A SOLAR SONIC SOUND PROJECT, IN ALIGNMENT WITH SUN CYCLES
Dates:
- June 20th, 2024: Live performance and cassette tape release at UNIT/PITT
Featuring sound works from Immix (Robyn Jacob), Matt Nish-Lapidus, Thomas Evdokimoff, Anju Singh, Marianne Thodas, Hân Phạm, Edith Skeard, Jen Yakamovich & Inkydew the Companion, Sam Meadahl, and Joel DeStefano.
Sound of the Sun, Vol. III, the third and final iteration of our Sound of the Sun Series, meditates on the cyclical nature of solar movements, and our relationship with the sun; again in flux as the days lengthen. The project invited 10 artists to observe, respond, record, and retell their experiences through music, poetry, field recordings, synthesis, storytelling, or any other audio-based method. Together, the playlist reverberates around and through a densely populous world—culminating in a noisy and ambient introspection on the oddity of the sun’s singular presence.
On the summer solstice, June 20th from 6-10-ish PM, we hosted a summer garden party with an outdoor cassette listening space, small meal, and live performances by SOTS artists Edith Skeard, Anju Singh, Sam Meadahl, and Immix (Robyn Jacob).
Cassettes available for purchase from our online store.
Special thanks to BLEACH Studios & Mariessa McLeod. Curated by Jefferson Alade. Album art by MUNI Design. Track mastering by Jeff Morton. Additional mixing by Nick Short (CHOMS Studios) for Jen Yakamovich & Inkydew the Companion’s a rainbow arches over flamingos wading in a lagoon. Videography by Tadros Eyob.
CJSF Radio Bitcouver featuring Sound of the Sun, Vol. III and Jefferson
Photos by Adrian Kato.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS + TRACKS:
TRACK: Forever In The Eye Of A Dreamer (5:27)
Robyn Jacob is a composer, performer and educator living on the unceded Musqueum, Tsleil-Waututh and Squamish territories. In her composition practice she has worked with Grammy winning Third Coast Percussion, So Percussion, Chor Leoni, and others. Crafting emotive narratives using the voice and electronics, Immix is Robyn Jacob’s burgeoning solo project. Using voice and harmonizer, her songs dance between the vulnerability of the human instrument and the possibility of sonic experimentation.
TRACK: prepare to stop (10:04)
MATERIALS: Field recordings, artist-written software.
Matt Nish-Lapidus is an artist and musician based in Tkaronto/Toronto. Matt’s varied practice probes the myth that computers should be useful rather than beautiful through examining contemporary technoculture, its histories, and its impacts on society, people, and his own life. His work results in diverse outputs including publications, recordings, installations, performances, software, and objects. Matt has performed and exhibited locally and internationally including MOCA (Toronto), The Power Plant (Toronto), INDEX Biennial (Braga), ACUD Macht Neu (Berlin), Electric Eclectics (Meaford), InterAccess (Toronto), ZKM (Karlsruhe), and more including many DIY community spaces. He holds a H.BFA in New Media from Toronto Metropolitan University and a Master of Visual Studies in Studio Art from The University of Toronto. You can find Matt online and away-from-keyboard under various aliases and collaborations including emenel, New Tendencies, and <blink>.
TRACK: Aeolian Harps, Wind, Waves, Black Birds (5:20)
MATERIALS: fixed media, stereo 44.1k/16b.
Thomas Evdokimoff is a classically trained musician and music educator based in Vancouver BC who is grateful to to be able to work and play on the unceded ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) and shíshálh (Sechelt) First Nations. Recently, he has been exploring sound arts through field/location recording, live location audio streaming, sound synthesis/diffusion and building acoustic instruments that are activated by natural elements such as the wind and rain.
From the artist: “Aeolian Harps give voice to the wind, ultimately created by the sun warming the earth. I created this short piece out of four field recordings. Two recordings are of Aeolian harps that I built in collaboration with sculpture artist Pippa Lattey. I took the recordings at Vanier Park and Kitsilano Beach, Vancouver BC. The sound of waves are from a pebble beach near Sechelt, BC. Birds such as red-winged blackbirds signal the return of spring, here captured at Jericho Pond, Vancouver BC. In this piece I present these recordings in their original forms, along with treated versions. Occasionally, one hears the sound of the wind, and the presence of human activity deep in the background.”
4. Anju Singh
TRACK: Heat (6:13)
Anju Singh is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, performer and sound artist exploring texture through the use of extended/experimental techniques, electronics, musical and non-musical materials, custom-built instruments, and processing. Their works are often collaborative process-based works that bring contrasting themes and concepts together. A core process of their practice is using methods of deconstruction and reanimation to repurpose and contextualize materials in new compositional environments.
