SUBSTRAT, SOUND SERIES — IRL • Bénédicte • Michael Gary Dean & Freddy Speer

IRL is a sound artist and producer, using waveforms to explore memory, body, and space. Their music is created via lo-fi, self-recorded sample banks, and modular synthesis. Their trance-inducing live sets use repetition, ambient drone, big bass, and deep, looping melodies, serving as a site for transformation. They have co-produced 2 seasons of podcast A Kind of Harmony, host a monthly radio show, Heart Full, on n10.as. They’ve released music with SURF (LX), Psychic Liberation (BE), Kapha Selections (NYC), Personal Records (MTL), and Interzone (MTL]

Bénédicte is the experimental electronic music project of Montreal-based producer and sound artist Maxime Gordon. Her music combines soaring synths, distorted field-recordings and glittering vocal samples to explore moments of introspection and feeling. She has performed and presented work at venues and festivals across North America and Europe such as MUTEK (Montreal), Akousma (Montreal), Pique (Ottawa), the Spatial Sound Institute (Budapest), MONOM (Berlin), Eastern Bloc (Montreal), and Punctum (Prague). For Substrat, she will perform a mixture of released and unreleased music - exploring spatial audio minimally with immersive textural sounds.

Canadian composer and media artist Michael Gary Dean straddles both the avant-garde frontiers of digital art and the traditional roots of classical music. His work has been showcased internationally in a variety of formats, including film, performance and installations. In 2015, Dean started to unveil his creations during events such as MUTEK and the International Symposium on Electronic Art. Several audiovisual collaborations soon ensued, allowing Dean to showcase fully immersive films and AV performances in Surround-capable planetariums around the world. As these past projects continue to be shown in iconic venues such as the LEV Festival, Sónar and London’s Somerset House. Following a 2020 residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Dean has been actively composing Neoclassical music, releasing several albums for piano and strings.

Freddy Speer is a Montreal-based Canadian double bassist and composer, performing with ensembles such as the Orchestre Philharmonique et Chœur des Mélomanes and the FILMHarmonique Orchestra. Known for his collaborations with artists such as Yaya Diallo and Busty and the Bass, Freddy has also played with prestigious orchestras, including the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal. A graduate of McGill University with several music degrees, he honed his craft with renowned mentors and at festivals such as Domaine Forget and Orford Music. Originally from Toronto, he discovered the double bass in college, awakening a lifelong passion for the instrument.