vague terrain w/ tractile & intercom live November 26, 2005

saturday november 26th...

tractile - sarnia / year of the machine
intercom- montreal / leson666
dj / ether.mann - serial consign / vague terrain
video / neil wiernik - vague terrain
http://www.vagueterrain.net

art bar.gladstone hotel
toronto.canada
$5 / 9pm - 2am

artist information

tractile - sarnia / year of the machine / http://www.tractile.net

If someone was asked what it would sound like if all of the most frightening, most exciting and sexiest scenes in cinema history were spliced together and merged with a robotic dance score, Tractile would surely be the reply. Adam Young (b. 1983) and Joel Boychuk (b. 1985), with several years of miscellaneous music experience behind them and a few years as great friends and partners-in-crime, decided to reinvent their sound and call themselves Tractile. Having been obsessed with the concept of controlling the uncontrollable and seducing recorded sound of any kind, the name was a suiting merge between the words track and tactile. Boychuk and Young played their first public live show in 2003 and have continued to shake dance-floors ever since, always impressing and exciting their audience far beyond expectation. Influenced by a strange combination of filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick and George Lucas and the evolution of techno music and emergence of the "minimal sound" through artists like Richie Hawtin and Jeff Milligan, Tractile delivers barrages of demented but motivating tech grooves perfect for dance floors and at-home listeners alike... and with a swiftly-growing international fanbase, it's no wonder the name is on the toungue-tips of DJs and music fans everywhere.

intercom - montreal / http://wwww.leson666.com

Intercom's music is based on improvisations composed on keyboards, laptops (supporting homemade software), vocals, and various available instruments. In the tradition of German "Krautrock" bands such as Can and Neu!, Intercom then constructs tracks from these improvisations. In concert, Intercom gives a dynamic and explosive performance. A regular show runs the gamut from psychedelic jams to noise and back all keeping that monster beat. Audience members are sometimes known to plug their ears - but do it with asmile - due to the extreme noise and loud volume, while they dance along to the addictive pulsations of the Intercom sound. Intercom was founded by Jean-Michel Gadoua, Nicolas Dion and Pascal Gauthier in 2002. All three are self-taught musicians and hail from various electro-rock bands. Intercom was founding with the sole purpose of having fun and making spontaneous music with electronic devices and various available instruments. Intercom is the electro-psychedelic band that eats poutine in your neighbourhood.

ether.mann - vague terrain / http://www.serialconsign.com

Greg Smith has been involved in promotion, playing, or contextualization of experimental electronic music for 12 years. As one of the co-founders of Toronto's clonk crew, he cut his DJ teeth alongside diverse selectors such as Sutekh, Jeff Milligan, DJ Fishead, Task, and Martin Tetrault. Over the years, Greg has oscillated back and forth between DJing/music writing and his architecture education, in hopes that the two pursuits inform one another. Of late, Greg has been exploring the digital world of traktor and attempting to make sense of his vast music collection through this new tool.

neil wiernik / vague terrain

Neil Wiernik (b.1967, Mtl, Can.) is an audio contortionist, curator and digital media specialist presently living and working in Toronto. Neil has shown his work and curated exhibitions in non-traditional spaces and venues since the late 1980?s. His projects and mediums of expression have varied and include works in radio, print and internet diffusion as well as other non-gallery spaces such as derelict buildings, billboards, pirate airwaves and public space. He has presented projects at the Finland Contemporary Museum, ISEA, Subtle Technologies Conference, The Medusa Complex, Mutek Festival and Gallery Optica. Neil is concerned with various types of story-telling using abstract environments and spaces to do so. Often the development of these narratives involves the creation of custom tools or subversion of existing ones. Neil was a co-founder of the Toronto and Montreal based electronic music promotion outfit clonk, the canadian electronic music portal phoniq, and currently co-curates vagueterrain.net, an online digital arts quarterly.