DAY 3 – SWIM SOUND.

November 26th, 2011

Swim Sound was so popular that they added a second performance last night. I went to the first performance and was very jealous I couldn’t get into the water. Something about electronics, water and me not being a great swimmer that doesn’t mix.

Polytectures: structured sounds in the capital

October 11th, 2011

I imagined that a soundwalk in the city that was not so much about the history of its architecture but about the experience of the architecture through music compositions. I was aware that there was a trend in different art forms for site specific creation but I never thought that it could apply to music writing. And that’s what Polytectures consists in really: asking a team of composers to write a music piece that is meant to be listened to in a very specific space, in contact with a specific building.

My trip to Mutek and Artengine residency in June, Part 2 – Ross Birdwise

August 6th, 2010

Part 2: Artengine Residency, family and friends, Infinite Nothing at Bird Island, if then do live @ Club Saw… My last post on this blog discussed my trip to Montreal to play the Mutek festival with my electronic music group if then do, with Ryan Stec (Artengine’s artistic director) doing visuals.  This trip to Mutek […]

My trip to Mutek and Artengine residency in June, Part 1 – Ross Birdwise

July 22nd, 2010

This June I flew in to Ottawa from Vancouver to visit friends and family and to perform at the Mutek festival in Montreal. I was performing with the largely Ottawa-Gatineau based electronic music group if then do, of which I am a founding member (I used to live in Ottawa). Ryan Stec, Artengine’s artistic director, had recently collaborated with if then do in the past using his skills as a VJ and video artist to develop live A/V performances with the group. For this year’s Mutek, Ryan also did live visuals, in some cases using our real-time, partially improvised audio feeds to modulate the video image he had created. Ryan also invited me to do an Artengine Residency at the M70 lab while were at Mutek, but I will save that story for my next post…

Nite Ride . . . from the keyboard of Jonathan Shaughnessy

November 13th, 2009

Tim Hecker and Marla Hlady took divergent yet highly effective approaches to what they had to work with in Nite Ride: a plush bus outfitted with a 5.1 surround sound stereo system. Hecker used it, the sound system that is, Hlady did not.

Soundtrack to Oblivion

November 3rd, 2009

When I was invited to experience Nite Ride and spooge a bit of my mind thoughts on this here blog, I was preparing for yet another road stint with the ol’band (Acorn) to Halifax. I was concerned at how dull my senses would be having driven across Canada about three times, the US-and-a-half once, and bits of Europe a few times. My road soldiering has produced an experiential callous to transient sound forging experiences with the moving world. Or in other words, my excessive traversing of vast lands accompanied by soundtracks may be a detriment to enjoying this ride like a condom. I was wondering if my psychological health would be suitable to write about this project after having returned from a 13-hour drive. Luckily, I had a couple days to nest, re-humanize and to alter the beast.

promade tardive par un samedi soir pluvieux

October 27th, 2009

Nite ride = trajet de nuit Mon premier trajet de nuit n’a pas été de tout repos. Vendredi dernier, soirée d’ouverture de l’événement, où je me faisais un devoir d’assister au départ du bus, j’ai couru à travers la ville, et j’ai manqué chaque ride comme une reprise sans fin d’un faux départ. J’ai finalement […]

(Nite) ride through Tim Hecker’s imaginary country

October 26th, 2009

Last Friday I scurried along the cold, damp Ottawa streets to Arts Court, to catch the first departure of Tim Hecker’s Nite Ride presentation. Commissioned by artengine, Tim Hecker re-mixed previously released music from his back catalogue into 5.1 surround sound, to be played by speakers installed in a rented mini-bus as it drove around the Outaouais.

Nite Ride: Expanding our Sonic Horizons

October 14th, 2009

From the computer of Emily Falvey . . . Like many people, I both fear and love the dark. I love the feeling of hushed anonymity it spreads over the landscape, and yet I also find this obscurity disquieting. Night drives are, without doubt, my preferred way to experience darkness-a middle ground in which the […]

Tape Cassette

August 3rd, 2009

Chaude soirée de juillet, samedi le 11 plus précisément. Besoin d’air et de divertissement. Le Mercury Lounge (Ottawa) accueillait _ entre autres _ Élément Kuuda et offrait de l’air frais. Élément Kuuda (personnalisé par M. Christian Richer) offre une performance sonore dense et percutante, dans une chorégraphie utilisant cassettes, harmonica et voix. Les cassettes utilisées […]