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XANI
Xani "Finish Lines" Tour w/ Georgia Oatley // The Wheatsheaf Hotel, Kaurna
Wheatsheaf Hotel
39 George St
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About this concert
It has been a massive year for violinist and singer/songwriter, Xani. She played Tallinn Music Week in Estonia, the inaugural SXSW London and released the Australian Music Prize-nominated album, "Keep Moving". Now that it's coming up to the end of the year, it's time to celebrate all the little wins.
This is not your tidy end-of-year wrap. It’s a violin through a distortion pedal, a catalogue of songs cut open and re-stitched until they bleed new colours. Xani takes one theme, chews it up, and spits it back as a live show that’s equal parts confession, chaos and communion.
And the first hit is: Finish Lines. The end of 2025, the end of the gig calendar, the end of whatever else you didn’t get around to grieving. Expect endings of love, chapters, eras — dragged out into sprawling outros that refuse to shut up when they’re told.
Every town gets a different version — new conspirators, fresh wreckage — but the vibe is the same: half celebration, half funeral, all an ode to the year that has been. It’s a night for anyone who knows that crawling to the finish line still counts as finishing.
Xani Kolac is a rule-bender with a violin. Classically trained then gleefully corrupted, she rips the instrument out of stereotypes and drops it into the mess of songs, stories, and noise. One night it’s a gut-punch ballad, the next it’s a wall of distortion, and usually both in the same set. Improviser, composer, instigator — Xani’s shows swing like a wrecking ball between raw chaos and cinematic, heart-bursting stillness. Always restless, always rewriting the script, never giving you the same thing twice.
“Her set wasn’t just a concert—it was an experience, a testament to the power of music to spark joy and bring people together.” (Upside Adelaide)
“Xani Kolac is an expert at melding creative artistry with technology to build captivating sound worlds.” (The Age)
6:30pm Doors
7-7:45pm Georgia Oatley
8-9:00pm Xani
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What fans are saying
Glenn
May 6th 2023
Xani was fabulous. She was exuberant and brilliant, somehow managing to play violin, control all the foot pedals, sing, and still connect with the audience. It was a wonderful show. The two support acts, Julia Johnson and C.J. Stranger, were also very talented, and satisfying to listen to. The venue is great for a small crowd. Cheers.
Marrickville, Australia@Lazybones Lounge Restaurant & Bar
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XANI Biography
“Of all the countless violinists I’ve played with over the years, Xani stands out as one of the greatest. She’s got that rare thing called soul.”
– Jens Lekman
Fuelled by a fiercely uncommon authenticity and limitless vision for the magnitude of her craft, violinist and collaborator, Xani Kolac is amongst the most celebrated musicians of her generation.
An AU Review Best Live Instrumentalist award nominee and ten-year stalwart of the Australian indie scene as a member of The Twoks, Xani has since joined forces with Tim Rogers, Jens Lekman, Kate Ceberano, My Friend The Chocolate Cake and Clare Bowditch, appearing live at Arts Centre Melbourne’s Hamer Hall and Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and on ABC’s RocKwiz. Xani’s unbridled joy and onstage energy has cemented her spot as sought-after feature performer for theatre shows including the multi-award-winning Come From Away (2019-20) and festival projects with Melbourne Theatre Company and Malthouse Theatre (Melbourne).
It’s for good reason too: this spellbinding brand of music-making is boldly, brilliantly, her own. Mesmerising adventures into the spaces between pop, jazz, electronic and chamber music repertoire are coloured by contrasts between the ferocity of her instrumental output and the unassuming warmth of her voice.
Drawing parallels with the ethereal, multi-skilled likes of Camille, Björk and Australian legend of song-and-stage, Tim Minchin, pedals, effects and completely improvised live sets are all home turf for Kolac, a true musician of the rarest skill.
The corner of the music world that Xani has come to occupy has neither walls nor ceilings. All-at-once unique in artistic quality and fearless in her defiance of genre-based boundaries, “I’ve never strived for anything but freedom,” she says.
