Every year, for some time now, CiTR radio in Vancouver, and a few independent and college radio stations around the globe, have worked to give modern art a transmitter. The concept of giving art a birthday was introduced by French born artist / peacenik Robert Filliou (associate of John Cage, by the way) In 1963 asserted that 1,000,000 years ago, there was no art. But one day, on the 17th of January to be precise, Art was born when someone dropped a dry sponge into a bucket of water. Filliou had lofty ideas floating around inside his skull about relative permanent creation, an exercise in inner peace to be directed outward and into world peace. A continuing playful anarchy as a way of rejecting the fascism of the square world; the world which refuses to break free of conventional wisdom and the inevitable war it falls into again and again. Interestingly, through plan or coincidence, war and the horrors of fascism tend to be recurrent themes in many of the 24 Hours of Radio Art’s sound collages.
These audio-art projects bring to mind other vividly surrealist elements, namely the inter-active game known as “Exquisite Corpse” .This was an activity that usually involves three or more artists (generally visual types) that would start a drawing or montage on a piece of paper. When that artist was finished the paper was folded back or covered so that the next participant could not see what image came before. When the entire piece is finished, an amazingly bizarre picture is presented for the enjoyment of the group. When several stations (or even multiple people in the radio studio) are involved in radio-art and sharing audio over the internet, we have in essence, an audio version of an Exquisite Corpse. Combined with the surrealists interest in random or spontaneous creations. well, I’m sure the tie-in is all too obvious. Not to say that 24 Hours of Radio Art is all about noise. No. The day is about art and other arts have been known to broadcast. Poets and live musicians have graced the studio with their original contributions. The familial links of the creative arts are concrete and incontrovertible.
CITR’s involvement in 24 Hours of Radio Art has its roots primarily in the sound experimentations of Peter Courtemanche. Peter hosted the Weekly program The Absolute Value of Noise from 1988 to 1992. This program featured a wide variety of radio-art and experimental audio – often generated live on the air. This radio show developed into the annual 24 Hours of Radio/ART program (1992-96) – a collaborative event that explored the concept of a radio-art station; an event that posed the question: What would happen if your local FM pop-rock station suddenly decided to go to an all audio-art format? The answer may be available on January 17th again. Then again, 24 Hours of Radio Art may also be the answer to the question of what do space aliens listen to at home.
In more recent years 24 Hours of radio Art has been made possible by sound-artists at CiTR such as past program director Anna Friz, followed by experimental program enthusiasts Luke Meat, and Bleek through the generous support and scheduling of our current PD Bryce Dunn and a cast of other wonderful volunteer programers and submissions from everywhere.
24 Hours of Radio Art will broadcast Midnight to Midnight, January 17th on CiTR 101.9 Vancouver. Online at www.citr.ca
24 Hours of Radio Art schedule:
00:00-1:00 Scant Intone: Winter [21:53]
Scant Intone is the solo project of Canadian artist Constantine Katsiris dedicated to his explorations in modern audio. From stark minimalism to densely complex textures, his output incorporates elements of digital sound synthesis, field recordings and raw data.
The compositions are experiments in abstract electronic music, with influences including ambient, lowercase, noise, glitch and drone. As a live performer he has brought his sound to many notable venues around the world, such as the Society for Arts and Technology [Montréal], Whitechapel Art Gallery [London] and Brut Konzerthaus [Vienna].
00:00-1:00 Shoebomber: Return To The Valley Tonga [12:50]
Nimalan Yoganathan is a Montreal-based sound artist and composer who uses analog and digital electronics, as well as processed acoustic instrumentation to draw similarities between Hip-Hop and Electroacoustic music. Currently, he is focused on integrating field recordings into his compositions from his travels through Southeast Asia to demonstrate a co-existence with all sounds, man-made or natural. He creates highly-textured electronic music flourished with meditative drones, swirling tape loops, blunted organic beats, and the occasional tweak, glitch or burst of noise. Nimalan is presently studying Electroacoustic Music at Concordia University and has completed a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering fromMcGill University. He also performs and records with various local Free-Jazz and Noise musicians.
