Attending the opening of The Vinyl Factory: Reverb wasn’t just a night out, it was a chance to sit inside a living conversation between music, screen culture and the stories we pass on. The official opening event was tightly choreographed, doors at 6pm, formalities, then an invitation for guests to move into the gallery and let the work speak.

What stayed with us most was the Acknowledgement offered by ACMI’s Sarah Slade. It was thoughtful and grounded and it did something we don’t always see done well: it connected First Peoples as the original storytellers to the deep technologies of story that pre-date writing, song, rhythm, spoken narrative, and the responsibilities that come with carrying knowledge through orality. From there, the leap to vinyl didn’t feel like a gimmick. It felt true. Records are memory you can hold, it’s tangible, the touch and the smell, maybe even the crackle. A needle drops, and suddenly a room is tethered to voice, to breath, to time.

That connection matters. At DACC, we spend a lot of time working with organisations on respectful storytelling, the “what” is important, but the “how” is everything. Who speaks? Who’s credited? Who benefits? Who holds authority? In that moment, the acknowledgement didn’t sit outside the exhibition as a formality. It sat inside the idea of Reverb itself: that culture is transmitted through sound, and sound can be both archive and catalyst.

And Reverb really does lean into that premise. The public program describes it as a multi-sensory journey into the symbiosis between music, art, film and culture, presented by ACMI with RISING, running from Fri 22 May to Mon 31 August 2026. It moves through different eras and energies from early techno and house to contemporary digital art and invites people to interact with sound (not just observe it).

I am an avid vinyl collector, and have been since I was 11 years old. I still recall the day I stepped into Hans Music Shop in Croydon to purchase my first record being Mel and Kim ‘FLM” released in 1987, followed by Midnight Oil’s ‘Beds are Burning’, the excitement of opening those covers, reading the cover notes and lyrics, and looking at the photos: there was a simplicity and comfort in the moment. I am a self confessed audiophile for the better part of my life, today, still digging and hit up op shops, record stores, auction houses and marketplaces. I think that Reverb taps right back into this feeling. I found myself lost in the listening room, with how other than John Coltrane and Miles Davis, Kinda Cool? No, Kind of Blue! A true timeless classic.

There’s something quietly powerful about that in Melbourne, a city that understands obsession, collection, crate-digging, and the way music becomes identity. Reverb doesn’t treat vinyl as nostalgia. It treats it as a cultural device: a way communities have recorded themselves, found each other, and stayed in motion.

Reverb at ACMI is worth heading in, and you should go with time. Let it unfold slowly. Listen for what you recognise, then pay attention to what surprises you. That’s where the best exhibitions land: not just in the eyes, but in the body.