Wide Open Space has wide open musical tastes. Across two stages, the festival will proudly showcase a diverse and dynamic musical tapas experience.

Ross River will be host to the cream of Central Australian artists and musicians as well as exciting and vibrant interstate acts. Sound systems will punch out crunchy-crunky-funk, live hip-hop, gypsy hoedown, deep tech, extraordinary acoustica, rock theatre, reggae, world and exotica - plus much more!

This year's program is a voyage of musical discovery with something for everyone to enjoy. Check out some of the line up below.

Barons of Tang
Spawned from the fiery pits of Melbourne, cutting their teeth in the underground theatre scene and with the taste of blood on their lips, 7 piece ensemble The Barons of Tang bastardize mainly traditional gypsy and tango feels to inappropriate perfection. With accordion, double bass, saxophone and bass clarinet to name just a few, the outfit create what they call ‘gypsy death-core’. The catchy tunes and punk ethos all tie together to mean one thing…dancing is inevitable!

MonkeyMarc
MonkeyMarc is a leading producer/DJ from Melbourne, Australia known as the mastermind behind political hip hop group Combat Wombat and more recently for this eclectic solo work (album out December 2009 through Omelette Records). MonkeyMarc also initiated the Labrats Solar Powered Sound System, whose environmentally sustainable parties have impressed audiences throughout the country for over ten years.

Opiuo
Imagine a precisely blended concoction of tight irresistible grooves, chunk fueled bouncy beats, luscious brooding soundscapes, and a bowl of scrumptious glitch. Welcome to the musical world of Opiuo. A self confessed music addict with a light hearted approach to life and art. Opiuo is at his best whilst hiding from the world, creating fun fueled music. Influences coming from everything, from life changing experiences, to mere cups of tea. Incorporating sounds as varied as jazz, reggae, funk, rock, psychedelia, and down right chunky goodness. Originally from New Zealand, he now resides in Melbourne and is rocking dance floors around the globe.

Saritah
Inspiring, uplifting and playfully powerful, SARITAH’S (SA-REE-TA) live shows are colourful celebrations of life.  Whether delivering soulful acoustic guitar, rockin rootsy reggae, dancehall or ska, Saritah connects with the audience. Lyrically, positivity sits beside global issues, and her vocals are delivered with a captivating blend of attitude and grace. South Korean born, raised in Perth and based in Melbourne, Saritah has built a loyal fan base around the world. Saritah has toured consistently both within Australia and overseas. In her latest album ‘Ancient Forward' 2009, affirmations of life combine seamlessly with the serious. Earthy textures create a worldly yet intimate album that ebbs and flows in a vibrant, eclectic style that Saritah has cemented as her own.

Mystic Beats
Mystic Beats has been generating a following as a down tempo dance electronic outfit, fusing eastern influenced instrumentation with contemporary styles. Originally composed electronic grooves merges with a smooth blend of sitar, guitar, Violin, vocals and percussion. Deep dub, psy soundscapes and conscious beats combined with soaring melodies and percussive grooves, create a unique inspired live performance. Mystic Beats are a collective of diverse musicians who bring together a wide variety of sounds.

Ethereal Lotus Fleet
With a musical history of boundary pushing, from his early days moving crowds with the theatrically-charged hiphop crew MetaBass'n'Breath to his more recent overseas touring and recording with the shamanic and survival guide sounds of Heavyweight Dub Champion, Elf continues to shift the frame with Ethereal Lotus Fleet in a manner thought-provoking, confrontational and stylistically diverse. Whilst lyrically combining descriptive story-telling with sharp socio-political commentary, 'Ethereal Lotus Fleet' also manages to deliver a dub-laced sonic arsenal hailing a stellar supporting cast to boot. Live, Elf is unmissable.

Agency Dub Collective
Agency Dub Collective is a live 6 piece from Melbourne. Heavily influenced by the revolutionary musical styles born in Jamaica, their music ranges from poignant downbeat dub and cruisy skanking roots styles to lively dancehall and stepper rhythms. Bass-heavy grooves are dappled with echo-drenched guitar and keyboards, interspersed with synths, samples and the plaintive cry of the melodica. Frontman 3oB delivers lyrics that connect personal and global themes expressing a vision of humanity beyond the current capitalist paradigm.