00:00-1:00 Akisakila: Twin Cosmos [25:45]
Akisakila are a band originally from Ottawa, now based in Montreal.
The band consists of Shub Roy and Joshua Bastien, who attempt to combine noise, electronic, dub, indie, pop, electro, hip hop, classical, avant-garde and post-musics into something that makes sense to them. Sometimes they succeed. Usually they make use of guitar, bass, synth, drum machine, theremin, toys, various percussion, many effects, a computer and sometimes visuals.
1:00-2:00 Gavin John Sheehan: Shell Of The Curved Centennial [61:48]
Gavin John Sheehan has been composing and performing music since 1990.
Early experiences produced records and performances as drummer and co-composer for the band “Milktoast” (1992) and as guitarist and main composer for “Shire Reeve” (1995). From 1998 to 2001, he composed, recorded and released “Reno Air” a 74 minute minimalist drone piece.
He attended Vancouver Community College for Musical Composition and Concordia University for Electro-acoustic studies. Between 2003 and 2010, he composed, performed and improvised in several ensembles in Montreal including The Identity Protest Unit for his piece “October the Two” (2004), Pas Chic Chic for live performances (2007-2008), “Shell of the Curved Centennial” as composer and performer (2008), and regularly with Montreal based composer Sam Shalabi in both his Land of Kush and Egyptian Light Orchestra ensembles (2007 to present). As of late, he is completing work on his piece “Hate is all ‘Around'” which is due to debut at Montreal’s Suoni Per Il Popolo under the name Gavin John Sheehan & Identity Protest Unit II. He presently lives in Montreal.
2:00-3:00 Darcin: Castor Volant [33:07]
Nicolas Dion is a self-taught audio artist based in Montreal. He is a member of sound art duo Minibloc, experimental electronic trio Citofono (aka Intercom), and one of the founding members of Le Son 666 audio art collective. He performs solo as Darcin, with 2 netreleases entitled “Parc” and “Castor volant” , on the Panospria/NoType Netlabel. Nicolas played concerts in Montreal, Quebec City, Rimouski, Toronto, Winnipeg and Berlin.
2:00-3:00 Souns: Circuits Channel Airs [27:18]
Souns is an “ambient/etc” project from Michael Red. The words “ambient/etc” are used to describe sounds ranging from hyper-minimal tones and pure textures up to soundscapes supported by dub bass-lines and quiet rhythms. Souns takes roots in the elemental songs of water, wood, wind, fire, metal, dreamtime and the unseen world. The message is of light and evolution. Souns live performances weave pre-programmed structures with live looping and processing of bells, chimes, glockenspiel, trumpet, samples, the immediate environment, found objects, field recordings, static and hiss. There is a heavy improvisational element to Souns live and recorded works, largely guided by an emptied mind and an open channel.
3:00-4:00 Piers Whyte: Separation From Loved Ones [10:31]
3:00-4:00 Aeris Ash: !@#&%! [17:41] Aeris Ash is one of the many monikers of Jason Corder, who began devising sonic schemes in the womb by performing on the uterus wall to cope with the intense darkness. He finally forged an escape plan in 1977 and upgraded his musical medium to a sterling kitchen floor kit. Many years later during the dark ages of the 386/amiga, Jason retired the cutlery to began forging into the vast void of 8-bit tracking. Later he began his travels to countless electronic music events which catalysted him into a fertile pit of sonic clay. Using adverse software such as buzz, Jason began an evolution. Though after realizing the creative short comings of purely digital creation, acoustics, space resonation, and concept became common place. Instruments such as guitar, piano, sine waves, field-recordings and weather pattern data are mainstays for off the sky. Today Jason resides in the city of Denver, Coloradoand composes experimental electronic music in collaboration with other working musicians.
3:00-4:00 Wapstan: Prétendre être le vent [26:59]
Conceived in the north of Saguenay Quebec in 2002, blowing away the Montreal scene with his trademark “hyprthermic drones” since 2004.
