Prolyphic and Reanimator

http://www.myspace.com/prolyphicandreanimator

This new hard hitting hip hop duo Prolyphic and Reanimator on Strange Famous Records reveal that 'The Ugly Truth' is indeed beautiful. Reanimator mixes mezmerizing melodies that meld with Prolyphic's larger than life lyrics that will have your hip hop heart jumping out of your chest crying for more.

Fantastic Planet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ys8AkwMRvgo

Fantastic Planet (Fr.translation La Planet Savage) is a 1970s surrealist animation film (Rene Laloux, 1973). Its masterpiece is felt in the music and art work which are harmonized in psychedelia, bringing the viewer on a strange yet familiar trip into the unknown. The voyage is uplifiting and unrelenting. The narrative is layered by a metaphorical journey of a mortal travelling through an immortal realm. The surrealist imagery is easily linked back to dali and those artists who had trancended their time. This film has been characterized as a "A Sublime Trip to a Fine New World" and will leave the audience lifted out of their seats to float endlessly pondering of their own experience. The begining of this tale brings you to one domesticated Om named Ter who steels knowledge from the Traags and delivers it to the savage Oms. Although Ter is an Om...he is at first isolated in a race he has never known.

Son/Lumiere 2

On Thursday, September 13 Altered (i) Collaborated with Son/Lumiere at The Gladstone Hotel by producing an 11 piece abstract art installation. The creative concept originally started as a digital design piece done by Marius Budu which spread throughout each individual panel. The panels were then painted in multiple styles of wax, oil and acrylic mediums while allowing the overall shape and texture of the work to shine. The piece pulled together mixed talents and artists including Hanna Kunysz, Alicja Grabarczyk, and Mitchell F. Chan , in order to reflect the collaborative performances, visual movement and progressive music of Son/Lumiere.

Son/Lumiere (French, lit. "sound and light"), describes a conceptual live event initiated by band Holoscene to bring music and artists together in an overall progressive rock experience. Also described as "a curated music and art experience created by the sounds and lights of Toronto’s experimental musicians and artists, with projections, photography, light-shows and paintings to accompany live post-rock /ambient /experimental bands and DJ’s." Each creative element complimented the next, including a live video production by VJ Theo Buchinskas who reflected the music in an array of colour scenes and silhouettes.

The band Epigram started off the night in an uplifting set that grew into the bright spectacle that continued to intensify over the course of the night. Ragni performed with a string quartet which added to an impressive harmony. Ragni also played over an illustrated backdrop which featured a unique comic story component to their album. Nadja consisting of two guitarists Aidan Baker and Leah Buckareff who played with classical quality and incorporated diverse effects for their super-enhanced atmospheric melodies. Holscene played an epic and uplifting set which was a perfect demonstration for a long awaited headliner performance . The night closed with the pure virtuosity and improvisation of genius duo Still Coiled who performed with absolute integrity, where Brillant Fish’s vocal power responded to the range of Jim Field's guitar.

Here we learned that the mesh of diverse talents can transcend the age of individual creative control, to lean into a more powerful collective energy. Each artist contributed their personal expression to add to the overall composition of the event which produced a greater creative impact. The end result was the greater perspective in the experience of art and music, of sound and light, which was generated in the movement for inspiration and influence.

Related Links:
Son/Lumiere
http://www.myspace.com/sonlumiere

Epigram
http://www.myspace.com/epigramband

Ragni
http://www.myspace.com/ragnimusic

Holoscene
http://www.myspace.com/holosceneband

Nadja
http://www.netrover.com/~amizen/nadja.htm

Still Coiled
http://radio3.cbc.ca/bands/STILL-COILED

VJ Theo Buchinskas: (Light show/Visuals)
http://www.myspace.com/theorocks

Nick Fox-Grieg: (Filmic)
http://www.fox-gieg.com/

Visual Artists:
Marius Budu
http://www.visions.mariusbudu.com/

Mitchell F. Chan
http://www.mitchellfchan.com/

Understanding The Pulse of Techno

- Do you think music and the heart are connected?
- Of course just like the heart and the mind are connected.

