Stir Cheat Sheet: 3 acts to catch at this weekend's PROPULSION 2024 fest
The Vancouver New Music festival features a diverse lineup of sound artists
THE VANCOUVER NEW Music Festival is back for 2024 with PROPULSION, a co-presentation with VIVO Media Arts Centre from October 17 to 19. This year’s diverse lineup explores themes of futurism. Here’s a glimpse at three of the acts to catch.
Markus Floats
Markus Floats is the name of the solo experimental project of Markus Lake, a multidisciplinary artist, musician, and composer based in Montreal. Having created synthetic audio works over the past decade—while also playing bass in a vast range of punk, post-punk, experimental, and Afro-futurist outfits—Lake has been an active force in the Montreal’s DIY music community since 2008. Lake is a graduate of the electroacoustic studies program at Concordia University. With a background in jazz performance, he explores themes of attention, obscurity, visibility, and repetition in his live shows through several different digital instruments. “These electronic works are often jazz-inflected in their measured exploration of formal/tonal dissonance and through-composed with abrupt dynamic shifts in a spirit that references both musique concrète and free jazz,” according to his label, Constellation Records. He includes readings from the Black literary canon in his live performance.
Wasauksing Sniper
Wasauksing Sniper, the moniker of noise artist Bret Parenteau, aka B.P., is an homage to Francis Pegahmagabow, the most highly decorated Indigenous soldier in Canadian military history, and allegedly the most effective sniper of the First World War. B.P. has been focusing on film scores lately, using his trademark layers of ambient and harsh textural sounds to echo the flow of battle and the ceaseless rumble of artillery.
DJ Zygote
DJ Zygote, aka Simon Grefiel, is deeply immersed in “budots”, an electronic music genre and dance style originating from Davao City, Philippines, and profoundly influenced by the Indigenous Sama-Bajau. Hailing from Tacloban City, Philippines, and now based in Vancouver, Grefiel explores ancient and precolonial stories and practices from throughout Southeast Asia and the Pacific region in his music. His work, which also includes sculpture, found objects, drawings, and plant life, has been exhibited at Vancouver Art Gallery, Gallery Gachet, WAAP, Libby Leshgold Gallery, and beyond. Check out a more in-depth interview with the artist on page 77 of our Stir Fall Arts Guide here.
Gail Johnson is a Vancouver-based journalist who has earned local and national nominations and awards for her work. She is a certified Gladue Report writer via Indigenous Perspectives Society in partnership with Royal Roads University and is a member of a judging panel for top Vancouver restaurants.
Related Articles
The pandemic sent Italian lute virtuoso Michele Pasotti looking back at the poets of the Black Plague—and the way Ars Nova music provided relief
Magical stage adaptation of graphic novel features over 20 miniature sets performed, filmed, and projected in real time to a live score
Soprano Caitlin Wood, tenor Caulin Moore among the standouts in a production that shows the power of songs in musicals from Evita to Sunset Boulevard
The renowned group’s mission is to carry diversity and social relevance to the concert hall
At long last, the multidisciplinary piece by playwright Brendan McLeod and the Fugitives has its Vancouver premiere
The Vancouver New Music festival features a diverse lineup of sound artists
Vancouver Island-based experimental artist Piu opens the concert curated by Aki Onda
The California-based violinist and composer will perform tracks off her new double album in concert at BlueShore at CapU on October 21
Alexis Fletcher and Justin Rapaport of Belle Spirale Dance Projects interpret Joby Talbot’s emotional composition Path of Miracles
Reflective program includes works by Bob Dylan and Ben E. King, Indigenous musician Russell Wallace’s “Forgotten Warriors”, and more
NOW Society and Mind of a Snail installation and performance explore the woods via improvised music, projected visuals, and innovative set design
The celebration of music by Andrew Lloyd Webber travels to 17 other B.C. cities
Belgium-based big band mixes traditional brass music with innovative, energetic jazz, alongside a variety of film projections
Vancouver Bach Family of Choirs will perform the “lullaby of death” at upcoming concert with soloists Obinna Ifediora and Sydney Trotter
Berlin-based musician has captivated audiences across the pond with her musical prowess and unconventional concerts
The piece by Mexican composer Arturo Márquez is a mariachi-themed violin concerto
Multidisciplinary production sets new work Floating Island to dance choreography by Emma Hall and Rhiannon Beausoleil-Morrison
From surviving a battle with cancer to coming out as transgender, the artist’s life experiences form the basis of an inspiring musical catalogue
Czech group’s members have been playing, recording, and touring internationally together since meeting at the Prague Conservatory more than five decades ago
Prodigious musician to perform a cabaret lounge-style show, backed by his newest band featuring vibraphone, bass, drums, and electric guitar
A boost by Joan Baez helped push the beloved singer and multi-instrumentalist’s music around the world