Wapstan has played with Emil Beaulieau, Crank Sturgeon, Prurient, Francisco Lopez, Carlos Giffoni, Pedestrian Deposit, Oscillating Innards, Jessica Rylan, Thirdorgan, Laura Barett, John Kameel Farah, Offensive Orange, Burnward and many more as well as with many names in the current Montreal underground experimental scene like Dreamcatcher, The Unireverse, Harris Newman, Dead Bush, Scream Baby Screams, Kolumkilli, Feedback Cowboys, Scant Intone and many others. Wapstan also pollutes stereos with his own DIY label Brise-Cul, that is somewhat popular all around the world.
5:00-6:00 Keith Hamel: Faded Memories, Faded Jeans [19:45]
Dr. Keith Hamel is a Professor in the School of Music, an Associate Researcher at the Institute for Computing, Information and Cognitive Systems (ICICS), a Researcher at the Media and Graphics Interdisciplinary Centre(MAGIC) and Director of the Computer Music Studio at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Hamel has been on the Faculty at UBC since 1987, and has been a Full Professor since 1997. He holds a B.Mus. from Queen’s University (1981) and A.M. and Ph.D degrees from Harvard University (1984, 1985). He also studied Computer Music under the supervision of Barry Vercoe at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology between 1981 and 1984. Dr. Hamel has written both acoustic and electroacoustic music and has been awarded many prizes in both media. His works have been performed by many of the finest soloists and ensembles both in Canada and abroad. He has received commissions from IRCAM (Paris), the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra,Vancouver New Music Ensemble, the Elektra Women’s Choir, musica intima, Hammerhead Consort, Standing Wave, Hard Rubber Orchestra, as well as from outstanding performers such as flutist Robert Cram, bassoonist Jesse Read, clarinetist Jean-Guy Boisvert, saxophonist Julia Nolan, and pianist Douglas Finch. Many of his recent compositions focus on interaction between live performers and computer-controlled electronics. As a computer music researcher, Hamel is recognized as one of the foremost authorities on music notation software. He is author of the NoteWriter and NoteAbilityPro software programs which are used around the world for professional music engraving and publishing, and he has developed interactive environments for live performer and computer interaction. His research has been funded by the Canada Council, the SSHRC, a Killam Research Fellowship, and UBC Arts-IT. Dr. Keith Hamel is a former Vice-President of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM), a former President of the Canadian Music Centre, and a former board member of the Canadian League of Composers. His music is published by Editions Musicales Européennes of Paris and by Cypress Press of Vancouver, and several of his compositions are available on commercial recordings. © 2009 Keith A. Hamel Biographical Information
5:00-6:00 Paul Steenhuisen: Blueblood Soundtrack [29:26]
5:00-6:00 Paul Steenhuisen: Wonder [15:56]
Paul Steenhuisen is a composer and sound artist who works with broad range of acoustic and digital media. His concert music consists of orchestral, chamber, solo, and vocal music, and often includes live electronics and soundfiles. Additionally, he creates radio works and installation pieces.
Steenhuisen obtained his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in composition from the University of British Columbia, where he studied with Keith Hamel. Between academic degrees, he studied with Louis Andriessen and Gilius van Bergeijk at the Royal Conservatory of Music, The Hague. While living in Amsterdam, he also worked with Michael Finnissy inBrighton, England. Subsequently, he took part in the Cursus de Composition et Informatiques at IRCAM (Paris), and had lessons with Tristan Murail. During his student years, Steenhuisen was a laureate of more than a dozen national and international awards. These include four prizes in the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Young Composers Competition, seven in the PROCAN/SOCAN Competition, first prize in the Vancouver New