practice x mutek

practice is teaming up with mutek at the end of the summer for two events: a discussion and noisey set.

on august 21, tomaro contributes to the “breaking the binary: sound/noise, wanted/unwanted, masculine/feminine” panel and then on august 26th, tobias and tomaro open “hors circuit”, a free, outdoor concert at le virage, with lively set that diverges from the habituated noise meditation convention.

breaking the binary panel:
http://www.mutek.org/en/montreal/2018/events/1545-breaking-the-binary-sound-noise-wanted-unwanted-masculine-feminine

https://www.facebook.com/events/780765262126611/

hors circuit outdoor concert:
http://www.mutek.org/en/montreal/2018/events/1512-hors-circuit

https://www.facebook.com/events/444170235992694/

 

join us.

practice 22: sonic apophenia

practice #22: sonic apophenia by  philippe vandal
saturday, february 17th, 4pm, free entry, all ages
never apart
7049 saint-urbain
we would like all guests to be able to participate, so pls arrive on time.
seating is limited and first come, first served.

our interaction with the outside world is effectively unconscious, some estimates say that only 0.01% of our neural activities are consciously fired, leading us to critically question the extent of our involvement in everyday actions and decisions. our conscious perception has been compared to a black box programmed, a serial protocol communication machine in a multi-parallel environment. in our digital age this analogy is undoubtedly pertinent:  big data, quantum noises, chaotic information, political and social complexities, and cultural biases – this is an overflow of stimuli. the unconscious mind grasps everything to induce a comfortable intelligibility of our informational surroundings. there are some slips, glitches, biases, noisy assimilations, errors, cacophonic impressions. our vigilant apprehension of the environment is bent through our responsive apparatus as it seeks for meaning. parsing is easier through this processed conglomeration, producing spasmodic psychological illusions and phantomatic bleeps.

this episode in the noise meditation series will present the artistic and sensational possibilities of the concept of apophenia, in a sound perspective, through a saturated auditory scene filled with aural bodies.

related readings:
http://www.mind-body.info/files/conscious_vs_unconscious_thinking.pdf
http://www.e-flux.com/journal/72/60480/a-sea-of-data-apophenia-and-pattern-mis-recognition/
http://www.artlurker.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Sound-ART.pdf

for more on phillipe vandal, see here: https://soundcloud.com/philippevandal
……

practice is an investigation of the capability of sound to induce different transcendental states of awareness and being. through a series of noise sets, practice explores the experiential application of theories underpinning the transformational properties of sound, such as cymatics, music therapy, sound healing, brain entrainment, and binaural-beat perception.

each session features a noise artist, who, informed by their own knowledge of sound, creates a immersive set intended to bend consciousness. listeners are encouraged to embrace a receptive, meditative attitude during sets.

we don’t mind if you’re new or old to noise or meditation.
if you’re curious to be engaged, to open yourself to new experiences and to hear some noise, then join us.

…….
we have yoga mats available to use and listeners are invited to bring their own sitting paraphernalia if they please.

never apart is a non-profit organization in montréal, québec, canada, determined to bring about social change and spiritual awareness through cultural programming with global reach and impact.

more info on practice, here:.
we are on facebook.

questions about the event can be directed to: janntomaro@gmail.com
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practice 19: water sine by nick schofield

practice #19: water sine by nick schofield
saturday, november 11th, 4pm, free entry, all ages
never apart
7049 saint-urbain

we would like all guests to be able to participate, so pls arrive on time.
seating is limited and first come, first served.

practice and never apart present a meditative first listen of water sine, the debut album by nick schofield, in advance of its 2018 release.

straying from the format of live and experimental sessions, practice nevertheless continues engaging in immersive sonic events at never apart with water sine, a minimal ambient album comprised of one synthesizer and field-recordings. schofield has spent the last year tinkering away during twilight sessions at his home (studio 2X5) in montreal, and what results is his soundtrack for sleep; an antidote to insomnia. we invite listeners to be lulled by the softness and simplicity of water sine, a sound that beckons for tranquility and release.

practice shares this listening session as a way to join together in an experience of calm. we invite you to sit with us and listen to this new body of unreleased work that continues the ambient tradition pioneered by hiroshi yoshimura and brian eno, allowing for the soothing effects to wash over us all.

nick schofield is a montreal based musician, producer and radio host with a BFA in electroacoustics from concordia university.

