Montreal Cultural Calendar

Co-Presented with NOW Society, Muff, La Lumière Collective
DahL
is the Montreal-based art rock trio of Nassir Liselle (Anthony McLachlan), Bryan Greenfield, and Edward Scrimger. With roots in post-punk, R&B, and ‘90s trip-hop, the band fuses socially charged songwriting with experimental sound design to craft music as fluid as it is fearless.
Formed in 2014 after the dissolution of their former project Oliverthegreat, DahL has grown into a force of immersive storytelling. Their 2024 debut LP
That’s It
earned critical acclaim from
CULT MTL
and
Exclaim!
, and their unpredictable live performances have shared stages with Suuns, FACS, and more.
Fresh off their international debut at New York’s New Colossus Festival, DahL continue to carve a path through art rock’s uncharted waters. “High Tide” is the latest proof of their uncompromising vision.
Collaborative performance with Guillaume Vallée
Experimental filmmaker and video artist
Guillaume Vallée
graduated from Concordia University with a degree in animation and holds an MFA in Studio Arts – Film Production. He works with film (Super 8, 16mm, 35mm), analog video (VHS, Hi8), and stereoscopic video (red/cyan anaglyph). His audiovisual performances have been presented at numerous festivals in Canada, the United States, France, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Austria. His experimental films and videos, distributed by Vidéographe, Light Cone, La Distributrice de films, and Winnipeg Film Group, have been screened internationally at several festivals.
https://www.gvallee.com/
Jairus Sharif
is a Black-Canadian multi-instrumentalist, composer and sound artist based in Calgary, AB, Treaty 7 land. His work combines spontaneous composition, sound collage, and free improvisation to create a liberation technology used for self-understanding, freedom of expression, and collective healing. Sharing a truthful message though the free exploration of music is important to Sharif, and blurring his own understanding of immediate reflection, ecstatic improvisation and tranquil focus is at the centre of his current creative work.
Operating the studio as an instrument, his recordings apply improvisation to assist in forging connections between ecstatic jazz, folk traditions, ambient, drone, dub, and noise. Primarily composing, performing, and recording all of the elements found in his music, Sharif has generated 3 full-length albums, numerous self-released projects, EPs and collaborations, and his 2022 album Water & Tools was long-listed for the Polaris Prize.
Involving extended techniques in instrumental improvisation, live-looping and sampling, combined with an evolving collection of electronics, traditional, and non-traditional instrumentation, his live performances offer a glimpse into an ongoing hermetic journey. Sharif has toured his solo and small group projects internationally, and his work has been presented at Canadian establishments such as Western Front, The Music Gallery, and Massey Hall. In recent years he has shared stages with The Sun Ra Arkestra, Farida Amadou and Still House Plants, and performed at festivals across Canada including Suoni Per Il Popollo, send.recieve, Pique, Everyseeker, Calgary Folk Music Festival and Active/Passive.
Adrian Avendaño
is an improvising drummer/percussionist, sound artist, DJ and recordist born and based on the stolen Indigenous territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) nations. As a diasporic Latine artist of Peruvian and Chilean heritage, Avendaño engages in work that centres tradition while seeking new horizons into the future through collaboration and experimentation. Recent projects include Vancouver New Music’s Parallel 03, led by Endlings (Raven Chacon and John Dieterich); Roxanne Nesbitt’s Sonic Symbiotic and Thunderous Wondering; Aki Onda’s
Spirits Known and Unknown (Rephrase);
a duo free improv outfit with guitarist Matthew Ariaratnam; Aquiles Navarro Quartet (of Irreversible Entanglements); and Lontananza Quartet (Benjamín Vergara). He currently plays in the experimental contemporary gamelan ensemble, Gamelan Bike Bike. Described by Coastal Jazz as “one of the city’s most intriguing and creatively omnivorous emerging musicians”, he’s performed annually at Vancouver International Jazz Festival since 2020. Furthermore, he plays a vital part in the Vancouver improvised music scene through NOW Society concerts and workshops. As a recordist, he contributed to the first sound archive of the city of Cusco and his soundscape composition work has been presented in Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru.
Alejandro Motta
is a classically trained double bassist with a focus on contemporary music, sound experimentation, and stage performance. He is the co-founder of the free improvisation ensemble Algo Cruje and has collaborated with various national orchestras, including the OFUNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico Philharmonic Orchestra). He recently participated in the performance of Memor I.A. as part of the UNAM Composition Workshop and is currently a member of the CEPROMUSIC Ensemble. His work ranges from traditional repertoire to more free-flowing creation, integrating sound and presence.
Adriana Camacho
, Mexico City
https://www.adrianacamacho.com/
Double bassist, documentary filmmaker, and improviser, she is an active promoter of free improvisation and free jazz in the Mexican and international scenes. Her drive as an improviser has led her to collaborate and record with musicians, poets, and visual artists such as Ana Ruíz, Chefa Alonso, Elliott Levin, Naima Karlsson, Guro Moe, Phillip Greenlief, Daniel Carter, Germán Bringas, Scott Amendola, Lisa Mezzacapa, Anne Waldman, Natalia Pérez Turner, Alex Otaola, and Todd Clouser, among others. In 2022, she participated in the Sounds of Freedom residency at the New York-based record label 577 Archivos. She has performed in improvisation ensembles conducted by Kahil El Zabar, William Parker, and Phillip Greenlief. He has performed at venues such as the Roskilde Festival in Denmark, the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City, Café Otto in London, the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, Knulp Bar in Trieste, Italy, the Ugo Cara Museum in Trieste, Italy, ¡Resiste! in Vienna, Austria, Monday Improvisation Sessions in Vienna, Austria, Pavilion 2.0 in Venice, Italy, Medicine for Nightmares in San Francisco, the Phillip it Gallery in Philadelphia, USA, the Malmö Museum in Sweden, and Kuhlspot in Berlin, among others. SHe has organized concert series and festivals such as Música Libre at the San Rafael Cultural Center, Jueves de Música Libre at the UNAM Center for Complexity Sciences, the 13th Radical Music Showcase at the Museum of Mexico City, and Radio Niagara. He currently plays double bass in several projects: Ana Ruiz and her orchestra Kóryma, No tan Cuerdas, Ronronoise, David Contreras Trio, Sesión Libre Trio and his solo project Loope.