An Artist Profile and Exclusive Interview
Artist: e.k.g. (electro-kardo-gram)
Name: Giordan BattaglinLocation: Toronto, Canada.
Birthday: November 30, 1983
Position: DJ/Producer/Audiophile
Genre: Experimental / Minimalist / Techno
Certification: AAS degree in music production + recordingWebsite: http://www.ekg.podomatic.com/

Introduction

We have interviewed an independent local DJ and techno producer in order to give insight and inspiration into the minds of other emerging artists in Toronto. e.k.g. describes himself as "a purveyor of dark yet pleasingly filthy music; a fabricator of genreless soundscaping." His style is complimented by a minimal techno mind trip, blended with a funky yet skanky electro that adds strange fitting rhythms to his delightfully dark melodies. His sporadic and subtle tempos can only be described as unrelenting pulses of the unknown, that takes the audacious listener into unfamiliar territory all together.

What is it about music that inspired you to produce it yourself?

Sound design: Its sounds that are being manufactured or sampled. It has a different control and affects people in a different way. If you’re working with the same sound, the sound can evolve and it can change. You can throw effects on a guitar, but to take a sound and have it morph and still be the same thing, thats sound design. I love playing with sound and getting ideas to tweak something or to get a sound to just keep evolving or changing. There is new ground to be broken all the time.

Artistic creation is being in the moment and questioning that moment.

I always question. For example... writers: Writers write most of the book and go back and they edit. When you go back and edit, you are basically questioning the state of mind that you’re in. Most of it is fine tuning and making it flow, or giving it continuity. Sometimes you edit out your true emotion right? So you’re kind of centering yourself that way. You’ve got to keep the balance. It’s always that state of mind that you’re in at that moment.

Cristina of Green Splat - When I’m really inspired, it’s a psychological thing. It could be a movie I saw. It could be a character. It could be somebody I encountered at work. It can be an idea and I just completely dominoe.

How would you describe your genre?

The best comment I ever got, was that someone told me my music was genreless. That was my proudest moment, because that’s how I try and come across.

Everything has its own artistic merit. Within each Genre, there is something good in that genre. The moment you start defining the genre is the moment you start creating limitations, and boundaries are set, because then it’s not commercially viable. Art should not have to fit within the commercial realm or the marketable realm. Like: It’s a good piece of art, but it’s not marketable? Whatever, its still a good piece of art!

When things come together, it’s all layers, art is always layers. I love music, I love art, and I love photography. There are so many different ways to express myself without words. When a piece of art can be perceived by anyone for whatever they want. Everyone has a different idea, and a different interpretation.

Does your music have a subject? What is it?

Subject is more like emotion in a way, it’s an individual experience.

How does your intellect stimulate your artistic spirit, or do you think they are one in the same?

Yes definitely. What’s connecting my conscious mind and my unconscious mind is the same thing. The body is just the physical. I like pretending I’m connected to the infinite. "Everything is an illusion and life is just how you perceive it”

How does the evolution of your music – the greater experimentation, the fall into minimal, the expansion of music affect you psychologically?

In minimal there is definitely more subtly. There is a lot more focus on 'in-between' space. The slower, the more area there is to work in a song. The more space there is, the more absorption you can get from a song. Music affects me on such a deep level; I don’t want to just absorb it, I want to give it back. I get like mood swings, but it’s how I think, but it’s not really moods though, more like wavelengths. I’m tangents all over the place. A mix, a hyper mix, spastic.

Do you feel your music touches base with the intangible?

Yes. All sound is intangible, and feelings are intangible, and a state of mind is completely intangible. It’s everywhere, emotions, chemical reactions.Hanna - It’s the intangible, it’s what’s there but what’s not.

Cristina - Everything I write, I just feel what I write. Everything I play isn’t by notes because I actually don’t even know notes, so I just memorize. So everything I see is a pattern, like a visual math. It’s inherent math in a sense. Every element within it can be defined, when it’s all combined its indefinable. I think the intangible is like air, you can’t touch it, and you can’t capture it. It’s just everywhere.

e.k.g. - When you say you make music it goes by what you’re feeling, that’s the intangible right there, it’s the emotion. It’s basically the chemical reaction of how you perceive everything. It’s like you can let loose and not have to worry. That’s what makes life living sometimes. It’s kind of a surreal experience. It’s not explainable. Its total physical, spiritual, psychological. It’s like a spiritual high. It’s connecting. It’s the power you can’t buy.