Singh has presented and performed work across Canada, in Europe, Brazil, Mexico, and the United States in a variety of spaces including at Fylkingen in Stockholm, Sweden; Send + Receive Festival in Winnipeg; Vancouver Jazz Festival; Polygon Gallery; and at New Forms Festival.
Heat explores violent elements of the sun – the impact of the heat on organic and non-organic objects; the sun’s potentially damaging ultraviolet rays; the constant explosions that are part of the sun’s core essence; and solar flares. At the same time, Heat acknowledges the importance of these violent resurrections and renewals, celebrated across cultures and history through stories. These stories are presented in the piece as movements, for example the clicks and explosions of sun god Surya’s chariot riding over the exploding sun, the violent impact of the blinding sun when Plato’s philosopher steps into truth, and a more modern story depicting the impacts of heat waves and their effect on air quality and our respiratory systems.
The piece uses both analog and digital techniques and includes analog tape loops processed through a four track with cassette tape that has been damaged by heat, sunlight, and continuous wear alongside other production sources and methods. The melting and worn cassette tape echoes the damaging power of the sun and the season that the summer solstice brings. The original sound sources include violins, NASA audio recordings of the sun, synthesizers, and voice – specifically breath.
TRACK: Cimarron Way (5:35)
Marianne Thodas (b. 1997) is a lesbian filmmaker and sound artist born in Okotoks, AB, now based in Vancouver, BC. Her work explores personal themes of memory, belonging, mortality, lineage, and place-based attachment. Deeply interested in expanded modes of film and sound production, Thodas’ pieces exemplify bricolage, evoking personal reflections through thematic and technological experimentation. Outside of creating her own pieces, she works with artist-run organizations—such as Cineworks Independent Filmmakers Society—to run workshops and create community-based initiatives promoting engagement with independent cinema and soundscape design. Her work is currently distributed by the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre.
From the artist: “In theory, sound energy is ephemeral. It traverses only through material mediums via vibrations, dissipating into non-existence. However, sound possesses a lasting influence, imprinting itself upon the materials it encounters. For humans, sounds arrive, permeate, and become enshrined within our memory, constituting an internal repository of auditory impressions.
As the days lengthen and the air warms, nostalgia draws me back to cherished childhood moments spent in the garden with my mom. As we plant, I move through memories, exploring how sounds of the past continue to resonate in my contemporary auditory landscape.”
6. Hân Phạm
TRACK: At the very diffracting point, crisscrossed and boiled (5:23)
Hân Phạm (b.1999) is an emerging Vietnamese documentary/ experimental filmmaker and artist from Saigon, Vietnam. Experimenting with filmic and sonic experience and their haptic time/space structure, she wishes to construct a collective healing space for minorities community through a storytelling tradition that is rooted in reimagination, conversations, and collaboration. Often time dealing with subjects of dislocation and the diaspora, her film works thinks through the ephemerality of memory, language and history in relation to the constantly changing landscapes, rooting in the inbetweeness of distance as space for reflection.
Hân has exhibited at Vancouver International Film Festival, DOXA Documentary Film Festival, Milwaukee Underground Film Festival, Vancouver Queer Film Festival, and Vines Arts Festival, as well as Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen in 2020-2021.
At the very diffracting point mediatates on the complex emotions that the sun brings up. In their home country of Vietnam where the sun is always out, the return of daytime can bring forth grief becasue being with the sun involves vulnerability and endurance. This piece also speaks on the struggle agaisnt productivity that is confronted in the midst of the sun, and incorporates archives, spoken poetry, songs and electronic music.
7. Edith Skeard
TRACK: Prairie Shifting (8:34)
Edie Skeard (they/them) is a multimedia artist and flutist from Treaty 6 territory in Saskatchewan, working with sound, installation, and drawing. Their work focuses on building uncanny and generative spaces through the intersection of light, sound, people, duration, and tactility. They are interested in collecting and collaging field recordings and improvisational sound, how sound creates or erases spatial boundaries, tenderly noticing their environment, sound as touch and future archive, dreams, and the weaving together of different sensory mediums.
They are 1/3 of the experimental sound trio Bell Dreams, playing woodwinds, found objects, electronics, and vocals. They are also a past member of the Saskatoon Experimental Music Ensemble, which focuses on composition, collaboration, and improvisation.
Edie studied at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan, receiving a BA in Philosophy and a BFA in Visual Art. They begin their MFA at the University of Victoria in the fall of 2024.
