experimental music

Andra McCartney’s radio piece Learning to Walk is an experimental radio story made in 2004 about traumatic memory, love, and walking.  Her piece Waiting games and widespread smoke (feat. Narcy) from 2018 is based on a train trip from Toronto to Vancouver reflecting on the widespread smoke and freight delays that structured it during the 2018 fires prevalent in Western Canada at the time.

Darren Copeland’s works on the program combine acousmatic and soundscape approaches to sound creation. His piece …while working and walking is based on exploring his new rural home on foot back in 2015 and while cleaning up and removing old building structures. His piece On Schedule from 2003 transforms a soundscape recording from the World Soundscape Project collection at Simon Fraser University. Synthetic sounds are also generated by plotting the times of station stops on the multi-day route from London Waterloo to Moskva Byelorusski.  

On Sunday March 30th, 2025, Wet Sounds: feminist + queer music practices in the polycrisis, presents a performance and conversation with female pioneers of new turntablism, Turntable Trio—Maria Chavez, Mariam Rezaei, and Evicshen (Victoria Shen).

*** Postponed ***
We will share details on a rescheduled date as soon as they become available. 

Stones, the instruments featured on this album, are joined by sounds of bells, sticks and Young’s stringed instruments as Harley expands their resonance, shaping sounds through granulation, layering, transposition, delays, and spatialization.

Young’s collection of resonant stones from the shores of Newfoundland, resonant sticks from abandoned beaver lodges in Ontario, played with bells and assorted hardware, are combined with stringed instruments she designed and built.

As hex-bolts are rolled over stones resting on strings, their vibrations cause the strings to sound. Bells resonate with stones, stones rock on strings, and resonant sticks bounce on strings.

Signal processing simultaneously expands the depth and frequency range, adding complexity through layering and subtle shifts over time.

On Saturday January 25th, 2025, Wet Sounds: feminist + queer music practices in the polycrisis presents a performance and conversation with PANTAYO. The second guest in the series hosted by Musagetes in Guelph, Pantayo are queer Filipinx kulintang gong punks based in Tkaronto, Canada. The ensemble combines traditional Kulintang music from the Philippines with contemporary influences and experimental sounds derived from their experiences as queer diasporic Filipinxs on Turtle Island.

Cancelled due to inclement weather |
In this discussion, we’ll shed light on the art-theoretical approaches of the hakosalo_tuhino duo. Our improvised music comes from the archaic kantele playing tradition, where you are in the music instead of making it. Drawing from the deep listening method, our sonic expression is a spatial and temporal experience that cannot be recorded and repeated.

Our improvised music comes from the archaic kantele playing tradition, where you are in the music instead of making it. Drawing from the deep listening method, our sonic expression is a spatial and temporal experience that cannot be recorded and repeated.