BEYOND THE BOX: Red Earth Dub Circus

Boorloo/Perth is considered the most isolated city on the planet: 2100 km from its closest major city, it sits on a sprawling, pristine coastline, with endless bush and a cruisy lifestyle. In that isolation, enhanced further by the COVID-19 pandemic, a crew of expats from all ends of the earth, bound together by their shared love for music and sound system culture, found themselves slowly building what would become Red Earth Dub Circus (Red Earth).

At the core of Red Earth are Creative Director and Producer Lloyd Sabin, Production Manager Michael Batcock, and Sound Engineer Zak Johnson. Beginning with intimate beach dances and fundraiser warehouse parties, to now facilitating WA’s first-ever Sound System unity session headlined by Roots Reggae legends Channel One Soundsystem, the road to where we are today has been paved by patient, methodical investment into the wider community.

Lloyd’s love for sound system culture was first sparked in 2011, on a trip to India where he witnessed the country’s first sound clash between BASSfoundation and Reggae Rajahs. Back in Berlin, his background in the culture took shape through the early 2010s, a time and place where the underground music scene was thriving. With so many crews and collectives running parties on their own, Lloyd sought to bring the underground together, rejecting the commercial path that so many easily fell into. At the age of 20, Lloyd organised Serendubity, a community-based, eco-friendly, grassroots festival celebrating sound system culture in Germany. After 4 iterations between 2012 and 2017, all whilst managing at YAAM, one of Europe’s biggest Reggae-centred cultural centres, Lloyd left Berlin to return to family in Perth in early 2021. Coming from Europe to WA, to one of the few ‘bubbles’ where the effects of the pandemic were comparatively minor and where the culture had not even yet found a community, Lloyd was inspired by the opportunity to build something completely new from the ground up.

Within Red Earth's DNA is the value of community-backed growth. The results of which have led us to where we are today. Red Earth has solidified itself as the foundation for WA’s sound system culture, and the platform from which it will continue to grow.

The collective was born after a conversation between Mikey and Lloyd at the Blazing Swan festival in 2021, during which Mikey was part of the curation of the “God Said No” Reggae program. The two connected on a shared love for music and a DIY approach, both realising the fertile ground for a new scene, and the need for a home-built Roots and Culture Soundsystem in WA to amplify the music the way it’s intended.

“We all shared this love for this music, and wouldn't it be great if this was actually also represented? It would have been the last spot in the world that has such a huge radius without a home-built rig… That's kind of how the dream started”

Many of the people who would go on to shape the group first connected during that Blazing Swan period, with early contributions from Leo, Karim, Hannah and V, among others, helping lay the foundations of the collective.

What struck me immediately during my time spent with the Red Earth crew was how unique their approach to the culture felt. And begs the question: what sets a sound system crew apart from being another group of people who build speaker boxes? How does Red Earth represent Western Australia? Where does the circus come from? How does a crew from all ends of the earth come together to represent WA?

Through the 3-year-long process of planning, investing and building, the Red Earth crew has found a brilliant balance between the modern and the vintage. Using classic speaker designs such as their Turbosound TMS 3 tops, last used at the Brisbane World Expo in 1988, refurbished and painted in seashell white and marine blue, representing the Indian Ocean and the pristine sand that lines the West Coast. The ‘kick’ boxes are the classic HD-15 design, used by many Reggae, Dub and Techno sound systems, designed to amplify a punchy, chest-pounding kick drum. Blending these designs with the modern, the sub boxes are custom-designed, dual-loaded HOQS Paraflex Type-O subs. 3 boxes, with 6 sub drivers, and a low end that is clean, punchy, and, when pushed, rattles your body through the head, neck, and chest.

The seashell white, lagoon blue and a striking custom stain representing the red dust of the outback, the Red Earth Soundsystem pays homage to the land it’s so lucky to call home.

“If we're the first home-built rig in WA, we want that to be a link to the roots. Like the bracing. I was researching old hi-fi designs and the old Jamaican sounds and seeing that they would have a fat lip on the front that's protruding out, and we added things like the illusion of a scoop at the bottom of them, so there's a lot of like vintage elements in there, but with the hope of making it look fresh.”

Beyond the speakers themselves, the Red Earth Dub Circus also brings an element of play with the Circus. In a scene that can at times confine itself to a tight box, the circus brings a fresh, freeing energy to sound system culture as a whole, and, with Red Earth pioneering the culture in WA, allows their guiding philosophy to reach into any artistic realm, utilising the sound system as the foundation for this growth.

“Because everybody can run away with the circus. It's more inviting. You can't tell a circus what to do. Good luck! If we called our collective a sound system, people will expect one specific thing from us.”

A cabaret at the doof, clowns, fire spinners, dub yoga and everything in between, a dance organised by the collective rarely brings what you’d expect from a “sound system” gig. And the freedom they have given themselves has allowed Red Earth to become what it is today in only 5 years of consistent growth.

