TONE List will celebrate its 10th birthday in classic Tone List style with cake and avant-garde music at the Wyola in Fremantle.

For the past decade, the experimental music label has been hosting festivals in Fremantle and Perth that showcase musicians who push the boundaries and challenge audiences in an entertaining fashion.

At their birthday party, there will be a special set by the Tone List Family Band, an orchestra made up of their long-running team and founding members Annika Moses, Dan O’Connor, Lenny Jacobs, Jameson Feakes & Josten Myburgh, whose close friendship continues to guide the project. 

The family band will be joined by an intergenerational line-up of ten musicians from throughout Tone List’s history to create a spontaneous orchestral piece, including Djuna Lee, Raras Sukardi and Eduardo Cossio, celebrating the label’s foundation as an improvised music collective.

Also in the line-up are Clouds Come Rain & Basic Mind and Wayang, traversing dub, ambient and IDM sounds.

Virtuosic experimental singer Sage Pbbbt, a long- time friend of the label, will present a rare solo performance using subwoofers to amplify her phenomenal vocal range, and a new collaboration between drummer Ben Greene and cellist Mary Rapp offers a raucous duo tinged with avant-garde rock and jazz influences.

Long-time photographer Josh Wells will display prints from ten years of photographing Tone List’s events, and Teeter Bakery will bake a massive birthday cake to share. Kate Makowiecka & Braddy Breadcrumbs collaborate on a vegan dinner pop-up to help make the venue feel homely. And Tone List will also be selling their publication TL10Y, an 82-page book of writings reflecting on the past and future of the label, and goodie-bags of back catalogue and recent releases.

Despite being largely volunteer-run for most of its history, Tone List has put on eight instances of the Audible Edge festival, invited dozens of international guests to perform in Perth, presented hundreds of gigs, presented the multi-award-winning opera O,D,E, toured regionally and nationally, and received an Art Music Award acknowledging long-term contributions to WA’s creative music scene.

Their commitment to considered curation, fair pay for artists, hospitality and accessibility has earned them an international reputation and many trusting fans.

Part of WA Music Week, Tone List’s 10th birthday party is at the Wyola, 81 High Street, Fremantle on August 7.

For more info see tonelist.com.au.