PART

TWO

city is the motherboard for a horde of experimental techno-house

producers as well as new media artists, fueling the feedback from

events such as the New Forms Festival and the Vancouver New

Music Society’s ElectriCity. The Fluxus heritage maintained by

the Western Front artist-run center in video and performance

art is reconnecting to the new media and experimental electronic

wave that marks what Steven Shaviro calls “connected” society.

Yet even these initiatives are dragged down by politics and the

edgy sense that, if anything happens in Vancouver, its stature is

somewhat diminished. It’s a pothead’s paranoia, where the web

of networks is that of the spider’s, it’s prey spun and caught in

the middle, immobile and stung.

EVERY CYBORG IS AN ISLANDVancouver is more of a concept than a center. The music that is

tagged to the mainland city arrives from all angles, for the region

is a massive series of channels, rivers, islands and deltas that

open to the Juan de Fuca Straight and the Pacific Ocean. The Gulf

islands, set between the continent and vast and mountainous

Vancouver Island, provide a retreat from an already slowpaced

mainland. Victoria, the Province’s capital on Vancouver Island, is

a tourist’s hit parade of dainty streets and shops, carefully pruned

and policed. Yet the “Garden City” has been the inventive bastion

of recent years, with a long history of chillout. Ambient darlings

and ‘90s multimedia performers Perfume Tree released album

after album on the World Domination label, yet never managed to

achieve the label’s namesake, despite an atmosphere that was epic

and ethereal, seducing the finest of mystical ambient house and

dub. Still, there held that recurrent too-tripped-out aspect, a little

off and gone into 303 territory, ripe for stoned hippies yet acidic on

the aural digest, like the butter of Vancouver’s slick yet overpro-

duced house music. Perhaps it is Interchill Records—whose cross-

country story is worth recounting as the catalyst to Vancouver’s

connection with Montréal—that triggers ambient’s memoirs.

Interchill (born as a label in the spring of 1994) was founded

by Arnaud and Andrew, who in the early ‘90s were involved in

The Bus Company, the infamous Montréal rave crew (including

Tiga) doing their part to acquaint the “alternative generation”

with acid house and techno. 1993’s “Eclipse,” at the insistence

of Bus Conductor Paul (featuring The Orb live) sent shockwaves

across the Canadian chillscape. Ninja Tune’s Jeff Waye was

74__CANADA

“If you live in Canada and you either want to reinvent yourself or

enter your own witness relocation program, Vancouver is where

you go.” – Douglas Coupland, City of Glass

When the grey mists part over Vancouver, the thinning clouds

reveal a glass metropolis rising out of the oceanic waters, swirling

in riptide from the outlets of the Fraser river, a pacific paradise

nestled against the Coast Mountains that ascend some 7000 feet

above the distinctive postmodern skyline. The vertical aspirations

of steel that forge a colonial history are overcome by the shadows

of the peaks, the expanse of the forests, the absolute secrecy of the

sea. Nature overcomes the Vancouverite, birthplace of Greenpeace

and Adbusters, and yet the pursuits of the city-dweller are often at

odds with the expansive surroundings, as pendulum politics

swing opinion from enjoying the city’s “Vansterdam” image to

condoning its heroin ghetto known as “the Downtown Eastside.”

Contradictory to the core, the region is obviously fertile for what

Robert Shea calls “electroniculture”: politics, drugs and...nature.

Vancouver as an entity operates north/south—Seattle,

Portland and San Francisco are the outsource abodes of the Van-

couverite. A sense of the global village pervades that has Douglas

Coupland writing, with typical irony, “Vancouver is not part of

Canada. Not really.” The city is balanced between mountain and

ocean, a social knife-edge that houses a Pacific Northwest take

on industrial and electronic music. Although at apparent odds

in their style and content, if not sonic meaning, the two trickle

through crevices of unexpected genres. Laidback, deep house is

the staple of the city, with labels such as Active Pass and Nordic

Trax, while the ragga roots manifest most overtly in the ambiance

of Interchill recordings (nestled on the Gulf island of Saltspring).

Rewind ten years. Who can forget Delerium’s breakthrough,

with the ethereal voice of Kirsty Thirsk, of “Flowers Become

Screens,” on 1994’s Semantic Spaces? Nettwerk Records was at its

peak—or its downfall. With the commercial breakaway of Sarah

McLachlan, the long collapse of Skinny Puppy and its 1993 deser-

tion to Rick Rubin’s Def American imprint, the industrial edge

Nettwerk harbored for so long, embracing the side projects of ex-

Skinny Puppy members, fell to something of a fine drizzle, dissolv-

ing into that murky palette between sea and sky that muddies the

pacific waters. The aim wavered for the commercial buck as “elec-

tronic music” played its attempts at stardom in North America;

while Europe witnessed electronica achieving radio frequency,

Vancouver’s musicians toiled in obscurity that, to this day, woeful-

ly paints their ingrown talents in broad, underrated strokes.