Xani’s releases, 1 (EP 2017), 2 (EP 2018) and 3 (LP 2018) paint a similar picture. The latter record, her first full-length instrumental album and offering on vinyl, was met with bold praise. Lyrics or otherwise, Xani’s music elicits themes of introspect, heartache and political sovereignty bound by a refreshing aural humility.
“It’s rare to hear a musician who plays as gloriously and with as much passion as Xani. We’ve been waiting for this album for years.”
– Clare Bowditch
Still, it’s her standing amongst collaborators that has crafted Kolac’s position as the one to watch in Australian contemporary music. As the keystone and founding member of Melbourne’s SPIRE Ensemble and chamber pop aficionados, Melbourne Amplified Strings (MAS), Kolac has programmed blockbuster, all-female projects alongside guest artists Kate Miller-Heidke, Jen Cloher, Tex Perkins, Harry Angus (The Cat Empire), Steve Kilbey, and more. Together with her community of colleagues, Kolac wants nothing more than to create visceral, earth-borne sonic entities that move everyone in that damned venue to dance.
But on violin? That’s just it. She’s an artist of thrilling juxtapositions that come together in the most seamless and captivating of forms: Xani Kolac.
Read More– Jens Lekman
Fuelled by a fiercely uncommon authenticity and limitless vision for the magnitude of her craft, violinist and collaborator, Xani Kolac is amongst the most celebrated musicians of her generation.
An AU Review Best Live Instrumentalist award nominee and ten-year stalwart of the Australian indie scene as a member of The Twoks, Xani has since joined forces with Tim Rogers, Jens Lekman, Kate Ceberano, My Friend The Chocolate Cake and Clare Bowditch, appearing live at Arts Centre Melbourne’s Hamer Hall and Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and on ABC’s RocKwiz. Xani’s unbridled joy and onstage energy has cemented her spot as sought-after feature performer for theatre shows including the multi-award-winning Come From Away (2019-20) and festival projects with Melbourne Theatre Company and Malthouse Theatre (Melbourne).
It’s for good reason too: this spellbinding brand of music-making is boldly, brilliantly, her own. Mesmerising adventures into the spaces between pop, jazz, electronic and chamber music repertoire are coloured by contrasts between the ferocity of her instrumental output and the unassuming warmth of her voice.
Drawing parallels with the ethereal, multi-skilled likes of Camille, Björk and Australian legend of song-and-stage, Tim Minchin, pedals, effects and completely improvised live sets are all home turf for Kolac, a true musician of the rarest skill.
The corner of the music world that Xani has come to occupy has neither walls nor ceilings. All-at-once unique in artistic quality and fearless in her defiance of genre-based boundaries, “I’ve never strived for anything but freedom,” she says.
Xani’s releases, 1 (EP 2017), 2 (EP 2018) and 3 (LP 2018) paint a similar picture. The latter record, her first full-length instrumental album and offering on vinyl, was met with bold praise. Lyrics or otherwise, Xani’s music elicits themes of introspect, heartache and political sovereignty bound by a refreshing aural humility.
“It’s rare to hear a musician who plays as gloriously and with as much passion as Xani. We’ve been waiting for this album for years.”
– Clare Bowditch
Still, it’s her standing amongst collaborators that has crafted Kolac’s position as the one to watch in Australian contemporary music. As the keystone and founding member of Melbourne’s SPIRE Ensemble and chamber pop aficionados, Melbourne Amplified Strings (MAS), Kolac has programmed blockbuster, all-female projects alongside guest artists Kate Miller-Heidke, Jen Cloher, Tex Perkins, Harry Angus (The Cat Empire), Steve Kilbey, and more. Together with her community of colleagues, Kolac wants nothing more than to create visceral, earth-borne sonic entities that move everyone in that damned venue to dance.
But on violin? That’s just it. She’s an artist of thrilling juxtapositions that come together in the most seamless and captivating of forms: Xani Kolac.
Indie
Instrumental
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