…….

we have yoga mats available to use and listeners are invited to bring their own sitting paraphernalia if they please. uniquely for this event will be the availability of chairs.

never apart is a non-profit organization in montréal, québec, canada, determined to bring about social change and spiritual awareness through cultural programming with global reach and impact.
more info on practice, here:.
we are on facebook.

questions about the event can be directed to: janntomaro@gmail.com

practice 17: grkzgl

practice #17: grkzgl
saturday, september 9th, 4pm, free entry
never apart
7049 saint-urbain
we would like all guests to be able to participate, so pls arrive on time. seating is limited and first come, first served.

sometimes harsh, sometimes technical, sometimes scented, practice has been experimenting with sound in a myriad of ways to influence the psychological state of the listener. in this special upcoming set, we let go of specific mind-altering intentions and return to a foundational goal of meditation. rather than adhere to one of the numerous schools of meditation, we encourage any (including new) forms of meditation that suit the listener. for this edition of practice, local sound maker grkzgl will provide a self-evolving sonic environment that is conducive to contemplation by layering and modulating a number of arbitrarily tuned and processed synthesizer voices. in a well of low resonant tones, we offer a time and space for you. come sit and be immersed in sound together and see where your thoughts go (or don’t go).

more info on grkzgl here: grkzgl.blogspot.com
…….

we have yoga mats available to use and listeners are invited to bring their own sitting paraphernalia if they please. uniquely for this event will be the availability of chairs.

never apart is a non-profit organization in montréal, québec, canada, determined to bring about social change and spiritual awareness through cultural programming with global reach and impact.
more info on practice, here:.
we are on facebook.

questions about the event can be directed to: janntomaro@gmail.com

sound engineer artist call out

practice is looking for sound engineer artists interested in creating a 15 minute immersive meditative soundscape for a show on The Imposter podcast (part of Canadaland: http://canadalandshow.com/imp). This would be a recorded piece and the artist will be paid for their effort (although I do not know how much at this moment!). Please email noisemeditation@gmail.com if you’re interested.

practice 16: detune

#16: detune
saturday, august 12nd, 4pm, free entry
never apart
7049 saint-urbain
we would like all guests to be able to participate, so pls arrive on time. seating is limited and first come, first served.

Sasha Ford – Detune

My sound practice investigates the embodied effects of psychological experience within the realm of auditory environments. In the form of performances, recordings, and installations, I create somatically immersive and rhythmically sensitive sound works guided by improvisation, intuition, and a sense of surreptitious musicality. I attend to physically demanding aspects of sound upon the body, such as volume and frequency, and at once invite a sense of narrative that sits liminally between the concrete and the abstract, the imagined and the unremembered. To date, these pursuits have taken the form of using repurposed objects, tape machines, and field recordings in collaboration with architectural space and with consenting bodies–whether my own or those of others. Through these explorations, I aim to provoke sensory awareness and modes of corporeal recollection that navigate a tension between therapeutic and disarming in effect.

