Cheap Thrills sponsors Initial Shock

As a DIY festival, we’re grateful to have sponsors who are supporting our event and throwing us some swag to give away to some lucky attendees. One of those sponsors is Cheap Thrills, Montreal’s longest-running independent record store. A mandatory stop for anyone visiting from out of town during the fest, Cheap Thrills deals in a well curated selection of new and used records and have always been supporters of the underground. For many years, Gary, the shop’s proprietor, also ran the well-respected Alien8 Recordings, releasing now classic albums by harsh noise artists such as Aube, Knurl, Masonna, Merzbow and many others across an array of genres.

Cheap Thrills has generously donated a $50 gift certificate and classic Alien8 CDs by Masonna and Keiji Haino which will be included in our raffle draw (prizes to be drawn and given away the night of the fest). Many thanks to @cheapthrillsmtl for their generous support of Initial Shock. Head to their downtown location at 2044 Metcalfe Street to grip the essentials!

Jute and MS at Initial Shock

Kicking off Friday with another artist feature, we’re pleased to highlight JUTE and MS – two talented locals performing at Initial Shock on July 1.

Sam Risser is an artist and researcher who currently resides in Montréal, Québec. His work is primarily concerned with the relationships between art, technology, power and the lived environment. Under the moniker JUTE, he uses repurposed electronics and other everyday objects in conjunction with his body to generate cascades of harsh electroacoustic sound that is rich with hidden information. He does not believe that computers will save us from ourselves.

Matthew Stinis is a sound artist from Montréal, QC, who has been working within the realm of ambient, post-industrial, and noise music since 2009. Performing under the moniker MS for the festival, he has also worked under various aliases such as Naegleria, Slugbait, and Trophozoite, and the bands Pelvic Floor and U.E.

Tickets are on sale now. Advanced ticket sales include 1 entry into a raffle draw to win one of several prizes the night of the fest and a Scream & Writhe tote bag (while supplies last).

Form Hunter and Orchid Lodge at Initial Shock

Other artists we’re stoked to present are FORM HUNTER and ORCHID LODGE, both performing at the fest on July 1 (one month away!).

Form Hunter is Stefan Aune and Weston Czerkies. They are known for their high-energy live performances that involve large amounts of scrap metal, broken tape machines, and belligerent volume. Their most recent album, 2021’s “Violent Adaptation” on Troniks / Helicopter, offered up an “inhuman blast of sanity-shattering harsh head euphoria.” They are excited to return to Montreal for the first time since 2019.

A study in ecological decimation and emotional violence, Orchid Lodge is a project of multi-instrumentalist and field recordist Fae Sirois. A humid marshland of analog electronics fill the air and are are scattered with swarms of concréte. Orchid Lodge is “poacher’s electronics,” and more broadly, an exploration of spiritual annihilation.

Tickets are on sale now. Advanced ticket sales include 1 entry into a raffle draw to win one of several prizes the night of the fest and a Scream & Writhe tote bag (while supplies last).

Shredded Nerve at Initial Shock

Another of our American performers at Initial Shock is SHREDDED NERVE, the primary moniker of multimedia artist Justin Lakes. His recordings and performances incorporate found sounds, electroacoustic instrumentation, analog synthesizers, and elaborate handmade cassette loops. Originally based in Cincinnati, Lakes has operated out of Brooklyn since 2014 where he co-founded the record store Thousands of Dead Gods and subsequent tape label Dead Gods with Matt Boettke (Scant). In addition to publishing printed materials of collages and flyers, he also runs the limited edition CDr imprint Small Mercies.

Tickets are on sale now. Advanced ticket sales include 1 entry into a raffle draw to win one of several prizes the night of the fest and a Scream & Writhe tote bag (while supplies last).

Knurl and Altar Boa at Initial Shock

We’re happy to highlight two more artists playing Initial Shock on July 1, KNURL and ALTAR BOA.

Canadian-based Alan Bloor (a.k.a. Knurl)’s main inspiration came from working in welding shops, harnessing the sounds of grinding metal to create incredibly powerful harsh noise. Since Knurl’s debut release (and namesake of the festival), ‘Initial Shock,’ in 1994, Bloor has issued numerous titles on his own Panta Rhei label as well as many other labels including the legendary RRRecords, Self Abuse, and Entartete Kunst (to name a few.) Knurl has also collaborated with other artists including Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth.

Altar Boa has remained essentially reclusive since their inception in 2007. Maintaining a hidden and persistent hand in the mire of underground noise, metal, punk and electronic scenes throughout the last 20+ years, only recently has Altar Boa surfaced publicly through a variety of split cassettes and EPs. Inspired by occulist Dion Fortune, ætheric others, early industrial music and deep ambience in the interstice between the sacred and profane, Altar Boa calls the discomforted listener back to the body they are estranged from.

Tickets are on sale now. Advanced ticket sales include 1 entry into a raffle draw to win one of several prizes the night of the fest and a Scream & Writhe tote bag (while supplies last).

Evicshen at Initial Shock

We are pleased to present Evicshen as the headliner of Initial Shock. Victoria Shen is a sound artist, experimental music performer, and instrument-maker based in San Francisco. Shen’s sound practice is concerned with the spatiality/physicality of sound and its relationship to the human body. Her music features analog modular synthesizers, vinyl/resin records, and self-built electronics. Eschewing conventions in harmony and rhythm in favor of extreme textures and gestural tones, Shen uses what she calls “chaotic sound” to oppose signal and information, eluding traditionally embedded meaning.

Her personal identity; her body; is the space her work utilizes to restructure sonic meaning. In her live performances, she proposes an exploration between meaning and non-meaning through the physical activation of noise tropes. Her probing into these melodic voids interrogate the ways we perceive value within aural experiences. The appendage-like instruments and objects she makes, exemplify Shen’s ability to embody through sound her interest in the tension created by opposition: control and chaos, the unique and the mass produced, the practical and the absurd.

? by @annaliebouchard

Tickets are on sale now. Advanced ticket sales include 1 entry into a raffle draw to win one of several prizes the night of the fest and a Scream & Writhe tote bag (while supplies last).

Countdown to Initial Shock

Countdown to INITIAL SHOCK, the Montreal Noise Fest

Featuring: Evicshen – Knurl – Shredded Nerve – Form Hunter – Jute – B.P. – Toanche Dwelling – Shameful – NYON – Un Regard Froid – Reaching Needles – Orchid Lodge – Axiom – MS – Altar Boa

2PM-11PM July 1, 2023 at La Sotterenea (4848 St Laurent – basement of La Sala Rossa)

$30 at the door. Online tickets available now (includes taxes and service fees).

Presented by Scream & Writhe and Disaster Sources

Sponsored by Cheap Thrills, Pizza Bouquet, Untitled Zine