Initial Shock

With the festival encroaching, we’re excited to highlight two more performing artists: TOANCHE DWELLING and AXIOM.

Barrett E. Lediard is the sole director and lead sentient conduit for the Toanche Dwelling Preservation Society. Toanche Dwelling is an elemental pulse of information connecting specific places, people, events, etc. to the non-linear aspects of space/time. All of the answers are there, you just have to dig for them. Expect decayed washes of environmental invocations processed through little-to-no equipment.

Axiom is a Montréal-based noise research project. Having released their debut tape with Absurd Exposition in 2020, they also operate as a label with releases from Hellerine M, Anesthésie Locale and Malpertuis. For the last three years, Axiom have been refining their experiments through live performance and will soon release the resultant Axiom II recordings. Having birthed an intricate system of live electronics and computational modules, the resonant ratios of Axiom undergo conversion from numerical phenomena into sonic parameters observable by man while preserving the circularity of their boundaries, resonant with those of the human circumstance.

Any edge of a Möbius strip is topologically equivalent to a circle. Axiom similarly admits a complete metric of constant negative curvature, Take the subset of the upper half-plane between any two nested semicircles, and identify the outer semicircle with the left-right reversal of the inner semicircle. The result is topologically a complete and non-compact Axiom. Axiom may also be observed in the Cartesian fold, where it may emerge as another non-orientable umbilic Torus-like structure. This is an intrinsic property of a Möbius strip itself. In Axiom’s circumstance, a permutation of Lamentations 3: 2—6 emerges from this transformation: “Il m’a conduit, mené dans les ténèbres, Et non dans la lumière. Contre moi il tourne et retourne sa main, Tout le jour. Il a fait dépérir ma chair et ma peau, Il a brisé mes os. Il a bâti autour de moi, Il m’a environné de poison et de douleur. Il me fait habiter dans les ténèbres, Comme ceux qui sont morts dès longtemps.”

Advanced tickets are still available.

Headlining the daytime show at Initial Shock on July 1 is B.P. (Bret Parenteau), an artist from Winnipeg, MB, Treaty 1 Territory. He is head of the Makade Star label, a tape label solely focused on local experimental artists present and past. He helped compose the soundtrack to Métis filmmaker Rhayne Vermette’s “Ste. Anne” (2021). Also currently active in ambient / tape music duos, Ardor & North Shield. Parenteau has released a steady amount of work across Canada, US & internationally. @b.p___’s set in Montreal last summer was a scorcher and he is not to be missed!

Advanced tickets are still available. Raffle prize packs will be drawn the night of the fest.

July 1 @ La Sotterenea in Montreal. 2PM-11PM | $30 at the door. Harsh noise mayhem by Evicshen, Knurl, Shredded Nerve, Form Hunter, Jute, B.P., Toanche Dwelling, Shameful, Un Regard Froid, Skin Tone, Reaching Needles & Bombaypainco, Axiom, Orchid Lodge, MS, and Altar Boa.

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).

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).

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).

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).