Music Composers Competition, and the Governor General of Canada Gold Medal as the outstanding student in all faculties (UBC, 1990). Music by Paul Steenhuisen was also selected for competition at the Gaudeamus Music Week. After a winter residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts, Paul Steenhuisen became Composer in Residence with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (1998-2000, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Music Director). At the behest of the TSO, he wrote the chamber work Ciphering in Tongues, and orchestral pieces Airstream, and Pensacola (a melodrama for orchestra, computer, and spatialized brass).Pensacola has also been performed by the Esprit Orchestra, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal (Roberto Abbado, conductor), and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra (with Alexsandr Mickelthwaite). During this time, Bramwell Tovey and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra commissioned another orchestral piece, Your Soul is a Bottle Full of Thirsting Salt. Since completing his advanced degrees, Paul Steenhuisen’s music has continued to develop. Wonder, for orchestra, tape, and soprano, was commissioned by the CBC for the now-defunct CBC Vancouver Radio Orchestra, and selected to represented Canada at the International Rostrum of Composers (UNESCO, Paris). It was ranked third in the world, and ascribed the honour of ‘recommended’ work, with subsequent broadcasts in twenty-five countries. As a result, the Austrian Radio Philharmonic also performed the work (Arturo Tamayo, conductor) and commissioned Bread for Sylvain Cambreling and Klangforum Wien to perform at MuzikProtokoll in Graz, Austria. Bread was also performed at the 2001 ISCM World Music Days in Yokohama, Japan, by the Tokyo ensemble COmeT, and at the BONK festival (Tampa,USA), where Steenhuisen was a frequent guest. In 2003, Dr. Steenhuisen was appointed Assistant Professor of Composition at the University of Alberta, where he was the founder of the Electroacoustic Research Studios (UA-EARS). He served as director of the new studios until his resignation in 2007. UA-EARS studios were created with financial support from the Endowment Fund for the Future, the Faculty of Arts, and the Canada Foundation for Innovation. In early 2009, the University of Alberta Press published its first music text, Steenhuisen’s ‘Sonic Mosaics: Conversations with Composers’, a collection of interviews with thirty-one composers. Music by Paul Steenhuisen has been commissioned and performed by other dedicated new music performers and presenters, including New Music Concerts (Robert Aitken), Margaret Lancaster , Soundstreams Canada, Lori Freedman, Roger Admiral, Kovalis Duo, Valdine Anderson, Guido Arbonelli, Irvine Arditti, SMCQ, The Hilliard Ensemble, the CBC Vancouver Radio Orchestra, Kathryn Cernauskas, The Composer’s Orchestra (Gary Kulesha), Trio Fibonacci, Continuum, Marc Couroux, Ensemble 2e2m, Barbara Hannigan, Marshall McGuire, Laura McPheeters, Musica Verticale, Netherlands Chamber Choir, Elizabeth Skillings, Benny Sluchin, IRCAM, and Vancouver New Music. Paul Steenhuisen’s music has also been performed at each of the major Canadian festivals, including the Sound Symposium, Montréal Nouvelles Musique, the Massey Hall New Music Festival, Made in Canada, Open Ears, The Winnipeg New Music Festival, and the Vancouver International New Music Festival. Performances at other international festivals include those in Adelaide, Sydney, Darmstadt, Santa Fe, Ought One (Vermont), Three-Two (New York), and Spoleto, while on radio, his music is regularly performed in Europe, Asia, Australia, and North America. © 2009 Paul Steenhuisen
6:00-7:00- Howard Bagshaw: Eolian Braid [15:54]
Originally from White Rock, British Columbia, Canadian composer Howard Bashaw is a graduate of the University of British Columbia (DMA, 1989). He is currently Professor of Music at the University of Alberta where he teaches composition, orchestration, theory and analysis. He has also taught at the University of British Columbia and at the Université Canadienne en France.
