no decoration at all in the back room, but as a mate put it, Sun Control was “still kicking arse!” with just two bi-colour lights on either side illuminating his booth. However, all of a sudden, an awesome radial red light turned on behind the DJ booth.

Spoonbill finished his set strongly around one-am, with lots of bass. Then JPS took over, opening with some crazy funky tunes. The back room was more packed at this point, as the majority of the crowd was watching Sun Control finish his set. Interestingly, I observed quite a majority of guys in the back room; while the front room had more ladies…differing musical tastes for the genders, perhaps?

All of a sudden, a beautiful full spectrum laser appeared at the back of the psy room. Combined with the other lights already present, it was a truly impressive show. Meanwhile, Sun Control Species continued his awesome building tunes, and had the room enthralled with a wonderful finish. I suspect the music got sneakily louder over the course of the set too, as it was nice and banging by this point. Next, Rubal took over in the back room, his set moving into faster funky psy, relatively full-on.

Yet another surprise, a bubble machine, was unearthed in the main room. Everyone loved it and jumped around popping bubbles. Opiuo began a mad glitchy set around 2am with crazy mash-ups and very funky beats. The main room now began to pack out as more and more people joined the dancefloor. Opiuo had an epic finish towards three-am, with several ridiculously dancey tunes followed by rounds of applause from the sweaty audience. To top it off, Roxanne’s excellent sound system, had the bass literally moving the floor under the dancers.

At this point, the back room was getting really smoky and trippy, but was a bit quieter, as most people were catching the end of Opiuo’s set in the main room. In the front, Tristan Boyle executed smooth transition from funky glitch to jazz-laced progressive psy. I headed home about now, exhausted from hours of dancing, though I wish I could have stayed even longer.

Except for a slow start, especially of the tunes in the back room, and a bit of a lack of decoration, I thought the night was stellar, with everyone was having a good time. The amount of people there was perfect, not too crowded or too empty. Also, fast and friendly bar staff made buying drinks a breeze. Thank you Avatara and Roxanne Parlour for a tiring but very good night out!