Recording: Contact

Artist: Contact

Song: Proximity/Response [edited excerpt] [composer: Johan Seaton]

Recorded at Yonge-Dundas Square (Intersection – Day 3), September 2, 2017.

Contact - Proximity/Response [edited excerpt]

In recent years, the Intersection Festival would normally consist of a paid concert, usually the night before the day-long extravaganza in Yonge-Dundas Square. This year, however, under the continued guidance of Burn Down The Capital's Tad Michalak the festival expanded to four events, including a pair of concerts at The Jam Factory. The day-long marathon in the concrete canyon of commerce remains at the festival's heart, though, exploring the frissons of experiencing strange and occasionally abrasive sounds competing with the city's mersh heartbeat.

Contact, the festival's founding presenter, still usually finds time to bring something fresh and different to the day. The biggest twist to this set was that the whole of the ensemble was being channelled through keyboardist Kristian Podlacha's laptop, which was especially central to this piece from Johan Seaton, which had emerged from the ensemble's Music From Scratch workshop for youth composers. Seaton was adding some subtle electronic mix feedback here, giving the piece an additional layer of hazy whoosh.

[Contact will be re-assembling to play with Elliott Sharp (last year's visiting Intersection composer) in a Burn Down The Capital show on Saturday, October 21st that mixes together some no-wave/weird-pop sounds.]

[You can see some footage from this set over at Brandon Caswell Douglas' Intersection playlist.]