Recording: Xuan Ye

Artist: Xuan Ye

Songs: [two excerpts]

Recorded at The Music Gallery (Emergents I), December 2, 2018.

Xuan Ye - [excerpt 1]

Xuan Ye - [excerpt 2]

Known for a steady flow of creative developments — and never playing the same set with the same gear twice — Xuan Ye kept things DIY here, deploying a trio of oscillating fans as sound sources and finding ways to generate sonic changes with interventions like adding a bit of feedback or taping on a garbage bag. There was also some good ol' fashioned interspecies communication, with Notable Local Pug Lana Del Satan adding some taps and jangles while running for treats around the bases of the fans. The coda heard here, with some meditative piano chords, complemented the fans' new take on furniture music.

[The Music Gallery's Emergents Series continues on Saturday (January 19th), with new electronic explorations from April Aliermo (Hooded Fang/Phèdre) and Sun Sun (Above Top Secret/Witch Prophet) — two sound-creators this blog has been a fan of for ages.]

Recording: Doom Tickler

Artist: Doom Tickler feat. Lana Del Satan

Song: unknown^*

Recorded at Katzman Contemporary (Channel no. 1: Vlog), January 12, 2016.

Doom Tickler feat. Lana Del Satan - unknown

This five-night series, curated by Brett Despotovich, is bringing Toronto's experimental music scenes into a gallery space — both to allow some considered listening and to enable a series of large-scale visual collaborations. (This first night drew inspiration from the seemingly-boundless wellspring of youtube videos.) Besides the well-chosen music, this will also be an introduction for many to a rather lovely space — gallery culture, which tends to stay one step ahead of gentrification in the search for affordable spaces, has now seeped up to Carleton Village. So this week, hop on the Symington bus and go check out some cool collaborations.

Leslie Predy, whose loop-based music is filled with animalistic grunts and howls, took things to the next level in a spontaneous interspecies collaboration with celebripug Lana Del Satan, who was hopping with excitement while adding some call-and-response barking. (Check out some video evidence here.) Predy is also noted for her visual work in trawling youtube's weirder corners, and her montage here felt like a series of Tales From Beyond The Uncanny Valley, mixing early computer animation with pseudohuman robots and other creepy visages.

[Channel's run at Katzman Contemporary continues through Saturday, with cool musicians using the space to collaborate with the visualisations in different ways.]

^* Does anyone know the title to this one? Please leave a comment!