A composer in the acoustic medium, Bashaw has composed for a range of diverse ensembles including the Hard Rubber Orchestra, Vancouver New Music, New Music Concerts, Société de musique contemporaine du Québec, Duo Kovalis, East-West Quartet, Standing Wave, Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, Hammerhead Consort, Now Age Orchestra, Duo Majoya, Continuum Ensemble (London), and the Augustana Choir. Included among the performers featured in his works for chamber and large ensembles are Cameron Wilson (violin), Allen Stiles (piano), Roger Admiral (piano), Philip Hornsey (percussion), Trevor Brandenburg (percussion), Yan Sallafranque (tuba), Alain Trudel (trombone), William Street (saxophone), Russell Whitehead (trumpet), Dennis Miller (tuba), Ken Read (trombone), Kathleen Corcoran (soprano), Douglas Finch (piano), Tatjana Kukoc (guitar) and Niek de Groot (double bass). While the piano is found in many of Bashaw’s works for ensemble, he has also composed for solo piano – with first performances given by Roger Admiral, Corey Hamm, Barbara Pritchard, Haley Simons and Marc Couroux. Selected by the performers, Bashaw’s piano music has occurred in national and international piano performance competitions. CD releases include: Hard Rubber, Hard Elastic (2008) Form Archimage (2004) and BASHAW (2000). Bashaw has received commissions through the Canada Council for the Arts, CBC Radio Music, and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. © 2009 Howard Bashaw
6:00-7:00- Andre Ristic: Catalogues de Bombes Occidentales [18:00]
6:00-7:00 Andre Ristic- Information [30:02]
A.R. was born in Quebec City (Canada) where he made his basic musical training. He then moved to Montreal where is successively studied piano, harpsichord, composition and mathematics during the 1990s. He then occupied the position of pianist for the Ensemble contemporain de Montréal, the Trio Fibonacci and l’Ensemble Musiques Nouvelles. As a composer, he received a few Prizes and stipends in Canada and abroad, and composes rather regularly works that have in common humor and speed, although often very far apart esthetically one from another, depending on the phases of his career. First focused on the inclusion of elements from pop culture (in works such as Catalogue de bombes occidentales, Happiness Algorithm, Génération/Vitrail) he then got interested in mathematical representations (Motel Infinity, Après une lecture de Piskounov, Vers) and shifted his attention on the graphical elements of music, developing a notation and style of an anti-harmonic nature, where pitches only have a limited importance (Projets d’opéra, Sublimation, Variations psycho-géographiques sur Tannhaüser). He describes his music as «a kind of rhythmical shuffle-zapping of elements taken from a collection of instrumental phantasms, often times resulting in self-cannibalism of the music itself, one of the musical ideas ending up devouring all the others».
7:00-8:00-James Harley: Sabbath [23:07]
James Harley, born 1959, Vernon, B.C., Canada, began studying composition in 1980. Prior to that, he had been active as a pianist, jazz and classical, played percussion, and also studied electroacoustics at Western Washington University. After graduating Magna cum laude in 1982, he took up residence in the UK in order to study composition with Paul Patterson at the Royal Academy of Music. Recipient of grants from the Canada Council and the Leverhulme Trust, among others, Harley remained in London for three years, benefitting from a number of performances and prizes. In 1985, having been awarded the prestigious Mendelssohn Scholarship, he moved to Paris. There, Harley studied aesthetics with Iannis Xenakis, musical acoustics at the Université de Paris, attended seminars at IRCAM and the College de France (Pierre Boulez), and worked extensively with the UPIC computer music system at CEMAMu. While in Paris, Harley won a number of prizes, including two in the 1986 CBC Radio Young Composers Competition in Canada. Then, in 1987, Harley moved to Warsaw, thanks to a Polish Government Scholarship, to spend a year at the Chopin Academy of Music. He attended the composition class of Wlodzimierz Kotonski, participated in the Summer Courses for Young Composers organized by the Polish Society for Contemporary Music, and had a piece premiered at the 1987 Warsaw Autumn Festival. In 1988, Harley returned to North America, taking up doctoral studies at McGill University inMontreal. Under the guidance of Bruce Pennycook and Bo Alphonce, he pursued research there in the domain of computer-aided composition, developing CHAOTICS, compositional software based on functions derived from chaos theory. Harley graduated in 1994 with his D.Mus. in composition, having completed a large-scale thesis work, Cantico Delle Creature under the supervision of John Rea and Bruce Mather. Over the next year, supported by a major Artist’s Grant from the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Quebec, he composed a series of chamber works, also teaching part-time in the Faculty of Music at McGill University. In 