For my performance as part of the “practice” series at Never Apart, I will build upon my interests in the intersection of sound, psychology, and the body specifically by exploring the tuning fork as an object of political and acoustic resonance. Employed in late 19th-century psychological research by the French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot, tuning forks were used as a hypnotic means to induce cataleptic episodes in female patients. Sounded at high volumes in close proximity to a patient’s ears, such practices are now understood as one of many injurious treatments for the no longer medically-recognized condition of “female hysteria.” Yet, the status of tuning forks as an object of healing continues to this day, being seen within certain alternative medicine circles as provoking restorative vibrations within the body. From a place of fascination with the object’s dual status as a corrective instrument in the realm of medicine and in musical pitch, for “practice” I will create a listening environment with acoustic tuning forks and digital resonators. Specifically, I will explore the resonance of 64 hz tones (C2 in scientific pitch notation), a pitch Charcot that describes using to induce hypnosis in “major hysterics.” By purposely sounding and manipulating this tone, I aim construct a listening environment that critically appropriates and reworks this disciplinary and gendered history, and functions as a form of transhistorical communion with these “hysterical” women of the past. In doing so, I aim to inquire into the healing properties of vibrational resonance and of the 64 hz tone in particular, which in its low frequency invites listeners to connect to a sense of groundedness, the Earth, and self-observation of the body.

for more on this artist, see here: www.sashaford.com

…….
we have yoga mats available to use and listeners are invited to bring their own sitting paraphernalia if they please. uniquely for this event will be the availability of chairs.

never apart is a non-profit organization in montréal, québec, canada, determined to bring about social change and spiritual awareness through cultural programming with global reach and impact.
more info on practice, here:.
we are on facebook.

questions about the event can be directed to: janntomaro@gmail.com

practice 15: adam basanta

practice #15
saturday, july 22nd, 4pm, free entry
never apart
7049 saint-urbain
we would like all guests to be able to participate, so pls arrive on time. seating is limited and first come, first served.

sound artist and experimental composer adam basanta will create an in-situ improvised sets of minimal, slow evolving music. Straddling the line between the meditative and the ecstatic, the two sets will combine sine wave beating patterns, field recordings, white noise, and polymeric rhythms, spatially distributed throughout a DIY surround sound system.

for more info on adam basanta pls see here.

…….

we have yoga mats available to use and listeners are invited to bring their own sitting paraphernalia if they please.

never apart is a non-profit organization in montréal, québec, canada, determined to bring about social change and spiritual awareness through cultural programming with global reach and impact.

more info on practice, here:.
we are on facebook.

questions about the event can be directed to: janntomaro@gmail.com

practice 13: tunnel. a listening session

practice 13: tunnel, a listening session
saturday, may 13th, 5pm, free entry 7049 saint-urbain
we would like all guests to be able to participate, so pls arrive early. seating is limited and first come, first served. this event will start on time.

practice deviates from its habitual format to introduce a unique listening session of a 50 minute recording titled tunnel by jen reimer and magnus tiesenhausen.

In late September of 2015, Jen Reimer and Magnus Tiesenhausen stumbled upon an underground concrete enclosure in a construction site in Montreal. Over the course of the next three weeks, they recorded the sounds of their own voices and actions in the tunnel, transformed and influenced by the architectural dimensions of the space.

The tunnel became a mutual meeting place, and the process by which the two would navigate there each night consisted of a complex repeated pattern of recognized landmarks. A beam of light crossing the path, a downed chain link fence, a swamp’s edge: all directional indications. This ritual of recognition inundated the tunnel pieces, becoming a magic decision-making process which formally structured the recordings.

The resonance of the abandoned space served as a type of prosthetic communication, translating the artists’ voices to the plane of reverberation and resonant frequency, and guiding their actions within the space. The absolute darkness within the tunnel reduced the two to sound sources, each movement of their bodies generating ten-second reverberations, from which certain frequencies would surface and linger. The aural artifacts of the space rendered speech incomprehensible. The artists were only able to communicate in relation to the tuned frequencies in constant ricochet. As a result, the compositions materialized in real time. The melodies and harmonies recorded are human explorations of a complex audio world, aleatoric representations of the energy and physicality of the space.

The sound captured by Reimer and Tiesenhausen in September/October 2015 culminated in a fifty-minute piece, simply titled ‘Tunnel’.