Presented in collaboration with
Bozzini Quartet, Traquen'art, Tone Fest, and Coastal Jazz
The Ex
is a band resolutely focused on the future. After more than 45 years of existence and constant reinvention, they reject all nostalgia, preferring to explore new alliances and continually take on musical challenges far from any comfort zone. Emerging from the punk and squat movements of the late 1970s, The Ex has become an independent and unclassifiable force, performing in over 45 countries and paving the way for significant intercultural collaborations, notably with Ethiopian artists. Returning to the international stage with new compositions and a new album, If Your Mirror Breaks, the band continues to embody vibrant, collective, and inquisitive music—forward in every direction.
Zea
/ minimal, eclectic, strange-edge, poetic
Zea
is Arnold de Boer, born and raised in Friesland, based in Amsterdam. His music is at times intimate, heart felt, poetic, at other times highly energetic, urgent, obstinate and driven on syncopating trance-like guitar play. Arnold de Boer (Makkum, 1974) started Zea as a band in 1995. He plays guitar, trumpet, synths and beat machines and sings in English as well as in his mother tongue Fries (Frisian). In 2003 Zea became a duo and since 2009 Zea is De Boers solo project. He tours all over the planet where he meets a curious audience that might not literally understand but does comprehend the message, feeling and poetry of his -frisian- songs.
Zea
has played more than 2000 concerts in more than 40 different countries on six continents. De Boer releases his music on his own label called Makkum Records. He organises, books, plays, records, mixes, drives, sells, masters and listens completely independent from the main-stream music industry and will continue to do so since he believes the music business is like poison for the soul. Zea has been working with musicians from all over the world. De Boer joined Dutch underground band The Ex in 2009. His work with the Ghanaian kologo star King Ayisoba got world wide attention and they have toured around the world together since 2012.
Zea
is now touring with his latest album In lichem fol beloften (MR44) often accompanied by cello, drums and clarinet. A remix album of his catalogue has been released in 2024 on German Krachladen - Dub Records.
KY Band
makes freak-jazz noise punk about the brutalizing end-times of capitalism, disorganized bodies, lost loves and knowledge gained. Consisting of James Goddard (sax/electronics), Robyn Gray (guitar), Farley Miller (drums) and Ky Brooks (vocals/electronics), their music has been described as 'a genre-straddling outlier punk odyssey'.

