[Microsound-announce] vague terrain presents garnny'ark/naw/akumu sept 24th 2005

[Neil Wiernik]

saturday september 24th - vague terrain presents...

granny'ark - vancouver / zora lanson / interdisco
naw - noise factory / vague terrain
akumu - spider records
video / patricia rodriguez - substance communications

art bar / the gladstone hotel
limited capacity
$5 / doors open @ 9pm
1214 queen st. west
toronto, canada
http://www.vagueterrain.net

Vague Terrain is very excited to showcase the talents of emerging minimal
techno wunderkid Granny'ark for a live set at our September 24th show at
the Gladstone hotel.

Granny'Ark is the music project of nomadic media artist Michelle Irving.
Although officially a resident of Vancouver, Granny'Ark spends the other
part of her time at Zora Lanson Label's home base in Berlin. Her first
release Resurgo (2004) garnered praise from The Wire, XLR8R, De-Bug, and
was featured on the late John Peel's legendary Radio One show.
Granny'Ark's music can be described as a blend of explorations in
electroacoustic sampling, and musical structures of rhythm and melody.
Generally, Granny'Ark attempts to transform sounds into a progressive
soundscape that evokes a sense of mood or place in the listener. Sometimes
this might mean enticing them to dance. Her music is featured in the
internationally acclaimed documentary "The Corporation" and another award
winning Canadian documentary "Scared Sacred." In the fall Granny'Ark will
be releasing her follow-up EP on Zora Lanson Label as well as a
collaborative project with Si Cut.db on Biphop.  Granny'Ark's "Three Seas
and One Bottle" EP is available for download at http://www.interdisco.net

Neil Wiernik (aka naw) has been extremely busy over the 12 months.  The
last year has seen the release of two naw albums; "Green Nights, Orange
Days" on Noise Factory and "Terrain Vague" on Pertin_nce, as well as an
extensive European tour.  Neil's production was recently described by The
Wire as having "the kind of sharpness and clarity usually lost amid the
murk and decay of clicks and cuts and digital delays."  Neil recently
moved back to Toronto and began working with long-time collaborator Greg
Smith in the creation of Vague Terrain, an entity which will promote a
series of eclectic electronic music showcases and the website of which
will act as a digital arts journal.  Neil will also be playing at the
upcoming Toronto based "Ear to the Ground" festival details are available
at http://www.eartothegroundfest.com and http://www.naw.phoniq.net for
more information about the artist.

Akumu is Toronto's Deane Hughes, composer of atmospheric ambience, shadowy
beats and minimal manipulations. Formed as a solo project in 2000, Akumu
has released three full-length albums on his own Spider Records imprint.
His newest CD, Magmas (2005) was conceived and written in Guatemala,
Honduras and Mexico; it is the follow-up to 2004's Fluxes, an ambient,
zero-bpm recording of unflinching minimalism that The Wire says "raises
neat hackles across the skin" For six months, Deane traveled throughout
remote locations, making binaural recordings from which he created the
drone- and loop-based instruments that form the spine of material on both
CDs. Akumu has performed live across Ontario and Quebec, including 2005's
Mutek festival in Montréal, featuring visual projections of original
photography, animated collages and 2D/3D digital experiments. His live
sets highlight and improvise on Magmas and Fluxes to create an immersive,
flowing sound scape of micro-sonics, ambient drones and low-frequency
pulses. Akumu's 2005 mutek set can be listened to at
http://www.mutek.ca/2005/artist.php?lang=en&artist_id=akamu

Keeping with our mandate of integrating electronic music with digital art,
Vague Terrain will be welcoming back one of our earliest collaborators,
video artist Patricia Rodriguez.  Formally trained in the visual arts,
Patricia is a multidisciplinary specialist, integrating analog and digital
technologies. She delights in playing with perception and problem-solving.
A keen synaesthete, Patricia enjoys the neurological mixing of the senses.
Her love for improvisation translates into performances using movement,
sound and light (including video and film), as well as real-time
collaborations with musicians and other artists. She has shown her work
alongside Richie Hawtin, Monolake, Kit Clayton, Derrick May, Steve Bug,
and Damo Suzuki of Can to name a few. She has worked with several
collectives including Clonk, Eight, Wabi, Whipit, Die Lux, and Geekend.
Patricia is currently the Art Director for Substance Communications.

Extensive artist & event information, album reviews and artist links are
available at http://www.vagueterrain.net

Hope to see you out on the 24th in Toronto!

Neil Wiernik & Greg Smith
www.vagueterrain.net
editors/curators

PS - Our formal launch for vague terrain journal will be on Oct. 29th and
feature live PAs from Detroit based Kero, naw + more TBA.