Estée Louder is a Sydney-based DJ and event producer. Her musical taste veers towards the darker, sharper end of the spectrum, embracing electro, techno and experimental sounds with an industrial edge. Estée Louder is enlivened by No Wave and early electronic clashes with punk music.

Estée Louder founded regular club night and podcast series CONTROL.

CONTROL exists to create space for women and queer people operating and existing in the electronic music realm. CONTROL seeks to bridge the tyranny of distance between Australia and the rest of the world, bringing together international guests and their local counterparts in dance floor unification. CONTROL yearns for Lesbian Underground Techno Utopia. CONTROL hopes to create a space to suspend the reality of patriarchal constraints, encouraging the exorcism of trapped energy and emotion.

Ahead of Winter Violet (with Ladyhawke, DEVAURA, Charlie Villas, La Foxy Fuzz and more) on Gadigal Land on Sat 13 June 2026, Archer Magazine‘s Publication Manager Dani Leever spoke to Estée Louder about dancefloor politics, queer electronica spaces and dyke history.

Head here to grab tickets; use code ARCHER to get over 20% off yours.

Dani Leever: Hey Estée, thanks so much for having a chat with me! I was smashing your Lesbian Ranch NYE Soundcloud mix while writing these questions which has really got me ready to hit the dyke bar and not watch the WNBA on my couch which was initially my plan tonight.

To kick things off, can you tell me about how you got into DJing, and have since found your key sound? You veer into industrial, electro and darker club sounds, has this always been the case?

Estée Louder: Music has possessed me for as long as I can recall. By 15, that obsession turned into a fantasy of pure immersion – just the dark, the lasers and a smoke machine.

I’ve never identified with being genre-bound. The raw grit of punk and grunge belongs in the exact same breath as the hypnotic weight of house and techno, as does the euphoria of disco. I enjoy the friction of that collision – finding the seductive line where live instrumentation meets electronic programming.

For over a decade DJing, my sound has been a restless, ever-evolving excavation of the scenes I am drawn to. I crave deep, unfiltered experiences, and navigating through subcultures and events – queer, fetish, disco, techno – has shaped the way I play and what I play. I’ve absorbed a lot.

DL: You founded club night and podcast CONTROL, all about creating space for women and queer people in the electronic music realm. Can you tell me about what drew you to creating this project? 

EL: In 2010, I co-founded CONTROL with Alex Travella – a close friend and fellow fantasist who has since passed into the ether. Deep house was prevalent in the clubs back then, but we wanted something sharper, darker.

We built a sanctuary for the creatures of the night who craved an industrial edge, the raw funk of ’80s EBM, coldwave, new wave and leather-and-latex sensuality. We possessed a solid reverence for the ’80s and ’90s Melbourne underground, knowing others would share our obsession with labels like Psy-Harmonics. Our first event was at Liberty Social: underground, dense with smoke, bathed in a red light, featuring Simona Castricum hosting The Shock of The New in the front of the venue.

Back then, I was too disarmed by nerves to play out, reserving my sets for the privacy of bedrooms and house parties. Coming from a design background and working on festivals like Big Day Out, I preferred to lurk in the shadows, focusing on the curation and the decor.

The name CONTROL is a paradox. It’s about manipulating the tempo, the pitch, the absolute energy of a space. It’s the thrill of being entirely in control – or desperately trying to give it away.

By 2015, I moved to Sydney and forced myself through enough ‘exposure therapy’ to finally conquer the nerves, aided by a lot of encouragement from my partner at the time, Sveta, who is a force of nature as a DJ.  The concept mutated. I wanted to use CONTROL to flip a part of the scene on its head. As a queer woman, the barriers are real – we all know the exhausting reality of gatekeeping, entitlement and the pressure to compromise your values just to get into the boys’ club, hetero or homo. I was never good at faking compliance. There was an urgent need to carve out a dedicated space where women and gender-diverse artists pushing harder, experimental sounds could actually thrive.

I was working at The Red Rattler in Marrickville and chose it to relaunch. It was the perfect match – the Rattler is the realised dream of five local queer artists who built a legal warehouse venue for alternative arts and grassroots activism. For that first Sydney resurrection, I booked K-Hand, the First Lady of Detroit – a true, criminally underappreciated pioneer.

If you’re going to honour the lineage of the music that owns you, you start at the root. That underpinned the event series from the beginning.

From the first night at the Rat, CONTROL grew, bringing in outsiders like Kittin, Bloody Mary, Anetha, and Lady Blacktronika. Touring international icons wasn’t just about the spectacle though – it was about weaponising the platform. I wanted to force an exchange. By bringing these names to our turf, the local crew got to play alongside their global peers, building the bridges needed to get overlooked local talent out of Australia and onto overseas lineups. It was about creating connection, and real opportunities for the artists that the mainstream or gaystream chose to ignore.

DL: The dancefloor can be a highly political and expressive queer space. As an event producer and DJ, can you talk to me about how this influences your work? 

EL: The dancefloor has always been our place to congregate and protest: our sanctuary wrapped into one smoky, pulsing room. For a queer woman in this scene, event production is alchemical – you orchestrate a temporary universe where the marginalised can become monumental. It’s an opportunity to suspend time and place.

