Wallflower Sound System

Adrian Kingwell is a composer, music educator and musical director based in Fremantle/Walyalup, Western Australia. He creates notated contemporary music that draws on a wide range of genres and conceptual inspirations. His works have been performed by professional soloists and ensembles, as well as school students around the country, and overseas. Adrian currently teaches Music and Musical Creativity at Scotch College. He also hosts the radio show Join the Dots on Freocast. 

Jimmy Thompson has been the Design Director at MJA studio since 2011, during this tenure Jimmy has transformed the practice’s approach to design and has overseen significant growth in the scale of the studio and the complexity of projects it undertakes.
 
Jimmy seeks design solutions that respond to local context, heritage and environment in a way that incorporates a sense of whimsy and delight for the people who occupy them.
 
Above all Jimmy truly gives a damn about the ability of Architecture to have a positive effect on its occupants and the communities that surrounds it.  As an ambassador of the Indian Ocean Craft Triennial he is passionate about Perth understanding its own geography and embracing its unique location on the Indian Ocean.

Co-founder of digital agency Juicebox and collaborator in the small-batch wine label Vine Collective, Joel Pember has long sought balance between the digital and the tactile. Once a musician who played piano and saxophone, he later found creative freedom behind turntables. His selections move through lower-tempo, soul-filled house, mood-driven techno, and textured ambient sounds that embrace electronic music-making, always with a distinct human touch. With a vinyl collection built steadily since the late 90s, he continues to search for music where technical craft meets raw feeling.

HWLS is the Grammy-nominated music project of Australian producer Justin Elwin, one of Australia’s most accomplished underground DJ/producers. With five EPs released across Future Classic and independently, HWLS has earned critical praise and contributed remixes for Joji, Tokimonsta, Dua Saleh, Seekae, Hermitude, Petit Biscuit, UZ, and more.

Having toured globally and shared stages with Flume, Ta-ku, and Mura Masa, HWLS also holds production credits for Denzel Curry, Ty Dolla $ign, Jaden Smith, A$AP Rocky, Vic Mensa, and others. His DJ sets and mixes — including Diplo & Friends, RinseFM, Triple J Mix Up, and Boiler Room — showcase his versatility and deep musical knowledge, evolving through genres while staying true to his distinct sound.

Katy Steele’s voice is undeniable — ethereal, dramatic, melodic. A singer-songwriter and performer with nearly two decades in the Australian music industry, she continues to evolve and impress.

Hailing from Perth, WA, and from a family of musicians (father Rick Steele, brother Luke Steele), Katy blends classic influences like Blondie and Fleetwood Mac with melodic pop. At 19, she became frontwoman of Little Birdy, whose albums BigBigLove, Hollywood and Confetti all achieved Gold status and produced defining indie-pop anthems.

After Little Birdy went on hiatus, Katy released her solo albums Human and Big Star, the latter developed over two years in her home studio and praised for its bold melodies and glistening synths. In 2025, she reunited with Little Birdy for the 21st anniversary of BigBigLove, selling over 5,600 tickets nationally and re-releasing the album at #2 on the vinyl charts.

Now back in Perth, Katy is developing new music with Little Birdy and solo projects, while continuing workshops, keynote talks, and her songwriting career.

“Music is my outlet. I just sit at the piano and let it all fall out… That’s why I do it — because I’m meant to do it.” — Katy Steele

After two decades in the music industry, Kester Sappho has seen nearly every side of it. From gruelling U.S. tours (she’s toured every state except Alaska and Hawaii) to late-night gigs and hours on a bus across Western Europe, Japan, and Brazil. Her career reads like a tour itinerary and a love letter to live music. With a selfie reel pre-dating selfies with artists Chuck D, OutKast and Drew Barrymore and a friendship circling including punk bands such NOFX and Frenzel Rhomb she’s earned deep respect not just for where she’s been, but for how she’s carried herself getting there.
 
Once embedded in the operational chaos of touring, Kester Sappho has since shifted gears, now serving primarily in the office on the management team at Phil Stevens Management, working solely with John Butler. Having kids brought her off the road, but not away from music. “I started DJing more seriously when I had kids and reduced my work hours,” she says. “People just kept asking me to play. I turn down more gigs than I take these days.”
 
By night, Kester spins vinyl-only sets across Fremantle and Perth, her 2,000-strong record collection a living archive of her journey. Music runs deep in her DNA. Being the daughter of local blues musician, Lee Sappho, some of Kester’s earliest memories are of band rehearsals filling the family kitchen.
 
For Kester Sappho, music isn’t just a career or a pastime, it’s a pulse that’s guided every chapter of her life. Grounded, pragmatic, and quietly revered, she’s proof that passion doesn’t fade, it just finds new ways to play.
 


Over the last thirty years, Marcus Canning’s created some of WAs most popular festivals, venues and public artworks, including RAINBOW, Freo’s celebrated iconic entry statement. Canning founded the Fringe World Festival in 2012 and grew it to become the third largest Fringe in the world before moving on to launch The Rechabite in 2019. Other venues he’s developed over the last thirty years include Rooftop Movies, The Girls School, The Bakery and the infamous 90s Jacksue Gallery. Marcus recently tapped out from The Rechabite to build a large new sculpture studio next to a Yallingup brewery and focus on his art and Dadding his three young boys. For the Wallflower, Marcus is bringing some of his favourite art vinyl including works by Ragnar Kjartansson, Kenneth Anger and Bjork.

