Steamy hot show to rock River Fest

18 July 2024
Melania Jack and Patty Preece in bright coloured clothes with cleaning gloves and gear.jpg
The Ironing Maidens comprises Melania Jack and CQUniversity’s Patty Preece

By Priscilla Roberts

A global, award-winning electro music duo hailing from Far North Queensland are heading to beef cattle and barra country to entertain audiences at the Rockhampton River Festival this month.

The Ironing Maidens, made up of Melania Jack and CQUniversity’s Patty Preece, will put domestic labour, technology, and the history of women in electronic music on centre stage with their live electronic performance art piece Electro House Wife.

The performance ingeniously adapts real irons and ironing boards into electronic instruments to create groundbreaking music (and a new genre – electro housewife!).

The performance promises high energy, captivating explosions of dance, amazing visuals, wit, humour and steamy hot sounds. 

woman in colourful clothes and hair looking down with iron.jpg
Mid-performance of Electro House Wife

With house inspired tracks built from real world laundry sounds and samples, the Ironing Maidens’ set bangs like an unbalanced washing machine and audiences will be dancing their way in a wrinkle free, electro experience.

The Ironing Maidens have toured Europe, playing Germany's famous Fusion Festival and the The Performing Arts Festival Berlin, and have featured at Byron Bay's Falls Festival, Woodford Folk Festival, Jungle Love, The Planting Festival, Wide Open Spaces, and were finalists in the Grant McLennan Fellowship and won a John Chataway Innovation Award for their shows at Adelaide Fringe Festival in 2019 and 2020.

Preece, an Associate Lecturer in Music and Theatre Technology at CQUniversity, said Ironing Maidens were born out of homage to the work of Daphne Oram, a pioneer of music technology from the 1950s whose work has been instrumental in the development of the electronic sound industry.

performers on stage with ironing maidens on projection behind them on stage.jpg
All the colour of the Ironing Maidens on stage

“The music is a fresh new take on house music, with four to the floor beats, driving 303 style bass patterns, samples from 1950s advertising and real-world laundry sounds, as well as lyrical concepts that will iron out your ideas about housework and gender roles,” Preece said.

The Ironing Maidens will be performing at the Rockhampton Customs House on Friday and Saturday nights, 26 and 27 July, and performing a late Sunday late afternoon set (28 July).

Tickets are available online through Oztix.  

The Ironing Maidens Live Electronic Experience is the absolute most fun you will ever have while thinking about the housework

Transcript

The Iron Maindens  rock

Incredible

I've seen the Ironing Maidens before and I thought it might be you know something I've seen but they just stepped up and up and up and it was

so beautiful to dance and yeah to be able to dance right now. 

Mesmerizing. I love the electronic gun delay and then the performance element.

Absolutely blew me away it was so sick

Can you give us like one word to describe this whole experience? 

One word to describe this experience - needed!

Right right we need more of it.

Oh she's my spirit animal. How did it make you feel?

I want to be a backup dancer and travel with them.

i can't describe it was incredible.

I didn't know about these guys until yesterday.  If you are don't see them you are missing out. This is the bomb.

This was amazing do it.

So fun to be a part of. Love those girls that powerhouse so much fun.

fabuloso fantastico

It was delicious.

That was amazing that was probably the most fun I've ever had on stage.

It was excellent the crowd was great.

I can't believe how much fun i had, it was like an actual party just for us.