1995, Harley took up a sabbatical replacement position as Assistant Professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, teaching composition, electronic music, and contemporary music history/analysis. At the same time, he completed a major commission for the Musiques-Echanges festival inMontreal. In the fall of 1996, Harley moved to Los Angeles, and taught part-time at USC and the California Institute of the Arts. In 1999, he began teaching in Minnesota, directing the Music Technology program at Minnesota State University Moorhead. He was granted a McKnight Composer Fellowship in 2002. The university awarded him a Faculty Award for Research/Creative Activity in Fall 2003. In 2004, he became Coordinator of Music Industry and was promoted to Associate Professor. In 2004, Harley took up a new position at the University of Guelph. There he teaches digital music, composition, among other courses. In 2008, Harley was awarded a Leaders Opportunity Fund grant from the Canada Foundation of Innovation to launch the Advanced Digital Audio Production and Performance Studio at theUniversity of Guelph. He has continued to compose to various commissions, among them NUMUS, New Music Concerts, Open Ears Festival, Transit Festival-Belgium, Transmission Ensemble, and Vancouver New Music. Various of Harley’s compositions have been released on CD, and can be found on labels such as Artifact, ATMA, Centrediscs, CMJ, McGill, PeP, Soundprints. Harley has scores published by PWM, and many of the rest can be consulted through the Canadian Music Centre. According to Marc Couroux, Harley’s music “resides at the intersection of a network of influences rather than proliferating from a central ideology… Harley accepts that the complexity of nature requires a more artistically imaginative interpretation than the simple extension of an Arcadian, placid contemplation… Harley consequently oriented himself towards the theory of chaos, which derives its principles from a much more global study of natural mechanisms than was previously allowed due to hyperspecialization… James Harley defends on the highest level the great Canadian creative tradition, rooted in the natural world, a metaphor for the irreducible complexity of Canadaand, by extension, of universal humanity.” © 2009 James Harley Biographical Information
7:00-8:00- Gordon Fitzell- Airports [19:37]
Gordon Fitzell is a Winnipeg-based composer, performer, producer and concert presenter. His music has been performed across Canada and at international festivals including Festival Synthèse Bourges (France), the Darmstadt Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik (Germany), the ISCM World New Music Days (Sweden), the Tanglewood Music Festival (USA), and the International Sound Art Festival (Mexico). He has received awards and acknowledgments for his compositions from various organizations including the SOCAN Foundation, CBC Radio, Vancouver New Music, and the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (USA). In 2009 his chamber work violence was performed by Norwegian group BIT20 at the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) World New Music Days inSweden. The work has also been performed by the Plexoos Ensemble (Edmonton), Sonic Generator (Atlanta), and eighth blackbird (Chicago). A recording of the work appears on eighth blackbird’s Grammy-winning album strange imaginary animals, which also features Fitzell as co-producer and live electronics artist. Recent compositions include works forMontreal’s Alizé and Ensemble contemporain de Montréal, the Lisbon Architecture Triennale, pianists Roger Admiral and Corey Hamm, and Winnipeg’s Harrington/Loewen Duo, whose recording of Fitzell’s Metropolis will be released in 2010. Fitzell has curated numerous sound art events, ranging from chamber music concerts to media art installations, and in 2009 became an Artistic Director of GroundSwell, Manitoba’s premiere new music series. Gordon Fitzell is an Assistant Professor of Music Theory and Composition at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, where he also leads the eXperimental Improv Ensemble (XIE). © 2009 Gordon Fitzell Biographical Information
7:00-8:00- Bob Pritchard- …Flow Mingled Down [16:37]
Bob Pritchard’s creative work includes experimental concert music, interactive music and video pieces, direct synthesis, sound installations, video/film, radio sound, and software development. His music is performed and broadcast internationally, and he is often commissioned by some of Canada’s leading performers. His works have twice been selected as Canadian submissions to the ISCM, and in 2007 his interactive piece Strength for saxophone and video received a Unique Award of Merit from the Canadian Society of Cinematographers. In 1993 he created the sound for Watt’s Welcome to the Widget Factory which received a Jack Webster Award, and in 2008 his short film Crisis was part of Robertson’s cancer documentary 17 Short Films About Breasts which was nominated for five Leos. As a music technology researcher he is active in the development of software tools for