Vancouver is scantly acknowledged as an integral spark in the

development of ’80s industrial and ambient music. Yet today, the

CITIESOFGLASSTWOIN THE SECOND INSTALLMENT OF OUR SERIES ON THE STORIED HISTORY OF CANADIAN ELECTRONICA, VANCOUVER’S GLASS FAÇADE IS SHATTERED TO REVEAL AN INDUSTRIAL FIRMAMENT STILL ENMESHED IN THE CITY’SELECTRONIC GEARS. TOBIAS C. VAN VEENPUTS ALL THE PIECES BACK IN PLACE.

PART

CANADA__75

76__CANADA CANADA__77

NETTWERKED EMPIRE AND INDUSTRIAL ISOLATIONThe shift of the decade from the ’80s to the ’90s was a black

burnout of politics and music not unlike punk’s demise. The

industrial ashes from which an innocent phoenix would arise

marked the emergence of global rave culture. The political agen-

das that held together the industrial era splintered, and the devel-

oping tensions led not only to the disintegration of industrial’s

anti-culture internationally but to a precedent of displacement

from which all other musical genres would have to incorporate

from their outset.

Skinny Puppy’s breakup and the death of Dwayne Goettel

from a heroin overdose on August 23rd, 1995, personified this

general dispersion. As Greg Clow wrote in Chart magazine at

the time: “On June 12th, 1995, an era in Canadian music ended,

as Skinny Puppy—perhaps the most important and influential

electronic industrial band in history—split up.”

We’re beginning with the end. With the industrial “freak

scene” losing its cultural impact in the ’90s and the watering

down of rave culture into hedonist pleasure and commercial

advertising, the weakening of the ’80s industrial scene filtered

through the various admixtures of the “Skinny Puppy scene” via

the numerous offshoots of the band. The original triumvirate of

Kevin Crompton (cEvin Key, aka Kenny King), Bill Leeb (Wilhelm

Schroder), and Kevin Ogilvie (Nivek Ogre) formed in 1983. Leeb

left in 1986 to form Front Line Assembly, with Dwayne Rudolph

Goettel (Duck) taking his place in Puppy, staying on until the bit-

ter end. Clow, who not only has written a comprehensive discog-

raphy and history of Skinny Puppy but now runs Piehead Records

and The Ambient Ping from Toronto, explains that “After the

break-up, Ogre went to work on the W.E.L.T. project, while cEvin

and Dwayne formed Subconscious Studios (a name first used by

Dwayne for the release of a solo single two years earlier) and

intended to continue working together, along with longtime

Puppy producer David Ogilvie (no relation to Ogre) and others, on

projects such as Download and Tear Garden. These plans were cut

short when Dwayne died...”

Goettel’s overdose sparked both recriminations and apologies

that crossfired across the early days of the Internet, with rumors

and gossip rendering a bitter implosion. Since the blowout, the

surviving Skinny Puppy members have been trying to find their

ground. While Download and Plateau, both collaborations of Key

and Phil Western, have met with success, Ogre’s numerous collabs

(with Mark Spybey, the late Goettel, Anthony “The Fu-Man”

Valcic, Genesis P-Orridge and Tim Olive), which ignited a second

(albeit brief) industrial renaissance in mid-’90s Vancouver, his

involvement with the much-hyped industrial supergroup Pigface

(members of which were Trent Reznor, Ministry’s William Rieflin,

and Martin Atkins from Killing Joke), as well as his work with Al

Jourgensen of Ministry, and his attempts to form W.E.L.T. (When

Everyone Learns The Truth), did not culminate in a lasting oeuvre.

tested, the fact that Northern Circuits

contains few hints of the state of

rave culture’s mainstay genres—the

schlock of trance, the “progressive”

aimlessness in house—affirms its

steadfastness (or its refusal to

acknowledge the end of the subcul-

ture). Interchill’s current output has

tended to the established new age

markets, leaving to its past this bril-

liant memorial, when it touched

upon the sharp history of industrial.

The mid-’90s were a magical

time. Andrew states “I remember

thinking that the Vancouver music

scene was far ahead of Montréal...”

