Toronto born, Montreal based Mitchell Akiyama has carved a niche for himself as one of Canada’s premier avant-garde electronic musicians. He incorporates traditional instruments and real world sound sources in his compositions, fusing the organic and the digital. The results can be beautiful and lush, jarring and abrasive, but are, above all, always moving. ‘Hope that lines don’t cross’ on Alien8 Recordings’, sub label Substractif, was lauded by critics and became a staple on college/alternative radio charts in North America and Europe. He has also recently finished a collaborative album with Cincinnati based Joshua Treble. The project, ‘Desormais’, is rooted in experimental, noisy terrain but is full of jagged beauty. In addition, Akiyama’s new solo album, ‘Temporary music,’ will be released early this year on prestigious German label Raster-Noton. The record is a collection of fragments - shards of pianos, pieces of field records, and digital interruptions. Akiyama has played extensively in Europe and North America at festivals such as Sonar and Mutek alongside the likes of Oval, Francisco Lopez,
Bruce Tovsky is a visual/sound artist, who began painting at the age of 7 and started playing with tape recorders at the age of 10. Ever since then he has been figuring out ways of putting sound and pictures together. For the past several years, he has been creating live video and sound improvisations with artists such as John Hudak, David Linton and Kim Cascone at spaces such as Diapason, Experimental Intermedia, Issue Project Room and his own installation space 106BLDG30
Shimpei Takeda (b.1982), is an artist working with photography, video, and improvisational performance. Originally from Japan, Takeda currently lives and works in New York City. Primarily self-taught, Takeda began shooting pictures at the age of 18. Later on, he expanded his unique vision and sensitivity to the other mediums . He experiments with the aesthetic, optical and poetic possibilities between abstraction and concreteness.
His work has been presented at the Essl Collection of Contemporary Art, Austin Museum of Art, Weisman Art Museum, Schenectady Museum & Suits-bueche Planetarium, and throughout New York City venues including: Issue Project Room, the Tank, and Experimental Intermedia.