Dub Club Melbourne presents NYE in Dub n Grub

Following on from the magnificent sell out of The Return of Dub Club Melbourne earlier this year, DCM returns to Ravens Yard presenting NYE25 in Dub n Grub - a dinner and dance warehouse rave style party.

This end of year celebration features Melbourne’s original purveyors of soundsystem culture - Heartical Hi-Powa and crew in the main room, Jamaican Knights pop up kitchen serving up authentic JA cuisine with Svaha Sound entertaining the front yard, plus visual dubbing by Simbiotic Vision System.

Get ready to pack away 2025 and bring in the New Year in fine style with the infectious rhythms of dub and reggae, immersive sonics and the tastiest of dishes, at a destination venue, away from commercialism, hectic crowds and annoying HNY drunks.

Gates and kitchen from 6pm until sold out. Music and dancing till 1pm

Fun facts of a Dub Club Melbourne and Heartical Hi-Powa story

> The plans to build Melbourne’s first bespoke hand built dub sound system where drawn up in 2001 (24 years ago) with construction commencing the following year.

> In 2003 an affiliated radio program began to broadcast on Melbourne’s PBSFM. The program was originally named ‘Heartical’, which influenced the name of the sound system being built at the time. The program later changed its name to Break to Chain, due to a conflict of interest issue and continued to broadcast up until 2015.

> Due to limited funds, resources and changes of address, the initial Heartical HiFi Outentational four scoop stack wasn’t completed until 2005 and mostly sat dormant until 2007. Being a new concept to the local music scene, no bookings were taken and venues were reluctant to allow the crew to bring in their own set to play a session.

> The first Heartical stack was only first fully powered up on NYE 2006 in the backyard of a Coburg residence, to the dismay of some neighbors. It appeared Police had been called and were spotted driving down the street waving glow sticks out of the window, the party continuing without interruption.

> In 2007, once a suitable venue had been found. Dub Club Melbourne was established with a vision to promote soundsystem culture to a new audience. Being the only active custom-built dub reggae sound in the whole of Australia at the time – Heartical HiFi was the resident crew. The venue situated in the basement of the Finders Station Hotel, was able to accommodate DCM’s aptly named Basement Sessions. Parallel to this Heartical provided sound for a new upcoming bass music club night – Wobble.

>Basement Sessions ran mostly monthly up until 2015 and would later become a platform for newer sound systems to play. This making DCM arguably the foundation of what today has become Australia’s humble bespoke soundsytem culture movement.

> Also in 2007, a carbon copy of Heartical was built, commissioned by Dubwise record label owner and producer Chris Jay and business partner John Lumley. This newly built sound system was shipped to Brisbane and became Champion Sound who maintains it today, while presenting various events and community development projects.

> During 2008, more speaker cabinets were being built and a new complete four scoop stack doubled Heartical Hi-Fi in size and capacity, with the sound now taking on bookings for events and festivals.

> The sound system building project continued to evolve with another eight scoops of different design being built. By mid 2011 Heartical boasted a wall of sound, which included 16 scoops to push the sub bass. This wall of sound was only ever played once, at Heartical’s annual renegade Community Dance, that occurred alongside the Sydney Road Street Party. Car alarms in the area where sounding off and even a report from a taxi driver claiming the sound pressure had moved his stationary vehicle.

> Later a new mid range and tops section was built and the amplification stage upgraded. This was the completion of a whole rebuild of Heartical Hi-Fi Outernational’s original sound system set, prompting a slight name change to the current Heartical Hi-Powa.

> Most of the older speaker cabinets, amps and cables were sold on. Part of the old Heartical system was installed at the Sub Club as the in-house PA, while the rest went to a new sound crews called Foundation and then later to Talawah HiFi. Heartical assisted both these newer sounds to obtain their Jah Tubbys pre-amps, as there was an established relationship with the builder. Unfortunately both these sounds are no longer. However, some of the boxes are now in the hands of General Feelings and Trip Hazard sound systems who actively play through them today.

> Dub Club Melbourne and Basement Sessions was the original music/club venue promotion to present a physical sound system and its crew as a headliner. This broke the mold of generic live band and DJ booking. In 2012 DCM presented the first ever event in Australia with two physical custom built soundsystems playing in the traditional clash format of round for round, then tune for tune. This session where Heartical met the newly arrived Adrian’s Wall from UK, was essential in demonstrating the individuality and character of different sounds and crews, while elevating in the competitiveness nature of the culture, delivering entertaining banter and custom dubplates. As newly built sounds where emerging, many played their debut at the Basement Sessions, sometimes in 3 way sound meets.

> DCM’s Basement Sessions ran for eight years. During this time, not only did it nurture the development of the soundystem scene in Melbourne, in 2016 after Heartical relocating to Northern New South Wales for a period of just over two years, Dub Club Byron was established. Now the region has it own flourishing soundsystems.

>Over these years resident sound Heartical has hosted shows with some of the most prolific names in the business. Some of these include Alpha Steppa, Channel One, Cheshire Cat, Earl 16, Eva Lazarus, Johny Osbourne, Macky Banton World MC, Lee Scratch Perry, Mad Professor, Mungos HiFi, RSD, Tapes, Tippa Irie, Zion Train and countless local artists. Heartical often diversely collaborates, while providing sound to cross genre events. Some of these have featured names like Stormzy, LTJ Buckham, Moody Man, Floating Points… to name just a few who have performed on the set.

> From the days of Heartical not even being able to get into an established music venue and playing renegade gate crashing council run street parties, the sound system has now played in some of Melbourne’s most prestigious venues, including The Forum Melbourne and Federation Square.

> Heartical has travelled to and played in most of Australia’s major cities, with exception of Perth and Darwin. Has made multiple journeys up and down the east coast. This arguably makes it the most on road-traveled owner built and operated custom built sound systems in Australia.

> During the COVID lockdowns, the sound system was refurbished and upgraded. The cabinets were filled and sanded back with a fresh lick of paint, four new bullet super tweeters boxes were built, new amp rack road cases were purchased and fitted with newly built cable and lead patch bays, a new cabling system was implemented and a new custom pre-amp mixer build was commissioned, so the sound has gone from 4 way to optional 5 way frequency band separation for added control and extra clarity.

> Dub Club Melbourne took a 10 years hiatus. While Heartical continued to take bookings and play at numerous events and festivals, DCM returned in August 2025 presenting a dance with the full Heartical Hi-Powa soundsystem playing in a solo session, with the event selling out.

> In consideration of the above timeline, history and achievements. We say that while maintaining its street level finesse as a specialized medium of un-commercialized music, Heartical Hi-Powa can rightfully blow its trumpet as the uncontested number one champion bespoke built sound system in Australia, with a past legacy and continuing journey.