This was the era of Odyssey Imports

(the cult record store) and of6

Graceland (the cult club which

Andrew DJed at, booked by Tom

Payne, who went on to found the

house label Upstairs Recordings). It was also the era of warehouse

parties that were to produce—with the aid of Vancouver’s flagrant

gay scene in the West End and a post-hippy, pagan underbelly—

a rave culture as rebellious as that found in the European Teknival.

Dub music echoes a slower swell of rebellion, yet dub often

remains ironic when appropriated by white culture. Vancouver’s

history is very much entwined, as Ben Nevile noted during a

panel discussion at the 2002 Mutek event, with the cultivation

of the green. Dub is the bedrock of artists such as ex-Vancouverite

Ryan Moore, a.k.a. Twilight Circus Dub Sound System. And dub

is the tide that drags Interchill into international waters. As

Vancouver ambient producer Jovian Francey comments, “Dub

seems to be a strong influence on West Coast artists...I recognize

that the dub of our Vancouver artists is simply a pidgin adapta-

tion of the form, that is to say, we don’t understand it really, but

we still aspire to be like it. We want to feel that vibe...the puffing

on ganja part is the only real connection we have to that history.

Vancouver adaptations of dub are not dissimilar to a Martian

lying on his parched red surface thinking about the rain he’s

viewed through his telescope.”

Francey’s hallucinatory critique emphasizes the connection

Vancouver makes to dub via the avenues of paranoia. In the

’80s, Vancouver’s paranoia propelled the political angst of the

industrial. Barely after the turn of the millennium, this paranoia

has returned, in mutated form, as the omnipresent gaze of the

international networks. Eyes are on the city and its output. You

can hear it in Francey’s concern over Vancouver’s relation to the

dub. If Vancouverites are Martians, then they are increasingly

paranoid about whether there is life on that other planet, and

what the earthlings will do to their precious microcosm.

involved with Paul and Andrew in “a chilled Sunday evening

night called Praise at the Café Mondiale.” From there, Interchill

downtempo and ambient events were to blossom for many

years, connecting DJs including Toronto’s Jarkko and Jeff Milligan

(Algorithm), as well as Neerav (Mini Mono), David Kristian, and

Dub Tribe among others. The record production, however, was

slow: finally, in March 1996, Interchill Records released the

“Elsewhere EP” by Pilgrims of the Mind (Stephane Novak), who

had recently jetted to Vancouver. In spring 1996, Gordon Field

joined the label, replacing Arnaud, who had flown to warm Spain.

Field pioneered a series of ambient chill rooms across Montréal,

providing the setting for the music’s proper reception, as well as

hosting various CKUT (McGill University) radio shows.

The vinyl-doublepack that arrived in early May 1997, with its

psychedelic art by Montréal artist Yves Lahey and magnificent

morning throwdowns, spun a stellar manifesto of fin-de-siecle

chillout that was to resonate globally. This was Northern Circuits,

a compilation that has yet to be surpassed in Canadian ambient

music. The opening dub chords of Pilgrim of the Mind’s “Sand-

castle” reflect with an honesty and depth of vision that marks

the touchstone of rave’s chillout era—the reflection, through our

machines, on the melancholic state of human culture, in a ges-

ture that points to futures yet to be imagined. In this light, Water-

shell’s “We” stands as an intriguing post-Autechre beatscape that

slices and dices intricate movements and percussion, as does the

following drum ‘n’ bass cut by IC1, “Noval.” Adam Shaikh’s “Tail”

is a rolling, mysterious dub boasting analogue synthesizers that

sing in a way lost to much contemporary production, while David

Kristian, via his sublime minimalist sculpting, deserves note for his

perseverance in paring down the analogue constructions. Toronto’s

Legion of Green Men, Mere Mortals (Vancouver’s Dan Handrabur)

and Tummy Drums provide tracks that to this day rightfully earn

the title of “classic.” Although its ultimate originality may be con-

According to Key, the end was signalled when Jourgensen tried

to split up Skinny Puppy by attempting to steal Ogre for his own

devices. After Jourgensen’s collaboration on Puppy’s Rabies

(Nettwerk 1989) which many critics tagged as a slapdash merge

between Ministry and Puppy, Ogre toured with Jourgensen’s

Revolting Cocks entourage only to bow out halfway due to

increasing drug burnouts, a close call that left its traces on the

monumental and personal Last Rights (Nettwerk 1992). Rabies

opened a rift which was never to heal, resulting in the final and

protracted mishap between producers, lawyers, management

and label Def American that was to become The Process (1996),

the last Skinny Puppy album.