“Yes, we do a circus. Yes. It's a bit different, and I think that's not a bad thing. I think it comes from a place of massive admiration and respect for where the sounds come from. But it's also pointing towards the future we want to take it to.”

In 2021, WA’s scene was confined predominantly to a single sound system, KBI Sound. Two brothers, Prez-i and Tubby MC, founded KBI in Leicester, UK, in 2002, before shipping their speakers across the world and into Perth in 2012, where they would struggle to find their feet in the scene, even though they were coming into a city with next to no reggae or sound system history.

“It just didn't take off the way it should. It's tricky if you just are on the sound… And especially over here because it's not like we have other sounds. So we can’t bounce off each other, and nobody knows what we're on about. So we have to educate”

However, despite the struggle to find their footing in the scene back in 2012, the fact that a duo already represented the inspirations of the Red Earth crew laid the foundation and enabled the Red Earth Dub Circus to begin. KBI would be brought on as the first special guests of the very first warehouse party in 2021, providing their selection and later powering many iconic Freo Dub Club Sessions and giving the crew the word, sound and power to showcase their vision from the very beginning.

“We reached out at some point and invited KBI to be our special guests at our first warehouse party as a headliner. And since then, they’re part of the family. And it means we had veterans and brothers in arms to run shows, which is incredible, because we wouldn't have been able to showcase what we do without a rig.”

“Mikey found some double 18 Wharfedale subs & built the first two “prototype scoops”. He had two of those QSCs and EV tops and said, ‘let's just get something so we can start running our own events and learn.’ Each one teach one. Invest a little bit before we make bigger mistakes on the big build, and so we can find more of what we want as well. We knew that if we wanted to build a sound, it would take a couple of years and we would have to get some proper structures going in the community.”

From 2022-2023, REDC had run a few festival takeovers, beach parties, and now the warehouse party. The crew calculated that, at this pace, it would take over 9 years to raise the funds to build the Red Earth Soundsystem. Realising it was a now-or-never moment, Lloyd quit his day job, and the crew set their sights on building the community even further and on bringing a more professional approach to their events.

“We sat down and said, let's go and build this thing, create more opportunities, and we reckon we can do it in a year and a half instead of nine. It's only just been two and a bit years that we've been running [Freo Dub Club]. And that's the flagship event that we run.

They're the big production and our main fundraisers. Freo Dub Club pretty much raised the funds for the build of the sound system, and was more of a focused, professional approach to growing the scene over here.”

The crew launched a new venture, Freo Dub Club, in September 2023, initially bringing dub legends such as Scientist, Mad Professor, Mungo’s Hi-Fi, Sub Tribe and Dubkasm to the West Coast.

Through all of this, the crew was carefully planning the sound system, and slowly building. A period destined to come to a head in July of 2025, when the Red Earth Sound System’s debut would be held in the historic Walyalup/Fremantle Town Hall. A culmination of years of mistakes, lessons, fundraising efforts, and careful planning came together for a sold-out dance in the heart of Fremantle.

The response was a signal from the community of a great hunger for more sound system dances. Following their success in July, Red Earth had now become a self-sustaining organisation.

In March of this year, a significant milestone in Perth’s history was reached, with the first-ever sound system gathering in WA, where the Red Earth Sound System would meet with KBI at the Rechabite, with Roots and Culture legends Channel One Soundsystem headlining.

It's pertinent to point out the full-circle nature of this moment and the years of steady growth and persistence that went into getting here. If KBI had not made their move back in 2012, if Lloyd, Mikey, Zak & crew had not come together at a place where the pandemic had not completely interfered with daily life, if there were no foundations laid for Red Earth to move ahead with their vision, Perth’s system culture would likely be in an entirely different place.

With that being said, WA’s own culture is only just beginning. The city’s crews all bring an individual style to the table, such as Traction Sound system, a purpose-built DIY Drum n Bass sound representing and building on the deep history of Drum n Bass in Perth, the newly built Vibration Control Unit Soundsystem, and Mothership Hi-Fi, from Radio Fremantle’s I & I Sound crew, now in the final stages of building.

Lloyd acknowledged Red Earth’s position as a foundational piece in that development.

"I hope there'll be more and more people building sound systems and believing in DIY community projects, working hand in hand. That's what we’re there for - a platform to connect people, give them the confidence to become creators, and reimagine gatherings as places where people don't just consume culture; they help create it. Being in that position is humbling, and it’s a cultural responsibility. We want to raise everybody up… and at the heart of it, it has to be about community”

Looking to the future, it’s hard to be anything other than optimistic. For Boorloo, having a community to support, bounce ideas off, and collaborate with is incredibly important for a culture to thrive at all. It’s evident that the Red Earth Collective understands and values the non-negotiables of building that very environment.

“I think authenticity. And just making sure people are heard. One thing I've learned over the years is that many people want to be part of the community, but not everyone wants to make decisions and take responsibility. That's fine. And you don't need too many cooks either. But you still listen to everyone. It's always connected to the ground, and you grow from there on up.

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Jordan Lummis is a freelance writer based in Naarm/Melbourne. Find him on Instagram.