Lucas ‘Granpa’ Abela
’s (fka Justice Yeldham) performances on their signature instrument; shards of amplified glass are the stuff of legend. Their singular practice spawned from the noise music underground, where over twenty years the glass evolved from a means to create ecstatic free-noise cacophonies into an outsider instrument that produces some kind of organic electronica. Abela vibrates the pane vocally to control a modular patch that uses no traditional syntheses techniques, instead the glass acts as both sound and modulation source. The patch extracting control voltages from the glass’s dynamics and frequency in order to modulate itself in synchronicity with the performance, shaping six parallel stereo effects chains that merge into dense layers of anomalous music.
Alejandro Motta
is a classically trained double bassist with a focus on contemporary music, sound experimentation, and stage performance. He is the co-founder of the free improvisation ensemble Algo Cruje and has collaborated with various national orchestras, including the OFUNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico Philharmonic Orchestra). He recently participated in the performance of Memor I.A. as part of the UNAM Composition Workshop and is currently a member of the CEPROMUSIC Ensemble. His work ranges from traditional repertoire to more free-flowing creation, integrating sound and presence.
Aleida Perez
is a violinist and improviser interested in new music and experimental forms such as free improvisation. She currently collaborates with the Liminar ensemble. Her most recent performances include a residency with the Norwegian collective Verdensteatret, the Epiciclos concert as part of the Diferencial series, and La escucha infinita.
Aleida holds a degree in classical violin from the Escuela Superior de Música (INBA). She began her musical studies in the basic program at the Ollin Yoliztli Cultural Center and continued her training at the ESM (Educational School of Music), where she completed her degree under the guidance of maestro Cuauhtémoc Rivera. She has participated in various festivals such as the National Violin Encounter at the University of Zacatecas, the Contemporary Expressions Festival, Aires Nacionales (FAM-UNAM), and the International Chamber Music Festival at the University of Querétaro. She has performed at venues such as the Blas Galindo Auditorium, the Palacio de Bellas Artes, the Teatro de la Ciudad, the CCU-BUAP (Center for Fine Arts), the Casa del Lago, the Ex-Teresa, and the Sala Silvestre Revueltas-CCOY. She has taken master classes with Jorge Rici, Renata Knific, David Colwell, the University of Kansas Trio, Erika Dobociewicz, Ron Francois, and Ryu Gotto, among others.
Aleida is active in Mexico City's experimental music scene, participating in various independent forums and festivals specializing in contemporary practices such as Material Art Fair, Index, Arte Book Fair, Museo Anahuacalli, Arte Alameda, Galería Kurimanzutto, El Nicho Experimental, and the Vernacular Institute.
DEATH KNEEL
is the primary recording outlet of Toronto based musician Max Klebanoff. His output is characterized by unyielding binaural manipulation and unapologetic octatrack abuse. Incidental sound and electroacoustic automatic drawings dismantled and deconstructed to be recycled, again and again. Since 2014, Klebanoff has been featured on notable labels Chondritic Sound, Total Black, White Centipede Noise and his own imprint Life Of Sensation, with new releases forthcoming on Students of Decay.

Local heartthrob
Guizo LaNuit
has graciously given up his birthday party to us all with
The
Stay Alivers’ Birthday Party
- a celebration for all of us still alive (and dead people too). Guizo and his band of handsomes (
Stef Schneider
&
Kizis
) will accompany a bevy of Montreal’s most terrifyingly talented weirdos including interdisciplinary artists
Nate Yaffe
&
Winnie Ho
, queer performance goddess
Phoenix Inana
, experimental theatre maven
Jacqueline Van de Geer, Adriana Camacho
and other surprises. Expect cake, gifts & rituals to transcend grief.