Hugo 1
Hugo 1 is a freestyle/pre-written MC from the UK dedicated to coalescing the greatest level of skill available to his 4dimensional being. Based in Melbourne's North Side, he has become a close collaborator with Treats, a superb DJ of eclectic taste. Together they have constructed a blistering live show, which is moving as it is versatile. Hugo is also a regular feature on the city's stages, dropping rhymes with an array of acts including Miso, Editor, Elf Tranzporter, to name but a few. His mission is to raise consciousness and act as a conduit for direct communication with the source of infinite love and wisdom in the universe."

OK Sluts
The OK SLUTS are real people, who work really hard in their chosen fields. They have real white baggage and real Aboriginal friends. They are the outback cliché, the missionary, the mercenary, the misfit and the madness. With tight vocal harmonies and loose conceptual brilliance, the OK SLUTS sound is a product of taking the music of black American rap artists, passing it through tinny Holden Commodore speakers in a remote community, looping it four times around an Indigenous world view, filtering it through the complex and cynical mind of a burnt-out white Aboriginal service industry worker then adding distortion and a little bit more echo.

Sunshine Reggae Band
Sunshine Reggae Band comes from Haasts Bluff approximately 250km west of Alice Springs. The Band formed in 2002 and has played regularly at surrounding communities concerts. Sunshine Reggae Band recorded their debut album ‘Watjilarrinyi (Home sick) with CAAMA in 2004, and after a few years break, have reformed in 2008 bigger and better than ever.

Sietta
Sietta have performed live on stage with TZU at sold out gigs around Australia, including the opening for Adelaide's Fringe Festival. They have wowed at the Darwin Festival and sold out the Happy Yess twice. They headlined Musicadium's Digital Love Showcase to great acclaim. They have supported renown Aussie rapper Urthboy as well as Sydney's Mark Pritchard, The Herd and Adelaide band Lowrider. Armed with both a slamming soundsystem set and an intimate acoustic set, they are a fresh addition to the Australian Music scene.

Drive West Today
Drive West Today’s improv-guitar acts as tour-guide in Australia’s vast open spaces; sound-tracking & sculpting, setting stories out in splayed layers of melodies. Musical cues are picked out of sepia-soaked memories and skillfully formed into gorgeous yet monolithic sounds. Joshua Santospirito has performed his unique and intuitive music to enraptured and horrified audiences all over Australia since 2005, and even as far abroad as Berlin in 2008.

Dylan Ferguson
Young Dylan Ferguson is a high-energy bass player born on Kaurna Yerta, Adelaide Australia . From the Scottish Highlands Dylan's ancestry has placed him living in the lowlands of the Northern Flinders and Lofty Ranges allowing him to develop a truly Australian Sound, influenced through local Indigenous experiences. Bringing together ten years of dedication to the bass guitar, when accompanied by voice and percussive elements, he creates an approach to music and solo performance nothing less than original.

TD Shagga
Through his psychotic Somatica events, Darren Whyte has been a key player in cultivating Melbourne's underground psychedelic scene and has been a fixture in the Melbourne dj community for the past eight years, during which time he has proven himself as one of the more adaptable and original DJs around. Dirty breaks maestro, Old Skool FUNK afficionado and a miriad of other pigeon holeing styles. To experience Shaggas' sets is to explore the realm of psychedelic and funky sound waves.

Billy Dread
Bad Boy behind Nth Queensland’s DreadAgade SoundSystem, Billy Dread has been laying it down for over a decade. The last few years have seen him playing at some of the country’s biggest festivals, including Rainbow Serpent, Exodus, Cairns Winter Solstice and EarthFreq. Expect a set filled with big bass lines and plumpy chunks filled with lashings of funk.

