France Jobin –

Aidan Baker, Sam Shalabi, naw, and i8u
Rad’a, 841 rue Gilford, Montreal
http://www.radamontreal.com/
514.522.4323
9pm Saturday March 8th, 2003
$5, tickets at the door

Rad’a Gallery presents an evening of organic meets micro music, members of Canada’s new school of improvisers meeting head to head in an evening of improvisational micro/glitch laptop electronics and world/jazz analogue sounds.
The analog set of the evening will feature performances by Aidan Baker and Sam Shalabi. Aidan Baker has been a permament fixture in the improv and electronic communities in Toronto. He is the founder of the ARC collective and constantly perfoms throughout Toronto, solo and with various groups. The recent ARC release on Toronto’s Piehead Records has received glowing reviews and his various solo releases have been garnering international attention. Aidan’s music, created by mutli-layered guitar loops and drones, encompasses ambient, jazz, electro-acoustic, and experimental sounds. Sam Shalabi is no stanger to the Montreal scene with his solo work and his goup, The Shalabi Effect. His meditative, thought-provoking music shares certain similarities in musical asthetics & exploration, if not actual sound production, to that of Aidan’s work.
The electronic set will feature performances by naw (Neil Wiernik) and I8U. Better known for his experiments in the areas
of minimal techno and micro house Neil has a long history of making and performing improvised and experimental electronic music. His custom-made applications using max/msp take the simplest of sounds and re-create them into a field of sound both enveloping and complex. I8U has been experimenting with electronics for several years and her recent exploration of laptop electronics has taken her work to new levels of exploration and improvisation that will leave the most open minded listeners boggled.
Rad’a will be the ideal setting for these artists’ diverse yet compatible music, allowing the listener to full appreciate the complexities of their respective sounds. Following the four solo sets, the evening will culminate in a collaborative improvisational foursome.

Biographies:

Aidan Baker
http://listen.to/aidan
Aidan Baker is a Toronto-based musician & writer. A classically-trained multi-instrumentalist, he is currently focused on the deconstructive possibilities of the electric guitar. Baker has released several albums, as a solo artist & with various ensembles, on such labels, among others, as Piehead (Canada), Public Eyesore (US), & Blade Records (Italy). His music ranges from &/or encompasses ambient, experimental, electronic(a), post-rock/pop, & avant-jazz. He is also the author of two books of poetry, Fingerspelling (Penumbra Press) & Wound Culture (Unbound Books).

I8U
http://www.i8u.com
I8U’s musical path is rather special. From classical music to the blues, it took only one chance meeting with David Kristian to get her involved in electronic music. I8U has participated in various music & new technology festivals across Canada & Europe, such as Silophone (Montréal, 2000), Mutek (Montréal, 2001), Le Festival de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville (2002), Ver Uit de Maat (Rotterdam, 2002). Her CDs have been released on Canadian & European labels, (bake/staalplaat, Oral, Piehead Records) including a collaborative piece with Goem (Amsterdam). She regularly presents solo performances & often collaborates with Martin Tétreault & David Kristian & Magali Babin. I8U’s particular interest in music, sound & Web art allowed her to produce her first Web art project, Obstacle, which was presented as part of Périphérique, a laboratory curated by Nicole Gingras & created in collaboration with the Groupe Intervention Vidéo (Montréal, 2001). A second Web art project, I S Ü was presented at the Musée du Québec in the fall of 2002 in the context of the Web art exhibit “Ellipse“. This event was curated by Valérie Lamontagne and included 5 other Canadian artists.

naw
http://www.noisefactoryrecords.com/naw.htm
Recently transplanted from Toronto back to his Montreal birthplace, Neil Wiernik is a media artist turned electronic music composer who began creating electronic music in 1988. Wiernik is known to push the boundaries of his musical form – from designing new or manipulating existing sound making devices & software to creative uses of production environments & sound sources. Though his composition & production styles are diverse, he keeps a central focus throughout all his production: experimentation. Neil has a long history of both group & solo electronic music projects including work with The Crystal Methodists & Phÿcus before settling into his current project naw. In terms of solo work, Neil has released music under his given name & under the naw pseudonym on various national & international record labels.  Neil’s recent work is a hybrid deconstruction of all music found in the vicinity of his ears.

Sam Shalabi
http://www.shalabieffect.com/
Sam Shalabi is the most active player in Montreal’s blossoming improv scene. Over the last couple of years has been documented on releases by Shalabi Effect, Detention, Molasses & A Silver Mt. Zion. Shalabi has played or collaborated with the likes of Evan Parker, Alexandre St-Onge, David Kristian, Tim Berne, Charles Papasof & Frank Gratkowski among others.