performance environments: in 2004 he received a 3-year Artist-Researcher grant from SSHRC, developing cyberglove-controlled speech synthesis and in 2007 Pritchard, Fels, and Vatikiotis-Bateson received a 3-year Canada Council/NSERC grant for the development of Digital Ventriloquized Actors (DiVAs) combining gestural control of speech synthesis with virtual faces. In 2009 Keith Hamel and he received a 3-year SSHRC grant for the development of automated score-following systems. As an undergraduate Pritchard studied composition and theory at the University of British Columbia, and received an M.Mus in composition from the University of Toronto. While there he also became active with the Structured Sound Synthesis Project in the U.of T. Computer Systems Research Group. During the 1990’s he taught at Brock University where he also served twice as the head of Music. In the late 1990’s he returned to B.C. to complete a doctorate in composition with a specialty in computer applications. He now teaches electroacoustics, music theory, special topics, and interdisciplinary courses at the University of British Columbia School of Music. Pritchard is co-director of UBC’s MUsic,Sound and Electroacoustic Technology group (MUSET), and is a full researcher with the Media And Graphics Interdisciplinary Centre (MAGIC) and the Institute for Computing, Information, and Cognitive Science (ICICS. Currently he is Vice-chair of the Canadian Music Centre’s British Columbia region. © 2009 Bob Pritchard Biographical Information
8:00-9:00- Snuggles Group
Snuggles started life in 1996 as a listserv (that’s a mailing list), run by Brian MacDonald, where fans could discuss various Negativland releases, ask questions, report on live shows, clarify any misunderstandings on the whole U2 affair, find out what the Weatherman’s favorite cable channels are, etc.
It was named after the dog in the Casey Casem dedication on the U2 album (see below). A cute little inside joke for a small mailing list that only was interesting to fans of Negativland.
Then something weird and wonderful happened. The band was not really touring very much or producing many new albums, so the talk tended to wander. It focused on Over The Edge (see below) and the various ways that people could create content for the show to be piped in live every Thursday night. Soon the creation of weird sounds for their own sake became a topic of conversation. Then a compilation of Snuggles-participant tracks was traded around. Consequently, when digital sound manipulation tools and cd-burners became easily available, the Snuggles folks were primed and ready to pounce on them. Soon, strange distorted samples and off-kilter beats were being traded around as MP3s and the focus of the list was rarely on Negativland at all. Droplift (see below) featured over two dozen tracks by Snugglers and they paid for its pressing themselves. Then came Dictionareoke and Free Speech For Sale and the Snuggles Media Collective was off and running.
So, what is Snuggles? Its a mailing list. Definitely. It is somehow related to Negativland. We all are really excited when Don Joyce graces us with a message. But it is a lot more than that. It is about the legal fight over copyright. It is about how to make weird sounds and music and sound collage. It is about how to make the damn technology we depend on work right. And more. And it is changing. It will change.
Come find out where it is going next. The most exciting part is that it is friendly, mature (usually), and willing to entertain any perspective. Disagreement is strong and willful and polite (usually). And we only yell when we don’t mean it. Snuggles is now hosted by Pan of the Sensory Research Network. You can subscribe to Snuggles here. You can reach the person managing the list at snuggles-owner@sensoryresearch.com.
For a different way of answering the question, listen to the track What is Snuggles? by The Piss.
9:00-10:00-Pyra(CITR)
Pyra Draculea is a Vancouver-based [re-]mixing engineer, artist and DJ. She creates industrial rock and noise as Maqlu, and is currently working on a triple EP slated for release in 2010. Remixing credits so far include Left Spine Down, Jakalope, and iVardensphere.
Pyra also hosts CiTR Radio’s weekly industrial show, the Vampire’s Ball, which airs at midnight PST on Friday nights. More on the Vampire’s Ball can be found at https://thevampiresball.blogspot.com. Guests of the show have included Nivek Ogre, Dave Ogilvie, Phil Western and kAINE D3L4Y.
You can check out more of her work on https://myspace.com/maqlumusic and you can keep tabs on all her assorted projects via https://twitter.com/pyradraculea.
….
10:00-11:00-Robyn Jacob (CiTR)
The “dekumpozerz uhv” decompose. They are simple organisms which obtain their nutrients from dead plant or animal material by breaking it down into basic chemical compounds. A decomposer chain can run from a relatively large organism, such as a fungus, to smaller organisms such as bacteria. Decomposers play a major part in the maintenance of nutrient cycles; an important part of the energy cycle and food webs.
