Aeternal Flux II

  The MONA FOMA summer series of concerts has succumbed to the economic pressures terminating many Australian music festivals. Although Dark Mofo remains to enliven the Tasmanian winter months, it’s lamentable to see the cessation of a program that had the advantage of a balmier season for outdoor performances on the Museum of Old and New Art’s spacious Berriedale lawns. Since its inception in 2009, organiser Brian Ritchie made it his mission to entice Hobart’s residents with an eclectic range of experimental artists such as Philip Glass, David Byrne, Ryoji Ikeda, Julia Holter, Pierre Henry, Tyondai Braxton, Mdou Moctar, John Cale, PJ Harvey, and Antony Pateras, among many others. The inclusion of renowned American free jazz and poetry group Irreversible Entanglements for the second last show is a fitting summation of the institution’s cultural ambition. While this penultimate concert has its languorous moments, the febrile Fire Music energy on display for at least two-thirds of it...