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Jen Reimer is a sound artist, musician and performer based in Montréal. Her work explores the resonances of urban environments through in-situ performances, installations and spatial recordings. More here

Magnus Tiesenhausen is an interdisciplinary artist and musician based in Alberta. His work is a multi-angle treatise on magic energy, characterized by experimental and industrial synthesizer music; craft and sculpture processes; readymades and free drawing.

 

practice 12: core values

practice #12: core values

saturday, april 29th, 5pm, free entry
never apart
7049 saint-urbain
we would like all guests to be able to participate, so pls arrive on time. seating is limited and first come, first served.

sound artist dominique alexander skillfully plays with memory and recall curating two sets using foley type sounds from personal, found and field recordings, mixed with melodic and rhythmic elements from a variety of sources. layering ambient and atmospheric airs, alexander fills an audio bath of dub echoes where micro samples bubble up to the surface and get pushed back down, reemerging again in changed configuration. toying with the comfort that repetition and familiarity bring about, alexander invites an atmosphere of awareness with focus on pattern recognition and recall. through sound, alexander fosters an environmental that nurtures meditative presence and the renewal of presence again and again.

dominique alexander performs solo as buffalo mri and as a two-piece called urlapse with her longtime collaborator joshua bastien. 

join this event on facebook, or dial into the series by following our page on facebook.

 

practice 11: scent and sound

saturday, april 22nd, 5pm, free entry
never apart
7049 saint-urbain
we would like all guests to be able to participate, so pls arrive on time.
seating is limited and first come, first served.

sound artist jeremy young pairs up with scent artist and zen buddhist chaplain in training alex beth to guide a collective meditation through scent and sound.

scent is one of our strongest senses in its ability to recall images, memories and distant forgotten moments, as well as to forge new kinds of relationships . when combined with meditative sonic blankets, we are deeply excited to explore what new landscapes this compound might evoke.

awareness of the memories and emotions recalled when introduced to the associated scents and sounds can give us glimpses into our many ways of being in relationship to the world… past, present and future.

in two sets, a subtle narrative is created through sounds by young and scents by alex beth. using materials from the jean talon market, alex beth strays from essential oils and employs techniques such as toasting, cracking, stewing and simmering to open and disseminate fragrances, while young moves between a variety of instruments, objects and electronics to sew together a floating cloud of minimal noise.

hear more from the artists on the internet, here and here

join this event on facebook, or dial into the series by following our page on facebook.

questions about this event can be directed to noisemeditation@gmail.com

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samedi 22 avril à 17h
entrée gratuite
never apart
7049 saint-urbain

nous aimerions que tous les invités puissent participer, arrivez à l’heure svp.
les places sont limitées, premier arrivé, premier servi.

l’artiste sonore jeremy young s’associe avec l’artiste des odeurs et l’aumônière bouddhiste zen alex beth pour guider une méditation collective à travers l’odeur et le son.

l’odorat est l’un de nos sens les plus forts dans sa capacité à rappeler des images, des souvenirs et des moments lointains oubliés, ainsi que de forger de nouveaux types de relations. lorsqu’ils sont combinés avec des couvertures sonores méditatives, nous sommes profondément ravis d’explorer quels nouveaux paysages ce composé pourrait évoquer.

la prise de conscience des souvenirs et des émotions rappelés lors de l’introduction des parfums et des sons associés peut nous donner un aperçu de nos multiples façons d’être en relation avec le monde … passé, présent et futur.

en deux ensembles, un récit subtil est créé par des sons de jeremy young et des parfums par Alex Beth. Utilisant des matériaux du marché jean-talon, alex beth vagabonde entre diverses huiles essentielles et emploie des techniques telles que le grillage, le craquage, la cuisson pour ouvrir et diffuser des parfums, tandis que Young se déplace entre une variété d’instruments, d’objets et d’électroniques pour coudre un nuage flottant de bruit minimal.