“We’re used to listening to music out of streaming devices. When you listen to this tonight, you will hear the crackle and the sounds of the vinyl.”
— Malcolm Winter, my dad.
A short bus ride from campus, I hoisted my bag and left one of my classes early to attend the All Ears: Pink Floyd x Wizard of Oz (Dark Side of the Rainbow) experience. Housed in a little brewery in Marrickville, barebones brick walls coated in massive tanks of home-brew ale surrounded my father, who was nestled with a stout in the corner of the room.
All Ears, a series of album listening nights littered throughout the Inner West over the next month, is a chance to experience classic albums with the sensitivity and detail they deserve. In rooms outfitted by Sonos speakers, the event series hosted across the Inner West Ale Trail sees artists like Pink Floyd, INXS, and Outkast having their formative albums played in full on vinyl.
This first event was the epitome of a cult classic, the infamous Dark Side of the Rainbow viewing of The Wizard of Oz. Probably discovered by some guy on a lot of drugs, you can allegedly start playing The Dark Side of the Moon at the same time as the start of the film (specifically when the MGM lion does its third roar), and the film will match the ebbs and flows of the sonic experience.
All the freestanding high tables were aligned like a cafeteria, which somehow felt deeply intimate but also perfectly sociable. My father, forever a socialite, made fast friends with our table neighbours and their dog, conveniently named Toto.
I got myself a birthday cake flavoured sour ale (which was… different, to say the least), and settled in for the event introduction.
A few speakers who helped organise the night spoke to its creation. Aiming to revitalise afternoon culture and nightlife in the Inner West, these experiences are stoking the flames of cool events that allow you to socialise, experience music, and also indulge in brewery drink specialties. Some of the reps touched on needing these spaces because no one really listens to albums like in the good old days.
Whilst it was delivered with a smidgen of condescension, the message was clear: we don’t get the full album experience anymore. It’s rare to sit in a room with complex speaker sets, especially with other people, and do nothing but take in the music, feel the roar of a bassline, and absorb the narrative of an album in the way it’s crafted.
An album is an artform, and it requires intention. There’s certainly been a push for this return to form in the streaming era. I’ve noticed that a lot of recent albums, especially in the pop realm, are created with sonic and narrative coherence, designed to map out the journey of the time in which the music was created.
Without the physical impetus of a vinyl or CD, it’s undeniable that the magic of a new release can get lost in the act of hitting play on Spotify. Still, I think it’s rich to paint this picture of gen Z as ‘unable to appreciate the artform of an album’ when many of my peers either cherish this idea of the ‘classic’ album, or actively listen to newer artists in an album form. I’d argue we appreciate in new and exciting ways too; look no further than any discourse around artist ‘eras’ to see that.
I just don’t think we need to continually admonish the individuals who were raised through and exist in the world of streaming to critique the loss of album culture.
Rant over. Moving on.
DJ Andrew Levins, the curator of the event, spoke to the event’s relevance for Mixtape Brewery: “My job is to deconstruct an album, and we’re listening to this at a venue named after a reconstructed album.” It was a sweet insight which really connected the event to the room.
With over twenty speakers scattered around the space, the beige hues of the film flooded the screen. The score did thematic wonders to enhance the journey of the movie, and my dad was enthralled with the surround sound. He’s always had a love for speaker systems — we have quite an extensive one at home — and he even had a chat with the event technician, using a bunch of jargon I didn’t recognise.
Whilst I’m not intimately familiar with the Dark Side of the Moon album, it was floating around me as a kid enough that as it wafted around the brewery I felt trailed by nostalgia, as I watched this old-timey movie and heard this music lodged somewhere deep in my memories. The songs were surprisingly coherent with the film, and I particularly loved the intensity of the singing which matched the munchkins marching through Munchkinland.
It definitely wasn’t a perfect sync though. I think everyone in the audience could tell that the person who ‘discovered’ this cultural pairing was definitely intoxicated, if not heavily. Still, it was good fun.
All things considered, All Ears was an incredible chance to experience music in a conscious, immersive way that is not often afforded in the headphone-geared world of today. I can see this sort of event being the perfect way to carry on a conversation and a drink with your friends after a class as you prance around the breweries of the Inner West in your baggy jorts and chain necklaces. My only wish was that the music was louder, something my father and I both agreed on. Cross-generationally, we’d rather damage our eardrums than walk away disappointed.
Honestly, the best part of the evening was having a beer with my dad. I’m not normally one for a pale ale, but when it’s free and I can cheers it with my father, it’s all worth it.
All Ears will run four more immersive listening nights throughout the Inner West until the 10th of April. The next, a listen-through of Stankonia by Outkast, will be at Future Brewing on the 19th of March.