From the reefs of Bingle Bay to the marching lines of the RAFF base in Laverton, Ralf’s rhythm has never stayed in one place for long. He’s dived deep, marched hard, and driven further — all the way across the Nullarbor, chasing sound, silence, and all that in between.

Now based in Freo – he’s been here for a while – his is a patchwork life built on broken cars, basslines, and bad coffee.

Ralf doesn’t do background music. He likes it live, loud, and full of instruments — real frequencies that shake subatomic particles and rattle deep-earth minerals. All bass.

Once known as the Piss-nessed Monster after a gig gone gloriously off the rails, Ralf’s been spotted in the Red Engine Caves and Black River Ransom — where the amps crackle, the floor shakes and the night bleeds rock n roll.

Nick Allbrook is a Western Australian-born songwriter, multi‑instrumentalist and producer whose creativity and collaborative spirit have driven his career since the mid‑2000s.

Based in Perth, Allbrook first made waves with projects like Mink Mussel Creek and as a touring member of Tame Impala before establishing himself as frontman of Pond.

Across multiple solo albums, including Ganough, Wallis & Fatuna (2014), Pure Gardiya (2016) and Manganese (2023), Allbrook’s richly textured sound combines psychedelic rock, experimental pop and introspective lyricism.

Known for his distinctive voice and boundless musical curiosity, Nick Allbrook continues to explore new sonic terrain while remaining deeply rooted in Australia’s vibrant psych‑rock and indie music community.

Nick Sheppard has a bit of a story…
 
At 16, he played the Legendary Roxy Club in London’s Covent Garden as a member of The Cortinas; one of the original wave of UK Punk Rock Groups. Three Blistering Singles, an Album, a ton of gigs and about two years later, that story ended…
 
Nick moved to America for a year. San Francisco.
Back to The UK. Played with a bunch of bands, Got a call from a Girlfriend – “do you want to audition for a band my mate works for?”
“Maybe; who are they?”
“The Clash”
“Yeah, I could do that…”
 
Two years, one American and two European tours, a top 20 single and a highly controversial album later, that story ended…
 
Nick carried on playing, DJ’ing, acting (Films and TV) and generally making a racket – Head, The New Egyptian Kings, The DomNicks and The Feel Alrights are just a few of the bands he’s been in over the last 30 odd years. He sells clothes for a living too…

Peter Bibby is a Western Australian songwriter and musician whose raw, gritty storytelling and distinctly Aussie voice have made him a compelling figure on the indie‑rock scene. Born in Perth in 1988, Bibby launched his career busking on the streets and later released his debut solo album Butcher / Hairstylist / Beautician in 2014.

Since then, his work—including albums Grand Champion (2018), Marge (2020) and Drama King (2024) — has captured the essence of working‑class life, heartache and humour through an unapologetically Australian lens.

With a sound rooted in garage rock, punk and indie pop, Bibby brings songwriting that is immediate, emotive and punchy.

Known for live shows that combine biting lyricism with propulsive energy, Peter Bibby continues to evolve his voice and vision—balancing raw authenticity with musical ambition.

Phil Stroud is a Perth-based composer, percussionist, and producer whose music moves fluidly between electronic, improvised, and ambient worlds. He is known for crafting immersive albums that combine subtle grooves, live instrumentation, and unconventional textures, while exploring ensemble-based modal and rhythmic ideas born from improvisation and careful arrangement.

A frequent collaborator with artists such as Sui Zhen and Horacio Luna, Stroud recently returned home to Perth after several years in Melbourne. Beyond his recordings, he has created sound design for fashion, dance, film, and movement, including projects for the Boola Bardip Museum and the Wassily Kandinsky exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Reaching into the depths and corners of dance music, Rok Riley shapes journeys that connect people and place with the unexpected. With deep roots in community radio, Riley curates sounds that honour tradition while embracing the new. Her sets are alive with warmth, surprise, and a sense of shared celebration. 

Raoul Marks works in film and television, crafting title sequences for television shows like True Detective and the Crown, creating abstract worlds that often sit somewhere between the cinematic and the surreal. His work is shaped as much by sound as by image, and he’s always been drawn to the emotional pull of a great score. For this session, he’s playing some of the soundtrack records that have stayed with him, music that lingers, builds atmosphere, and hints at the stories behind it.

Rohan Silva is Chair of Founders Factory Australia, having brought London’s leading tech accelerator to Australia for the first time, with $22 million of funding to invest in clean-tech and nature-tech startups.

Rohan serves on the board of the Perth Festival, and was previously on the boards of the London Contemporary Music Festival, Whitechapel Art Gallery and Battersea Arts Centre.

He has also been named as a Visiting Professor and Honorary Fellow at the Royal College of Art in London, and a Senior Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics – plus he’s been a book prize judge for the Samuel Johnson Prize, George Orwell Prize and the Costa Poetry Prize.

Rohan is a regular columnist for the Times of London and the Australian Financial Review, and has also written widely for the Evening Standard, Observer, Telegraph and other publications.