My focus as a promoter (and DJ) has never been about playing it safe; it’s about carving out a space for queer women and gender-diverse artists to push sounds that mainstream clubs were (and are) too afraid to play. Around 15 years ago, club culture became quite sanitised – a departure from what one may have seen in the ’90s and ’00s. Struggling venues began catering to the masses, and that’s exactly where we lost our sonic diversity.

It was thrilling to watch that script flip between 2015 and 2019, seeing an explosion of female, trans and queer DJs rightfully ascend to the forefront before the lockdowns hit. The demand was there, and the mainstream music scene had no choice but to adapt and deliver.

Now, with a rising tide of puritanical right-wing politics and a brutal cost-of-living crisis, we’re starting to see a regression back to those predictable, male-dominated lineups. The barriers for artists outside the patriarchal boys’ club are creeping back. I think one way to combat this is to support queer/female/trans/non-binary promoters – these are the people creating opportunities for their fellow kind.

But I’m not here to despair. Speaking as a white, middle-class queer woman, I see the resilience. Queer women’s parties are expanding, established queer institutions are holding the line, and we still have places to express ourselves authentically, sonically and spiritually. I aim to be part of the contingent that doesn’t just endure this cycle, but thrives right through it.

DL: You’ve got Winter Violet coming up on Gadigal land on June 13. The lineup is incredible, plus there’s three stages with different personalities: euphoric and classic in the Main Hall, underground and sensual in BathHOUSE, Latin and soul in The Violet Room. Can you tell me about this event, and what you’re most keen for audiences to experience there?

EL: Winter Violet is the sibling of Ultra Violet, which was born at WorldPride 2023. My co-conspirator DJ Sveta and I were granted a major opportunity to curate the inaugural event at Sydney Town Hall in 2023 under the watchful eye of WorldPride CEO Kate Wickett. Kate has gone on to become the CEO at City Recital Hall, and this is where Winter Violet shall emerge from in a couple of weeks! Our Mardi Gras edition earlier this year was a packed, joyous explosion – featuring DJ Gemma’s signature sonic magick, Club Chrome, voguers Kilia and Fetu Taku, and an aerial ritual from Mistress Tokyo.

We all want to warm up in winter, and what could be more satisfying than a choose-your-own-adventure queer women’s event spread across three spaces at a grand dame like The Hall? It’s the largest queer women’s dance party in Sydney. I’m thrilled about every artist on this lineup – from the seasoned likes of Charlie Villas holding it down, alongside emerging talents like Keavsz, joined by icon Ladyhawke who will be spreading joy with her anthemic tunes, as well as one of the most exciting up-and-coming live acts, Devaura.

We have the Femme Forward Collective hosting a space, serving Latin rhythms almost exclusively on vinyl – that’s going to be as joyous as it is sexy. We’ve also created a pop-up dyke bar of sorts complete with pool tables where you can catch a moment of respite and have a chat. It really is a choose-your-own-adventure type event, and we will be embracing the lush darkness of the Winter Solstice in our event design.

DL: There’s a dyke bar at the event, and Dykes on Bikes giving the welcome. You also recently hopped on a Dykes on Bike motorcycle/DJ’d their event! Why was it important to weave that queer lineage into the night, and what does that history mean to you personally?

EL: Hopping on the back of one of those bikes during the Mardi Gras parade is sheer euphoria; I can’t recommend it highly enough.

I have immense respect for the Dykes on Bikes. They are pillars of our collective queer history, and having them involved was a total no-brainer. Their presence automatically brings a sense of safety, camaraderie and joy to any space. Weaving them into the night is about honoring the lineage that fought to give us safety, presence and rights, on and off the dancefloor.

DJing for them is always an absolute honour. I play for them often, and I’m constantly buoyed by their kindness, their fierce activism and their ability to conquer any challenge with a calm capability that is uniquely theirs. We are incredibly grateful to have them with us.

Lastly, is there a song on one of your USBs that people would be really surprised to see? Personally, I have so many High School Musical songs on my USBs knowing they’ll never ever get a spin at the club.

EL: I listen to a lot of soundtracks, and I play at some groovy bars in Sydney which gives me the chance to give those tracks some airtime.

I’m currently loving Florence Shaw from the band Dry Cleaning, who does not sing. She speaks, deadpan. She’s witty and strange, and their music is filmic. Current favourite track is ‘Cruise Ship Designer’.

I’m also fond of theatrical dance music that’s a little goth and melodramatic. Current fave is the Curses’ revamp of Deborah Sasson’s ‘Danger in Her Eyes’.

What: Winter Violet: Ladyhawke (DJ), DEVAURA, Charlie Villas, La Foxy Fuzz + more. Three rooms of incredible music + a dyke bar.

Where: City Recital Hall, Sydney, Gadigal Land

When: Sat 13 June 2026, from 6pm

Tickets: Use promo code ARCHER here to access $78 tickets (save yourself over 20%).
Grab your tickets here.

Who: Ladyhawke, Charlie Villas, Keavzs, DEVAURA, Mama De Leche, Estée Louder, prettyboi.zeke, Bebecito, BRINA, La Foxy Fuzz and many more. Sydney’s Dykes on Bikes will be back to give guests a warm welcome, with performances by Mistress Tokyo, Kilia and Fetu Taku.