Recounting the turbulent and creative history of Skinny Puppy

is also a process of understanding the evolution and origins of

Nettwerk Records. That the pretty seaside town of Vancouver

became a nexus point for a dark interest in horror, snuff, pain,

death and the ills of society, so vividly portrayed by the black per-

formance art that was the in-concert stage-show, acted by Ogre

on and often off-stage, is a paradox unto itself, frequently misun-

derstood until one considers, on some intensive level, that the

The X-Files was filmed solely in Vancouver for its first five seasons.

By all accounts, Skinny Puppy jumpstarted Nettwerk with the

Remission EP (1983), recorded for a grand total of $600, and

released in Europe on Play It Again Sam (fans take note—Back

and Forth is the first, rare cassette release). October 1985 saw the

release of the first full-length, Bites, chomping the charts. The

inter-Vancouver links from this point on are extensive and could

fill a tome unto themselves. For example, the cover art of the first

six Puppy albums is created by Jim Cummins, the cult musician

of I, Braineater. Recording sessions were at the now-infamous

Mushroom Studios, with later side projects in Darryl Neudorf and

Sugarpill’s The Miller Block. The web now weaves to encompass

the Netherlands. Debbie Jones, who organised and threw many

of Vancouver’s first raves, as well as founded Discotext magazine

with Robert Shea through the Graceland nightclub, purveyed a

link to Europe that was to rig a sustained creative connection.

(Jones moved to Holland in 1992, touring with Psychick Warriors

ov Gaia and forming eXquisite CORpsE, a.k.a. X Cor and Club 11).

The link? The Legendary Pink Dots, of course. Edward Ka-Spel’s

surrealist tunes, the soundscape production of Phil Knight, and

Niels van Hoorn’s sax have graced many Vancouver collabora-

tions. Of course, another member of the Dots (1992-2001), playing

bass and drums, is Ryan Moore. Despite circulating in early ’80s

Vancouver, Jones and Moore didn’t meet until their paths crossed

in Europe. Moore has now toured with Jones, solidifying the con-

nection to the Dots. Further, Moore recorded most of his drum-

tracks at the aforementioned Miller Block.

PART TWO

78__CANADA

pre-date the first album: Total Terror and Nerve War). Two tan-

gents also overcame expectations: Delerium and Noise Unit. After

a few dark ambient releases replete with chanting monks, begin-

ning with Faces, Forms and Illusions (Dossier 1989), the cold drones

of Spheres and Spheres 2 (1994)—two underrated and subtle decla-

rations of spatial silence—were met the same year with a turn-

around in sound, as the duo embraced “tribal” ambient house and

became known to the world with Semantic Spaces (Nettwerk).

Noise Unit was Delerium’s inverse (Bill Leeb and Marc Verhaegan,

later Fulber), often serving as the basket for FLA outtakes.

In the early ’90s, tendrils were grasping at Puppy, with the

project Cyberaktif (Leeb with Key and Goettel), producing

Tenebrae Vision (1990, Wax Trax). A few other projects bloomed

(among too many to list here), including Fulber’s Will, with future

FLA member Chris Peterson and vocalist John McRae, and the

FLA techno/house incarnation Intermix.

Today, it is with some surprise that FLA has released afresh.

Many felt that 2001’s Epitaph, with the uncanny release date of

“Everything Must Perish” on September 11th, 2001, would mark

the last time that FLA was the duo’s focus after the massive suc-

cess of Delerium’s trance-pop superhit, “Silence” featuring Sarah

McLachlan (Nettwerk, 2000). Yet Civilization proves that the omi-

nous grey palette of Vancouver is beckoning once again, and that

the zone remains ripe for the programming of global angst via

the interface of apocalyptic and spastic music.

EXPANSIONS INTO BROAD(ER) BANDThe commercialization of Nettwerk’s roster heralded the mix-

down of an era. Nettwerk was the inspiration and the glue to the

city’s foul underbelly. At the same time, it failed to grasp the com-

ing electronic revolution (Although if Goettel had lived...? “I don’t

know if the scene died as such but it changed,” says Spybey, after

Dwayne’s death and Key’s move to LA, taking Download with

him). Perhaps this is too strong—but if the books be writ, we

must acknowledge a split...