11:00-12:00- Andy Hunter (CiTR)
12:00-13:00- Andy Hunter (CiTR)
13:00-14:00- Oswaldo Perez (CiTR)
14:00-15:00- Oswaldo Perez (CiTR)
Oswaldo Perez Cabrera is a Mexican journalist and host of the Morning After Show on CiTR every Tuesday at 11:30 AM. The show is geared towards independent music from Canada and all over the world. Oswaldo collaborates with a umber of publications in Canada, Mexico, Spain among other countries. he is the director of La Vanguardia de Vancouver and has created several cultural projects like The Latin American Film festival and the Latin Rock festival.
15:00-16:00- Mannlicher Carcano
16:00-17:00- Mannlicher Carcano
Mannlicher Carcano is an improvisational audio collage group that formed in Winnipeg in the mid-80’s. The core members of the group are Really Happening (Los Angeles, CA), Porter Hall (Guelph, ON) and R.F. (Gogo) Godot (Winnipeg). MC’s sound has affinities with post-punk DIY experimentalism, avant-garde classical, experimental turntablist, and plunderphonic traditions. The group uses traditional and invented instruments (spring-strung bass, Ventor, cast aluminum cello), trickle-down electronics, portable record players playing warped Montovani at the wrong speed, stuck religious tirades or anything else on vinyl, children’s toys, radios, live phone calls, tape loops, field recordings of environmental soundscapes and contact miked appliances (plus frequent visual components) in their ongoing quest to come to terms with the contemporary urban acoustic ecology.
In addition to their weekly telephone-linked live radio program/webcast The Mannlicher Carcano Radio Hour(www.cfru.ca – since 1998) MC have issued numerous self-released recordings, appeared on experimental music and radio art compilations, produced soundtracks for experimental film, and created installations for gallery and museum spaces. Mannlicher Carcano is a seriously playful experiment in anarchistic collaborative creativity.
17:00-18:00-Quentin Wright- “Chips With Everything” (CiTR)
Chips With Everything is a radio show on CiTR showcasing the music of the British Isles. Chips With Everything is also a spoken word/soundscape duo who released their debut album “Do Something” in 2009. To celebrate Art’s birthday, CWE will showcase some of their work, assisted by Hido, a Vancouver group who focus on soundtrack compositions. Hido consists of keyboard, woodwind, drum and spoken word performers. Influences include Cardiacs and Philip Glass. For this special occasion we welcome spoken word contributions from Uma Ugly of the Vancouver band Offended Retards, and our regular Chips With Everything contributor Clive Dave Devlin.
18:00-19:00- Bleek Swinney (CiTR)
19:00-20:00- Bleek Swinney (CiTR)
Bleek is a visual and sound artist, editor of Speck Fanzine, contributing writer of Discorder magazine, part-curator of 24 Hours of Radio Art, peacenik and host of ‘Exquisite Corpse’ on CiTR on Thursdays @ 19:30-21:00 PST onwww.citr.ca. Bleek has a diploma in Radio Broadcasting from Clover Park Voc. Tech. in Tacoma, and an Associate of Arts degree from Northwest College of Art. Luke Meat is the music director of CiTR 101.9 FM at the University ofBritsih Columbia, and the host of ‘ANoiZE’ heard on Wednesdays @ 11:30-13:00 PST also at www.citr.ca. The VVP use sound-recycling (hence Value Village ), elements of camp (hence Village People) and attempts to reveal the (un)fortunate complexities of this information through appropriation, cut-ups, murky noise and recontextualization.
20:00-21:00-Kalki (Vancouver)
Kalki is an experimental “noise” project, based out of Vancouver, BC, Canada.
This project takes its name from the final avatar of Vishnu, coming at the end of the present age of darkness to remove the blemish of mankind from the face of the Earth.
Think feedback loops, found sounds, equipment failure, white noise bursts, esoteric studio wizardry, tape manipulation.
21:00-22:00-Mark Richardson (CiTR)
22:00-23:00-GAK (CiTR)
23:00-24:00-GAK (CiTR)