Alt-rock acts ready for Volta

Telenova and Floodlights to take to live music venue stage

THE coming week will be a busy one for live music venue Volta with the stage serving as a stop for the national tours of two rising Melbourne acts.

This Sunday will see alternative rock band Floodlights take to the venue for the first time followed by pop trio Telenova’s Volta debut on Friday 16 June.

Floodlights will be promoting their new album Painting of My Time released in April, in what will be their first major Australian tour.

Vocalist and guitarist Louis Parsons said he’s excited to take their music to stages outside the major metro areas.

“We love playing regional shows and stretching our music to places where live music isn’t as common as in metropolitan cities,” he said.

“Ballarat’s a bit of a special one for me because a lot of my family are from there, my mum grew up there so I’m really looking forward to playing there for that reason.”

Floodlights’ Volta gig is one stop on a 17 date Australian tour, after which the band will take to Europe from July through to September.

Much of the set will be based around Painting of My Time’s 10-song track list which was written throughout two years before being recorded in three days at Melbourne’s Soundpark Studios.

Performed live to 24-track tape, vocalist and guitarist Ashlee Kehoe said the album marks a definite progression in Floodlights’ sound.

“We really wanted to write it as an album rather than just a collection of different songs,” she said. “We wanted it to sound good live and that was a consideration when we wrote it.”

Kehoe said the addition of Sarah Hellyer on vocals, trumpet, and piano has elevated the band’s sound prior to recording the album.

Floodlights previously played Ballarat earlier last year with a show at The Eastern in February, while Telenova visited the city for the first time as part of Spilt Milk in December.

Telenova frontwoman Angeline Armstrong said the band is keen to return.

“Spilt Milk was kind of the first big festival show we did where there were thousands of people there so we’re very keen to come back. I have some good memories there,” she said.

“This show will obviously be a lot smaller and intimate. It’s been so nice playing this tour and getting to go to smaller towns we haven’t visited properly for a headline tour.”

The gig will be one 15 Australian dates supporting the release of Telenova’s latest single Lost in the Rush, which is a song Armstrong said has been well-and-truly stage-tested for the past two years.

“It didn’t fit on either of our two EPs but it always had a great energy in the room when we played it,” she said.

“For me the song’s about a feeling of spiritual ecstasy and letting go, surrendering to the present moment.”

Recorded at The Base Studios in South Melbourne, Armstrong said tracking the song has informed how the band plays it live.

“There’s an element in the recording of making sure everything hit harder and that’s been interesting to play it live now,” she said. “We’ve beefed it up a lot.

“We don’t have a drummer in the band. We’re more into trip hop, samply beats and we combine that with more folky pop, alternative rock.

Tickets to the Floodlights gig are $34.95 and can be booked at bit.ly/3qtYqfR while the Telenova show’s $30 tickets and are available via bit.ly/3oT0v4j.