From the artist: “Prairie Shifting is an ode to place as I leave it behind, completing a cycle in my current home and starting anew. It reflects on the tension in changing time zones, shifting relationships to light and time, and embracing a new horizon within a new ecosystem. This piece includes recordings from the ambient environment of my home layered and manipulated with granulating software with flute and clarinet weaving throughout. The finished piece reminds me of the wind rolling through the grasslands while the sun creates moving shadows from the large, pillowy Cumulus clouds. This piece is, in many ways, a love letter to the intensity and immensity of this season in Saskatchewan as I move to BC.”
8. Jen Yakamovich & Inkydew the Companion
TRACK: a rainbow arches over flamingos wading in a lagoon (3:17)
Jen Yakamovich is a Vancouver-based drummer and percussionist who works across disciplines as an improviser, songwriter, field recordist, and researcher. Holding a Master’s in Environmental Studies from Dalhousie University (2019), Yakamovich is interested in connections between sound, rhythm, and socioecological transformation. She approaches her relationship with the drum set—a system of interrelating sounds and parts—as a window into relationships with both within her own internal system and wider social webs. Yakamovich lives with a sight impairment, a rare inherited retinal disease called retinitis pigmentosa, which is progressing towards legal blindness. Sound, rhythm, and embodied performance are therefore her primary forms of relating to and communicating with the world.
As a drummer, she regularly play for Wallgrin (Vancouver), Niloo (Victoria), and the Sam Wilson Wintertides Trio (Halifax). Other recent projects and collaborations have included: a non-visual/tactile residency with grunt gallery (2022-2023), Roxanne Nesbitt’s Thunderous Wondering (2023), and a commissioned sound piece for The Only Animal theatre group (2024).
Yakamovich creates music under the moniker Troll Dolly, and recently released an EP in 2022. She is currently participating in a mentorship under drummer/sound artist SusieIbarra (New York/Berlin), who is known for her Rhythm in Nature approach to composition.
a rainbow arches over flamingos wading in a lagoon reflects our seasonal rotations and the reliable return of the sun. Starting as a practice of back-and-forth tracking, the piece took new meaning during the artist’s residence in Andalusia, Spain. The recording has layers of field recordings from Donana National Park (mixed forest, wetland ecosystem, migratory birds, flamingos). Audio recordings were taken during the hibernal period in the northern hemisphere.
Mastered by Nick Short, CHOMS Studios.
9. Sam Meadahl
TRACK: Regenerative Bloom (12:46)
Sam Meadahl (he/him) is a musician and composer based in Vancouver, BC. He graduated from Simon Fraser University with a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts, achieving distinction in composition under the guidance of Mauricio Pauly and Sabrina Schroeder. Sam’s creative journey is characterized by a passion for innovation and repurposing. Recently, he participated in the Canadian League of Composers’ PIVOT Residency in Sherbrooke, Quebec, where his research inspired a collaborative installation with a local dance collective, Counterbalance Projects. Their work has been showcased at prestigious events such as Nuit Blanche in Winnipeg and the Scotiabank Dance Centre’s Open Stage.
From the artist: “In the Pacific Northwest, we are amidst a profound transition—a shift from the somber, chilly grey days of winter to the invigorating vibrancy and kaleidoscope of colours of spring. This change symbolizes more than just a shift in weather; as the landscape transforms, it signifies cleansing and contemplation, where we are prompted to shed the heaviness of winter and embrace the promise of new beginnings. This piece speaks to the cyclical nature of existence, where endings will always give way to beginnings and the darkness of winter will always yield to the light of spring.”
10. Joel DeStefano
TRACK: Sun Song (3:44)
Sun Song is an arranged sound poem of crowd sourced recordings gathered online and through in-person interviews. Contributors were asked to respond to this text score:
Listen to the sun.
Using your voice, in one breath,
imitate its sound.
ABOUT THE CURATOR
Jefferson Alade (he/him) is an interdisciplinary creative currently based in Vancouver, British Columbia on the traditional unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəyəm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
He is completing his Master of Design at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Prior to attending Emily Carr, he studied at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). There, he completed his Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Communication and a minor in Music Industry.
During his time at UCLA, Jefferson gravitated toward the music, food and art spaces at school and around the city. On a personal level, he established a storytelling platform that produced music, podcasts, DJ mixes and events. He also gained work experience at companies such as Dim Records and Red Bull Media House.
At Emily Carr, Jefferson’s practice centers around listening and how musical and sonic experiences can form, build and shape community.
This project was made possible with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Shumka Centre’s Artist Apprenticeship Network 2024 Program.