Co-presented with Celluloid Lunch and Negative Capabilities.
A co‑founder of the cult noise‑rock group Harry Pussy, Orcutt has since built a widely acclaimed solo career. His work has been recognized by
WIRE
,
NPR
,
The Guardian
, and
Rolling Stone
. Maintaining an active international touring schedule and frequent collaborations with leading improvisers and experimental musicians, Bill Orcutt continues to push the expressive limits of the guitar with uncompromising intensity.
Wendy Eisenberg
is a key figure in contemporary independent music, renowned for the multiplicity and fluidity of her practice. A singer, improviser, and virtuoso guitarist, she navigates freely between art-rock, jazz, folk, and radical improvisation, constantly blurring the lines between forms.
Significant albums such as Auto (2020) and Viewfinder (2024) attest to an approach deeply committed to risk and experimentation. Rejecting any specialization, Wendy Eisenberg champions a simultaneous practice of punk, improvised, and composed music, making eclecticism not an aesthetic choice, but an artistic necessity.
Setting
is a North Carolina Piedmont–based trio featuring Jaime Fennelly, Nathan Bowles and Joe Westerlund, musicians known for their work with projects including Mind Over Mirrors, Califone, Black Twig Pickers, Pelt, Sylvan Esso and Jake Xerxes Fussell. Grounded in a deeply collaborative approach, the group creates inventive, richly textured improvisations shaped by shared intuition and flow.
Combining synthesizers, cassette loops, banjo, keyboards, zithers, electronics and percussion, Setting builds tactile sound worlds where earthy rhythms meet moments of celestial lift. Their self‑titled album on
Thrill Jockey
stands as a defining statement of improvisational fluency paired with compositional focus, harnessing the euphoria of communal creation.
Perhaps best known for his guitar playing in the Montreal noise-rock band AIDS Wolf, Alex Moskos has been producing records under the name
Drainolith
since 1999. He has released countless cassettes, CDRs & 7" records on various labels culminating in two full length albums: '
Fighting
' (2012) on Spectrum Spools and '
Hysteria
' (2015) on NNA Tapes.
More recently Moskos has performed and recorded alongside Max Eilbacher (Horse Lords) and Duncan Moore as SEF III, and with Nate Young, John Olson and Pulitzer Prize winning composer Raven Chacon as The Difficult Messages Band. He has also played alongside Neil Hagerty (Royal Trux), Charles Balas and Nate Young in Dan’l Boon (Drag City). Moskos is an amateur historian and works in community radio at CKUT 90.3FM - Montreal’s oldest freeform radio station. He lives in Hochelaga, an east end neighbourhood of Montreal with artist Jessica Mensch and Boots The Cat. 2026 Drainolith also features the amazing talents of drummer Destiny and guitar goddess Rián Adamian.
Negative Capabilities
will be launching their first zine—a new print venture dedicated to outsider guitar and left-field acoustic sounds. Copies will be available at the venue. An interview with Wendy Eisenberg in conversation with Alex Pelchat is in this premier issue.

Join us at Suoni per il Popolo for a special artist talk bringing together visionary guitarists Bill Orcutt and the ever-shifting, genre-defying Wendy Eisenberg, in conversation with Montreal-based programmer, organizer, and musician Alex Pelchat.
Taking place on the 26th at 11 AM on the Casa terrace
, this intimate discussion offers a rare glimpse into their creative processes, influences, and evolving practices at the edges of experimental music. The session will be recorded by CKUT for later broadcast—come be part of it live.
Bill Orcutt
, one of experimental music’s most influential guitarists, crafts a singular sound that fuses American primitivism, outsider jazz, and fractured improvisation through stripped-down instruments, often missing two strings. Emerging from the explosive noise-rock band Harry Pussy, he helped redefine the genre before reemerging as a solo artist whose work bridges free improvisation and the deep roots of American song. Acclaimed by the
New York Times
,
WIRE
, NPR, and
Rolling Stone
, Orcutt continues to tour internationally, delivering raw, jagged performances that push the limits of the guitar with relentless intensity and inventive sonic language.
Wendy Eisenberg
has spent the past decade as a fixture of independent music and an artist of inspired multiplicity. As a singer-songwriter, improviser, and virtuoso guitarist, the coordinates of their artistry are ever-shifting, from art-rock to jazz to blistering free improv and eloquent folk. On catalog highlights including 2020’s 'Auto' and the 2024 free-jazz sprawler 'Viewfinder', they’ve made a signature of ambition.
As Eisenberg told fellow guitarist Nick Millevoi in an interview for Premier Guitar in 2021, “I need to be in a punk band at the same time as I need to be playing free improv at the same time as I need to be playing songs. All at the same time—otherwise none of the practices will work for me.” Their musical range isn’t a glib manifestation of eclecticism, but a genuine artistic essence.
Alex Pelchat
is a concert programmer, union organizer and part-time noisemaker from Montreal who is a part of the Mardi Spaghetti organization dedicated to improvised music.

In the groove of mystical improv sorcery, we present a cosy Casa show of top-notch Canadian & Mexican musicians in cross-cultural exchange. This event celebrates the launch of Stefan Christoff/Suoni collab zine,
TRANSBORDAR:
Voices of Cultural Workers in Mexico City
, featuring interviews with cultural workers from CDMX, painting an informal guide to the city’s cultural scene. The night features three combos:
Meredith Bates
(violin) (VAN)
Aleida Perez
(violin) (CDMX)
Adriana Camacho
(bass) (CDMX)
Malcolm Goldstein
(violin) (MTL)
Nicolas Caloia
(bass) (MTL)
Rainer Wiens
(guitar) (MTL)
Alex Motta
(bass) (CDMX)
Eli Piña
(saxophone) (CDMX)
Dario Bernal Villegas
(drums) (CDMX)
Stefan Christoff
(piano) (MTL)