Vancouver is primarily known for its house scene through

the Nordic Trax label, and probably the most recognised DJ from

Vancouver in this respect is Tyler “T-Bone” Stadius. Tyler moved

to Vancouver in the early ’80s, DJing funk, acid house, soul, reggae

and a “spot of techno.” Were there links between Vancouver’s

industrial scene and the early rave culture? “No, not at all,” says

Tyler. “In the early days I’d play a Ministry or Front 242 track but

it was never my first love.”

What of DJ Noah, friend of Robert Shea’s? Tyler remembers

Noah well as a DJ who “played more techno than most,” but—

like most Vancouverites, native or immigrant—indifferent to the

wheels of history. Although Jones and Shea’s Discotext covered the

industrial and electronic scene in Vancouver and worldwide for a

number of years until 1992, and faithful Discorder magazine from

CiTR kept a finger on the screen, for many—and before the days

of the Net—it was tuning into Noah’s Homebass show on Friday

nights (which is still running) that became the only source for

widespread dissemination, even if the show never featured much

Records and the innumerable talents at CiTR radio, are the energies

of native Vancouverite Robert Shea, who worked closely with

Jones, Western and DJ Noah. Active as an early acid house DJ in the

late ’80s through 1993 at Graceland, Shea remembers when “Prince

came to my night after his concert early in 1988...and so did 800

other people, which really launched the whole new acid house

thing.” It might have also launched the LA scene. Shea: “Sometime

in 1990 or so, a big party promoter from LA was in Vancouver at

one of our nights, and went back to LA to tell his cohorts what he

experienced: amazing underground house and techno music being

played to mindblowing visuals in a warehouse space. He told his

pals, who were at that time putting on rap events, to start doing

warehouse parties with techno and house, and the California rave

scene was born.” Vancouver had, for the most part, an existing acid

house scene that was concurrent to Europe’s.

Shea lent his skills to the underrated toil of organization,

founding Fundamentalism promotion in 1993 and Map Music

in 1996. While in San Francisco/LA between ’93 and ’96, Shea

worked for Eye-Q/Harthouse in North America, signing Off and

Gone, and compiling the Pacific Rhythm compilation featuring

west coast producers (Harthouse, 1996). Although Rhythm, by

today’s standards, is a sketchy collection of trance, breakbeats

and “progressive,” it nonetheless began to give some shape to the

emerging dance-based and post-industrial rave cultures, and cut

the groove for the much more impressive Vancouver compilation,

Welcome to Lotusland (Map, 1996), which staged manifestations

of the Handrabur/Western duo, Outersanctum members, and

Stephane Novak (Pilgrims).

TACTICAL NEURAL IMPLANTSThere remains a cataclysm that matched Skinny Puppy in its

own right. The dark ambiance of Front Line Assembly (FLA),

tinged with the industrial aggression of electronic body music

(EBM) is a labyrinth of productivity. When Bill Leeb left Skinny

Puppy he joined up with Michael Balch (1986-1990), and then

Rhys Fulber (1990-) to create FLA, recording 50 releases to date,

beginning with 1987’s The Initial Command (KK Records) up to

this year’s, Civilization (Metropolis) (two cassette self-releases

The last of the Dot connections is through The Tear Garden, a

Key side project that began when Ka-Spel and the Dots visited in

the mid-’80s, christening an EP and album on Nettwerk, Tear

Garden (1986) and Tired Eyes Slowly Burning (1987). As Skinny

Puppy pursued their downward spiral, the ambient meanderings

of The Tear Garden gained ground, over time involving many of

the Dot’s rotating membership (as well as Dwayne Goettel), lead-

ing to six more Nettwerk albums, the last being 2000’s The

Crystal Mass. For many, The Tear Garden represented something

of a rose-colored balm to Skinny Puppy’s hellbound heart.

Then there are the innumerable side and post-projects of the

Skinny Puppy members, intertwining with those of Front Line

Assembly, The Dots, Ministry, Mark Spybey, Phil Western (Phylth,

Cap’m Stargazer, XMT), and notably, ambient soundscaper and

Outersanctum label founder Dan Handrabur (Mere Mortals,

Weed, Vuemorph, Dreamlogic, Han, Xdrone with Adam Shaikh,

and Nemos with DJ Vasile). Western and Handrabur have clocked

in with at least four monikers including Floatpoint, Stellar Sofa,

Landhip and Off and Gone. Handrabur also was producer/pro-

grammer on Front Line Assembly’s Implode (Metropolis 1999).

