vague terrain 24/09 Toronto

saturday september 24th - vague terrain presents…

granny'ark - vancouver / zora lanson / interdisco
naw - noise factory / vague terrain
akumu - spider records
video / patricia rodriguez - substance communications

art bar / the gladstone hotel
limited capacity
$5 / doors open @ 9pm
1214 queen st. west
toronto, canada
http://www.vagueterrain.net

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artist information

Granny'Ark is the music project of nomadic media artist Michelle Irving. Although officially a resident of Vancouver, Granny'Ark spends the other part of her time at Zora Lanson Label's home base in Berlin. Her first release Resurgo (2004) garnered praise from The Wire, XLR8R, De-Bug, and was featured on the late John Peel's legendary Radio One show. Granny'Ark's music can be described as a blend of explorations in electroacoustic sampling, and musical structures of rhythm and melody. Generally, Granny'Ark attempts to transform sounds into a progressive soundscape that evokes a sense of mood or place in the listener. Sometimes this might mean enticing them to dance. Her music is featured in the internationally acclaimed documentary "The Corporation" and another award winning Canadian documentary "Scared Sacred." In the fall Granny'Ark will be releasing her follow-up EP on Zora Lanson Label as well as a collaborative project with Si Cut.db on Biphop. Granny'Ark's "Three Seas and One Bottle" EP is available for download at http://www.interdisco.net

Neil Wiernik (aka naw) has been extremely busy over the 12 months. The last year has seen the release of two naw albums; “Green Nights, Orange Days” on Noise Factory and “Terrain Vague” on Pertin_nce, as well as an extensive European tour. Neil's production was recently described by The Wire as having "the kind of sharpness and clarity usually lost amid the murk and decay of clicks and cuts and digital delays." Neil recently moved back to Toronto and began working with long-time collaborator Greg Smith in the creation of Vague Terrain, an entity which will promote a series of eclectic electronic music showcases and the website of which will act as a digital arts journal.

Akumu is Toronto’s Deane Hughes, composer of atmospheric ambience, shadowy beats and minimal manipulations. Formed as a solo project in 2000, Akumu has released three full-length albums on his own Spider Records imprint. His newest CD, Magmas (2005) was conceived and written in Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico; it is the follow-up to 2004’s Fluxes, an ambient, zero-bpm recording of unflinching minimalism that The Wire says “raises neat hackles across the skin.” For six months, Deane traveled throughout remote locations, making binaural recordings from which he created the drone- and loop-based instruments that form the spine of material on both CDs. Akumu has performed live across Ontario and Quebec, including 2005’s Mutek festival in Montreal, featuring visual projections of original photography, animated collages and 2D/3D digital experiments. His live sets highlight and improvise on Magmas and Fluxes to create an immersive, flowing sound scape of micro-sonics, ambient drones and low-frequency pulses. More information is available on Akumu at http://spiderrecords.com/

Keeping with our mandate of integrating electronic music with digital art, Vague Terrain will be welcoming back one of our earliest collaborators, video artist Patricia Rodriguez. Formally trained in the visual arts, Patricia is a multidisciplinary specialist, integrating analog and digital technologies. She delights in playing with perception and problem-solving. A keen synaesthete, Patricia enjoys the neurological mixing of the senses. Her love for improvisation translates into performances using movement, sound and light (including video and film), as well as real-time collaborations with musicians and other artists. She has shown her work alongside Richie Hawtin, Monolake, Kit Clayton, Derrick May, Steve Bug, and Damo Suzuki of Can to name a few. She has worked with several collectives including Clonk, Eight, Wabi, Whipit, Die Lux, and Geekend. Patricia is currently the Art Director for Substance Communications.

Extensive artist & event information, album reviews and artist links are available at
http://www.vagueterrain.net