DJ Mustaphaa
DJ Mustaphaa has been playing breakbeat/ downbeat/ deep electro/ glitchywonkstep since 1995, originally being a regular at warehouse and outdoor parties around Brisbane, SE Qld and Nth NSW. An extended period in UK/Europe in the late 90s solidified his taste for breaks, dub, non-linear rhythmic structures and BASS. Mustaphaa has delivered his low-end message at many major festivals around Australia, Cairns/FNQ from 1999 – 2003, around SE Qld/Nth NSW in 2001-2005, and more recently - Market Stage at Rainbow Serpent, Cairns Winter Solstice, EarthFreq and Wide Open Space.

DJ Rocklishus
DJ Rocklishus brings an eclectic mix of instrumental, tropical, exotica, funk, punk, ska, surf and rock’n’roll. He has been a party favourite both internationally (Canada and UK) and at home in Australia. Based in Alice Springs he has a regular spot on local community station 8CCC - ‘The Instrumental Show’. If you like to saunter and sway with a cocktail in hand, Rocklishus is one cat not to be missed.

Mili de Moocha
Mili de Moocha's primary motivation to step behind the decks is to get bootys on the dancefloor and keep 'em moving. She's a fave of the Alice Springs house party circuit for selecting dancehall-driven tracks with flavas of hip-hop, reggae, world, R&B, electro, house & booty - all served with a generous dollop of cheese. If you really take your music seriously, please don't come to any of her gigs.

Vika Paprika
Vika Paprika ‘the spicy señorita’ is a burlesque artist that was born out of the shiny bosom of Golden Carmen (a Carmen Miranda living statue that travelled the globe & turned the streets to gold). Vika Paprika now comes in full colour (remaining golden on the inside) and moves to dazzle you with her cheeky Latina ways. She’ll have you screaming “Ai ai ai caramba”. Vika teaches burlesque at Melbourne’s finest Burlesque & Pole dance School “Bottoms Up” and will be teaching a Burlesque strip tease workshop in Alice Springs on the Thursday 6th of May.

Valium Housewives
Domestic darlings of the Territory the Valium Housewives return to Wide Open Spaces after blitzkrieg performances at The Adelaide Fringe and This Is Not Art festivals over Summer. Brandishing Kazoos and armed with Sherry the VHS are winding up for a Shock and Awe campaign of culinary confusion and spiritual revisionism. The Valium Housewives: Bad Taste Never Looked So Good.

Naomi Grace
Naomi Grace is a Melbourne performer who possesses a breath-taking and highly original form of self-expression, her voice gliding from note to note effortlessly, her lyrics poignant streams of consciousness that enfolds the listener, transporting them. The power this petite woman exudes is evident at any of her intimate shows, the audience often dead-silent until the last breath of each song. In the short time she has been playing the Melbourne music scene she has already amassed an extremely devout following. Drawing inspiration from the crackling records of 1920s delta blues to contemporary pioneers such as Radiohead, her voice and song-writing style is timeless, transcending musical trends and the pretensions they present.

Oden aka Electrode aka Papa Rod
The madcap behind Desertdoof, through which he has lavished his love of electronica and outdoor parties on Alice since 2004.  His early influences include Sydney’s 90s underground outdoor/warehouse scene and CLUB77. He’s now known for getting feet kicking up that sand during his late night dry riverbed sets. Grab some adrenaline and get into his Dynamic Minimal Glitch Tech Body Bass zone.

Dr Strangeways
Dr Strangeways are back at Wide Open Space to entertain you. The time travelling, shape shifting pychonaughts will unveil strange new music for their loving followers. After last years debut release 'Strange New World' and the hit 'Racehorse', Dr Strangeways will grace the studio in 2010 to record their follow up, 'The Dr's Den'.

Bad-Ass Bootie Shakin
Look out these sassy sisters bring you some bad-ass bootie shakin fun! Hailing from Melbourne, and training under the juicy choreography of the very talented miss Claudia Sangiorgi Dalimore.  Brought together by their shared passion and love for dance, the repertoire of this newly formed group ranges from high energy in your face dancehall moves to organic breaths of animalistic movement. A feast for your senses, these ladies come to dance it up, so let your self be tantalised and inspired.