Like everyone glanced over here, Mark Spybey’s resumé is

extensive. A member of Zoviet France from 1986-1988, he also

collaborated with Can in the late ’90s and has worked with Not

Breathing (Dave Wright), Pigface, Download, Propeller, SPASM,

and Jarboe from Swans. Spybey, who left his native England for

Vancouver in the early ’90s because of the Conservative govern-

ment, and because he was interested in the electroacoustic music

of Simon Fraser University, now believes that “Vancouver is years

behind what happens elsewhere.” In the ’90s, however, it was

apparently right on target. Spybey made contact with cEvin Key

through June Scudeler, a CiTR (UBC) radio host, and shortly after,

Spybey joined Download. Spybey remembers that, “The Puppy

scene pretty much went to LA for nearly two years after 1992 to

record their last album but I kept in touch with cEvin then. They

also left Nettwerk around the time, so I think that dissipated

things a bit. Things became very strong when cEvin and Dwayne

returned to town, which I think was in 1994.” At this time, the

involvement with hard drugs was evident: “I think (the drug)

scene did have something to do with the way music developed

in Vancouver, but I always thought it was a shame as I couldn’t

imagine how it would help people to be creative.”

With Puppy in its death throes, Spybey recounts, “I was aware

of other people who were making music but it wasn’t as though

everyone was supportive. In fact, there were huge rivalries

between some of the protagonists. This I found unnecessary.

Still, we did do some interesting events with folks such as Zev

Asher and Mark Nugent and the boys from Fat (who were all

from Montréal but temporarily encamped in Vancouver).”

To Vancouver’s credit, Spybey admits that “I think there were

some enterprising people who managed to bring artists together

in the true spirit of collaboration.” Among many others including

Alexander Varty of The Georgia Strait, Keith Parry of Scratch

CANADA__79

PART TWO

80__CANADA

ads tk

of the ’80s Vancouver repertoire. As Jovian Francey critiques, “On

the rare occasion I get to hear DJ Noah play out, I feel he has dubi-

ous taste,” a sting that haunts much of Vancouver’s rave scene.

The weak bridges to Vancouver’s industrial heritage is cause to

consider Canada’s historical effects not as lineages but operating

in a manner known as the diaspora—a dispersion across the geo-

graphical mass. Canada’s diffraction—its colonialism—is the con-

dition of its history. If Canada’s official policy is multiculturalism,

then industrial music, as the anti-music of the ’70s and ’80s,

achieved a profound rupture not only with mainstream ideolo-

gies but with its own progeny, a ghost in the closet for the slick

commercialism that dominates the post-subcultural landscapes

of electronic music. It remains some unlikely quirk that the radio

show following Noah’s on CiTR undoubtedly schooled the city in

the sinister industries. Led on past midnight, the outcast listener

searching for the heartbeat of a resistance in the North

unearthed Limpsink, featuring Dr. Kildare and the G42 Players, a

perverse, talkback noise collage that was the incestual cousin to

the CBC’s Brave New Waves hosted by Patti Schmidt—national

public radio’s late night weirdo hour and the show to influence

legions of Canuck listeners.

If a continuity in Vancouver’s sound is lacking, then perhaps,

as Ben Nevile contends, a sound is merely the trick of the scribe,

insofar as “sounds are associated with cities mostly for the sake

of a writer’s convenience.” Perhaps what we learn is that

Vancouver has trouble articulating its history—telling itself

stories, following its inlets through their echoes. Robert Shea

describes the sonic echo like this: “dewy, dubby, ethereal soul-

sonics that was like nothing heard anywhere else.”

A prime example of West Coast handicraft and the ways in

which the world fractures “Canadian” music is the solo work of

Phil Western. His album The Escapist (Map, 1998) is an ornate

temple of world influences that resonates with Shea’s description

of the Map releases: “lush, reverberating, bassy, wet, stratospheric,

earthy and otherworldly sounds.” Ambient post-rock, dub, ’80s

synth-industrial electronics and a heavy blend of instrumenta-

tion cultivate a wealthy tapestry that never strays too far into its

minutiae. The cover art is a collage of photos from Western’s glob-

al travels, and the sense of movement wrought through cultural

exchange is brought to a perfection of stillness, the enrapturing

groove settling into the eye of the maelstrom, the wall-of-sound

force driving the final meditation, “Stay Clean,” which remains to

this day a profound reflection on Vancouver’s fractures—its para-

noia, defeatism, and addiction that contrast the intense pleasures

ritualized in the beatific settings of Lotusland. Loop the chorus as

Western chants, over and over: “Why can’t I/stay clean...”

