‘We Never Knew How Big The Audience Was’: The Unlikely Second Coming Of Melbourne Sound Pioneers Orkestrated

To Dean Paps and Adam Bartas – better known as the Godfathers of the ‘Melbourne Sound’ as Orkestrated – the idea that they could be selling out the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in 2025 would have sounded a bit ridiculous, even just a couple of years ago. 

“We definitely didn’t realise how big it was, when we agreed to put the show on” Paps admits.

Reflecting back on the origins of the group, through to selling 30,000 tickets after coming out of a brief retirement, Paps says Orkestrated were ultimately surprised at the enduring impact of their music all these years later. 

“We actually didn’t know the true impact. It was the best part of a decade, when [Orkestrated’s music and live shows] were popular, but we never knew how big the audience was.”

Orkestrated emerged in the late 2000s in Melbourne clubs, and were by all accounts a vital fixture in the formation of Melbourne’s unique underground music scene. 

These days, they're cited as influences on global superstars who were coming up at the time, including Will Sparks, Timmy Trumpet, and Dom Dolla. They continued performing until 2024 when they announced their retirement. 

That moment was ironically the trigger for a brand new wave of success for the duo, when retired nightclub owner and rave promoter Danny Grant (aka Danny Rants) told their story on his socials — with his content about Orkestrated blowing up unexpectedly. 

“We launched a petition to reunite Orkestrated for a hometown show, and within weeks we had 25,000 sign ups,” Grant says. 

The response was incredible. “We saw this tidal wave of an underground community that I don’t think anyone even knew existed,” Grant explains. 

“A lot of people started to come out of the woodwork,” Paps adds. “I’m now working part-time at a primary school, and some of the staff pulled me aside to say, ‘You don’t even understand the impact you had on my life growing up.’”

The music itself clearly stands the test of time as well. Which both Grant and Paps freely admit probably wasn’t something anyone involved in the early stages would have reasonably expected. 

In fact, as Grant explains, the Melbourne Sound was never intended to be sonically groundbreaking.

“It was actually a hybrid of electro made poorly,” he laughs. “So basically, the guys were using that and adapting it to make their own sort of sounds, or add tags over it to sort of make music that other people didn't have. 

“And by default, they created this sound that people started calling the Melbourne sound.”

“[Our music] was almost a hybrid of Melbourne Sound, Melbourne bounce, and then almost became what I call Melbourne techno or Melbourne techno big room,” Paps adds. “Then the sound started growing and we started getting booked. 

“The Melbourne Sound was so Melbourne as well because we didn’t have a way of getting our music to the world, we didn’t have social media as a step latter, which was probably a blessing as well to an extent!”

The impact of Orkestrated and their development of the Melbourne Sound was clear enough that the petition for a reunion gig was a resounding success. 

Billboards urging punters to sign up to "Get Orkestrated to the Bowl" were put up, and as a result, Orkestrated will now be playing a massive headline date at Melbourne's Sidney Myer Music Bowl on January 17th, 2026. The event is already sold out, however, with 12,000 eager fans ready to relive the sound that shaped a city.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Danny Grant (@dannyrants)

Community is very much the key word when Grant and Paps talk about the reunion and legacy of Orkestrated. But it’s more than just a buzz word, it’s genuinely at the centre of everything they are doing. 

As such, it was important to Grant for Orkestrated’s fans to feel like they were part of the process of the reunion. 

More than just the petition, it was about making Melbournians “feel like people felt patriotic about what we were doing, what we were trying to achieve, and be part of the decision making process,” Grant says. “I wanted people to have their say. This is our city, our sound. 

“Now I’ve got people calling me from all over Australia saying ‘What the fuck is this? What is happening?’ I don’t think anyone knew that this could be so impactful or how influential our city could be in terms of EDM around the world.”

Grant, an important part of the community on the back end from the very beginning, clearly played a huge role in making it happen. But he’s at pains to insist that Paps and Bartas deserve to be achieving this belated success in the mainstream. 

“It’s so great to see how special it was for all these people, and it’s amazing for [Orkestrated] to be able to bring together this community and re-engage [with their fans].”

He also happily acknowledges that without the connective power of social media, it’s unlikely Orkestrated would be gearing up for the biggest show of their lives. 

“We lived our life [back then] without it,” he notes. “And if I never told that story originally about how we created our sound, we would probably never have known how many people it impacted. So this never would have happened.” 

Ultimately, it serves as a rare positive social media story in 2025 for the music industry. Let’s hope it’s not the last.

Grant also hopes that we’ll see more local artists and niche music continue to resonate in 2025 and beyond, suggesting that Aussie music fans have “lost our way” when it comes to prioritising seeing “international artists, rather than focussing on Australian artists. 

With a good storyline, good music, good people, good community. We've shown the person to put that work in, that there can be success with a local artist.”

Orkestrated will perform at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl on January 17th, 2026.