Do you think music provides a potential impact for social change?

There is not THE way but it's YOUR way and EVERYONES way. It’s all contextual. Everything is just energy condensed to a slow vibration, and matter is just all energy essentially. It’s all experienced on a subjective kind of level. I believe in the collective conscious, we are all connected in a sense.

Conclusion

Art thrives off influence and music is art in its pure form. Music is essentially a tool that can demonstrate not only how an art form and the individual can be connected, but how all individuals can be connected through that art form. Music has an enormous capacity for influence; it both grows and expands with time, and can become fixed in that time. It can influence a collective culture, evolving as a connection of our social and instinctual humanity. It involves a creative free flowing intuition where individual limitations and cultural restrictions are let go, allowing for all grounds to be broken. - Altered (i)"Without music, human existence would be a mistake.”- Frederich Nietzsche

Contributing Writer: Chris DeRubeis
Questions and Interview by: Hanna
e.k.g.'s bookings and sound samples
http://www.ekg.podomatic.com/

MIELCOMBE: Fusion of Art, Fashion And Music.

Art and Fashion Review

"A Creative Night of Professional Collaboration"

On Saturday, May 26th the Peridot Resto Lounge in Toronto was transformed into a creative night of professional collaboration with the event "Mielcombe: a fusion of art, fashion, and music." The night highlighted a live fashion photo shoot, stimulating music and a shared artistic exhibition to bring in the 10th anniversary of Mudshark Street Wear. "We were able to bring together Canadian designers, artists, and photographers for an interactive professional evening of entertainment and casual fun." - (Jen Hilsden, Mudshark CEO)

Scandal House Designs


Mudshark Street Wear is an online retail experience which is geared towards a fashion forward clientele bringing in Canadian and Toronto based designers such as Scandal House Designs, Biokat and their most recent summer addition, Miel's Bikini's. The night featured photographers Dave Wilder and Eleanor Bathe who worked with fashion photo professionalism to provide the live production and spectacle.

Eleanor Bathe (Photographer)

Emerging Arts meets Professional
The Peridot Resto Lounge also features a monthly exhibition including a wide range of visual mediums such as painting, photography and drawing. Many of the pieces are from new emerging artists in the GTA that have been given the opportunity to have their work coincide and complimented by other established arts professionals. “The purpose of the shows at Peridot is to show the learning stages of different artists. Many get showcased monthly allowing the public to see their progress as emerging artists. Others are slightly more established. We've had Angel Di Zhang, Andrew Sookrah and Tina Newlove all showcase and each from The Arts and Letters Club.” - (Janine Jones, Event organizer and Artist)

Artists Links:
Angel Di Zhang (http://www.VividArtist.com)
Hanna Kunysz (http://Hananska.Deviantart.com)
Jacob Senko (http://Defkreationz.Deviantart.com)

Swagg International NewsMag- April Issue

Swagg International Newsmag contacted me to do a third review on a Toronto DJ Marco Polo who moved to New York to pursue his dream. Instead he woke up to his career exploding with success moving from DJ to producer. He climbed his way up to the top of the music industry to work with some of the most credible emcees that East Coast Hip Hop has to offer. This is a mixtape that preludes Marco Polo's first LP and production debut. In this album he collaborates with a fellow Toronto artist and pioneer MC Kardinal, joining forces to expose more Canadian music to the Big Apple while taking a bigger bite into the core of hip-hop.

Swagg International NewsMag- March Issue

In March 2007, I was given my first assignment by managing editor Chris Cromie of Swagg International Newmag and recognized as a contributing writer for their 7th issue. I was published for two mixtape reviews in the March edition, and given credit in a list of writers on the inside cover. Ironically enough my challenge was to come out with an appropriate review for a well recognized and respected DJ who was just recently apprehended and charged with bootlegging mixtapes. Mixtape production and distribution provides the basis for new rap artists to gain credibility and exposure. The controversy sent shock into hip-hop's underground culture and the story was therefore covered in the following issue of the magazine.