Perhaps this “sound” has more to do with Spybey’s response,

that what Vancouver does have, at its best, are scenes. He explains:

“The industrial music scene of the ’80s was influenced by a post-

punk, DIY, cheap-electronic desire to shock others and respond to

the prevailing culture of the day (which in England was all about

the vacuum carved out by the cold war politics of Thatcher and

Reagan). We were convinced that someone would press the button

and that we’d all disappear in a flash of plutonium. So the music

took on a dark and dismal hue to match the times.”

For the most part, Spybey’s dismal hue (he calls himself “an old

grouch”) colors his view of Vancouver (and Toronto and Montréal)

as well: “If Vancouver had a scene, it was before my time. Things

have to move on. I get terribly depressed when confronted by

young people who seem obsessed with the industrial music scene

of the ’80s. It was the Residents who said “Ignorance of your cul-

ture is not considered cool.” For me the difference between bands

like Puppy and so-called industrial musicians of today is that the

guys in Puppy listened to all sorts of music and were genuinely

influenced by all sorts of things. You can’t say the same for many

of today’s bands. For me, sadly, Vancouver as a city is somewhat

culturally myopic and unless something pretty dynamic happens

there (something like the dynamism that has helped to shape

aspects of the scene in LA), then I can’t see things changing.”

Spybey’s critique is biting and incisive. It is also somewhat

out-of-touch—if we are to believe Shea, LA followed Vancouver’s

trajectory—and in Vancouver’s defense, the region has embraced

the festival aesthetic, sprouting a number of initiatives that are as

vibrant as any city on the continent. Vancouver is a metropolis—

each scene feedbacks its sounds. That Canadian cities avoid a

swaggering sense of American self-promotion or the British

bitter condemnation perhaps signals the great Canadian way

known as “diplomacy.”

TRACKIN’ TECHNO TO VICTORIAIt was in the mid-’90s that the region’s progeny were percolating.

At counterpoint to the post-industrial, intricate ambience and

worldbeat influence found on Map and elsewhere, the second

generation of producers were stripping down the myriad flight-

paths to reduce citation of genre to quotidian levels of paranoia

and lush scenery. In Victoria, artists who are recognized today on

Spencer’s Itiswhatitis label (however derivative the label’s name)

were DJing and collecting gear and readying their first produc-

tions: artists such as Mat Jonson, Tyger Dhula, Cobblestone Jazz,

Velvet, and Colin the Mole (the Mole jetted to Montréal in the late

’90s, becoming a staple at Laika and Mutek).

Vancouver witnessed the appearance of the repetitious, tech-

no-dub pointilism of Loscil (Kranky), the obscure funkhouse of

Ben Nevile, incoming from Winnipeg (Context, Orac, Telegraph),

and the pan-electronic breakbeats and dub of Kerry Uchida and

Steb Sly (Itiswhatitis, Swayzak). A primary force throughout the

’90s was ex-house DJ and drummer Jess Conn-Potegal, whose

Broken Record Chamber experimental side project and Q funk

band provided a creative drive for further explorations beyond

Vancouver’s predominant house sound. In the house music world,

PART

TWO

PART TWO

THE FESTIVAL CIRCUITSFestivals are catalysts. At the end of the ’90s, Brady Cranfield—

who, with Joseph Monteyne, had been performing radio-art on

CiTR as Industry and Agriculture—launched Open Circuits, a

festival dedicated to beatless explorations of the experimental

drifts. This opened channels with the aging Vancouver New

Music Society (VNMS), who with the acquisition of fiesty Italian

Artistic Director Giorgio Magnanensi co-hosted Oval at The

Western Front gallery in 2001. Later that year, the Refrains: Music

Politics Aesthetics conference, organized through the University of

British Columbia by ex-<ST> members, students, and the support

of the VNMS, dovetailed with the closing night of Open Circuits.

The New Forms Festival, which saw its earlier incarnations

embrace scratch video and hip-hop, embraced the electronic in

2002 with a “glitch and granular” evening (curated by this

author), featuring among others Montreal’s Mitchell Akiyama

and the debut of Joshua Kit Clayton and Sue Costabile’s

Interruption video-art performance.

Since 2002 many of Vancouver’s local artists have gone on to

play the world’s fairs. Loscil toured with Stars of the Lid through

Europe. Secret Mommy (Andy Dixon of Ache Records) released sev-

eral IDM blender albums on Orthlorng Musork. Ex-Vancouverite

Tim Hecker is quickly becoming recognized as a noted romantic

striving for noisy delicacy in a manner not unlike an ambient

Fennesz. Daniel Gardner’s move to Montréal has furthered the

“Vancouver cabal” operating in the Eastern focal city. However, the

trafficking across the continent also points to Vancouver’s defien-

cy, long-noted by Vancouver pundit and artist olo J. Milkman: the

urge to quash its innovators and sustain an inverted atmosphere,

leaving the general scene awash with bargain basement club

music. Unfortunately, Milkman finds that today’s “freak scene” has

lost its edge—the innovation, he says, is to be found in electroni-

culture. Fast forward to the end of these words that have skipped

records, forgotten names, and barely even cracked the dusty crate

of the Pacific Northwest’s vibrant scenes.

Next issue’s conclusion nods to the Toronto/Windsor connection to

Detroit, profiles the more obscure Canadians that fall outside the

dance-based genres, and reviews a number of the country’s pivotal

labels and their releases. Major contributors to the genesis of Part One

were Lucinda Catchlove (Montreal) and Fishead (Winnipeg). Without

the gracious research and writerly talents of these two thinkers and

musicians, this project would not have been possible; many thanks

to them and apologies for the inadvertent absence of their credits.

For their contributions to Part Two, thanks go out to the following for

documentation and photos: Debbie Jones, Robert Shea, Keith Gillard,

Jovian Francey, Dave Bodrug, Mark Spybey.

Vancouver is known for its Latino and deep strains, particularily

the production of Gavin Froome, whose Mobile Villager LP on

Luke McKeehan’s Nordic Trax (1999) is an intelligent rejoinder

to a genre begging for sparks. The success of Jay Tripwire also

deserves recognition, whose straightforward, UK-style tech-house

has hard-earned him a career in the club industries, as well as

his own label, Northern Lights. Much the same can be said for

Vernon’s Deepen label (house) and Kris Palesch’s Active Pass

Recordings (deeper house).

The techno music history, at somewhat of a distance to the

club-oriented house scene, grew in the adherence of its crews—

self-declared “neo-primitive tribes” of DJs, artists and bohemians

that gathered sound and systems into their own elaborate and

often conceptual events. The rituals of the <ST> crew

(shrumtribe.com), the communal networks of B-Side, the ambient

paradises of TeamLounge and the rolling junglehead thunder

HQ Communications sustained a working dialogue between the

practitioners and addicts of music and its countercultural aspects,

lending the Vancouver music scene a joie de vivre that was not

to be found, in the same assembly that constitutes a “lifestyle,” in

cities such as Montréal. While Toronto’s Transcendance (Bev May

and Ian Guthrie), London Ontario’s Dolphin Intelligence Network

(Dave Baphomet) and the infamous conceptual events of Plus

8/Richie Hawtin brought an organized sense of “total art” to the

subcultures, the “travelling” aspect most celebrated in Europe and

the UK was pursued to its furthest limit on the West Coast.

Although Hawtin’s cult following may have driven days to attend

events such as the Jak series, the constitution of the West Coast

“No Spectators” network lasts to this day as a way of living.

Only three hours by ferry from the mainland, Victoria’s narra-

tive is unique for a small-town scene that let loose a wave of sonic

generation. Dave Bodrug (a.k.a. The Alchemist, Dub Gnostic) went

West to Victoria after being involved in the industrial and techno

scene of London, Ontario. Arriving in Victoria in 1997, he aided the

formation of the techno scene by curating a series of events under

Operation Organic and later as bookings manager for the Neptune

SoundBar until his departure for Scotland in 1999. For the most

part, techno did not exist as such until two DJs, Billy Reburn and

Brent Carmichael, landed Derrick May in the mid-’90s, although

an admirable attempt by Jay Lev to introduce the bastions of

Chicago and Detroit fell through in true rave fashion.

Although underground, Detroit-influenced techno events

were happening on the mainland—primarily through the <ST>

Collective, technowest.org (the West Coast branch of Toronto’s

techno.ca), John Hawkey’s productions and the various events

organised by Thomas Hicks. The producers were to sprout from

the island, with Jae Chubb and his Whitebird Studios serving as

hub for a growing exchange of ideas and sound, a role he had

played before, when DJing a night aptly named “Berlin” with

Dhula in 1991. Although the countercultural aspects of the techno

scene have faded with the demise of the <ST> Collective, techno.ca

and technowest.org, the producers have marked an elegant, dis-

tinct sound of oceanic bass and uncanny repetition that earns

the corny yet accurate nomination of “natural techno.”

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