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MOD ON THE QUAD
SONIC SCAVENGER HUNT
Fri. Sept 19
11:30am – 2:30pm
BRANDON UNIVERSITY CAMPUS
Starting in Kavanaugh Courtyard at Brandon University at 11:30AM, follow your ears to find pop-up performances every hour on the half, somewhere on campus.
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Dan Fur
Paul Blandford’s path into audio sprang from his desire to bridge left-field styles of electronic music with dance floor-friendly genres. Adopting the moniker Dan Fur in 2016 he has produced, performed and released his own music on his unique collection of analog, hybrid, digital and modular synthesizers. Paul has been working with Dubreq Stylophone for…
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Bondegi
Bondegi is the audiovisual project of Winnipeg musician Chris Harder. Known for pushing the boundaries of electronic music, Harder’s architectural approach to music and visual composition blends experimental video techniques with custom software and modular synthesis to create spontaneous improvised landscapes of sound and imagery. Bondegi has appeared at events such as the Forthwith Festival,…
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Messytone
Chris Messytone is an experienced Synth/Accordionist from Portage LA Prairie. Not strictly an electronica artist per se, his repertoire is a stew of musical styles. Chris combines vintage synthesizers and electric accordion with effects to create sounds not typical of the instrument. Messytone is a genre defying experience somewhere between old and new worlds. Friday,…
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M. Gnitecki
What’s the buzz about Modular Synths? Modular enthusiast, basement producer, and BU Bachelor of Science grad Michal Gnitecki takes a scientific approach to synthesis inspired by his work in the environmental industry. Over the past 20 years Michal has become aware of, and has been working to remediate anthropological impacts across the Canadian Prairies. Employing…
this event is
SPONSORED BY
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ELECTROACOUSTIC INTERSECTIONS
PWM OPENING NIGHT SHOWCASE
Fri. Sept 19
7:00pm – 9:00pm | DOORS AT 6:30
LORNE WATSON RECITAL HALL
at BU school of musicThe opening night concert of the Festival of Electronic sound redefines the familiar timbre of acoustic instruments with the otherworldly sound of the modular synthesizer. This unexpected intersection brings old and new together with three acts who push to the boundaries of new music.
Drummer Jason Tait merges the worlds of acoustic percussion with modular synthesis, k.burwash will collaborate with violist Jennifer Theissen to improvise lush ambient soundscapes, and Kerey Harper performs a suite of new music compositions for moduar synthesizer and chamber ensemble, that resonate with the spirit of his home in St. Theresa Point First Nation.PROGRAM:
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kerey harper
Raised in the community of St. Theresa Point, his journey into the realm of music began with the echoes of melodies resonating through his home. Surrounded by siblings who shared a profound passion for music, he was immersed in its captivating allure from a tender age. As the years unfolded, his musical odyssey led through…
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k.burwash & j.theissen
For Prairie Wires Modular 2025, Edmonton synthesist Kris Burwash will collaborate with Winnipeg Violist Jennifer Theissen to perform a new semi-improvised work inspired by the piece Zinia Elegans from the album Amaranth Coral Fountain on Berberophone Recordings originally recorded by Burwash and Nadir Bellahmer in 2023. Friday, September 19 Electroacoustic Intersections: PWM Opening Night Showcase…
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Jason Tait
In a career spanning 30 plus years, Jason has played drums for such acts as The Weakerthans, Bahamas, Broken Social Scene and Do Make Say Think. 2019 found Jason stepping away from the drumset to focus on Electronic Music. For his performance at this year’s at Prairie Wires Festival, Jason will merge the two worlds…
this event is presented
in partnership with:
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WIGGLE & BLUNDER
ELECTRIC AFTERPARTY
Fri. Sept 19
9:30pm – late
The Dock On PrincessAn electrified dance party that will “Shock the Dock” with driving electronic beats and cyber-heartfeldt anthems. The party starts at 9:30PM with Acid Basement, the synthy alter-ego of the Route 10 Collective serial drummer Iain Edye, followed by electro-indie darling Blunderspublik making his first Manitoba appearance since relocating from Winnipeg to Guelph ON in 2015. The dream of the 90s will be alive in Brandon with old and new tracks reimagined for guitar and modular synth. The party gets at 11:00 when Stiff Wiggle, the queer mad scientist sent from the 80’s to freak you out takes the stage with their show wired for mature audiences! THIS is Synthpunk! This event is wired for “mature” audiences after 11:00PM.
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blunderspublik
With over 20 years experience in sound design, editing and music composition, Winnipeg expat Curtis Walker (a.k.a. Blunderspublik) has written and recorded music and sound for film, podcasts, dance, and live performance. The “spublik sound” is a blurring of synthetic and organic sound sources translated to binary code, sculpted, and organized into complex structures and…
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STIFF WIGGLE
“Queering the synth community with feedback loops of love. THIS is punk rock” Comparing their artistic personality to that of a ‘queer mad scientist from the ‘80s’, synthesizer enthusiast Stiff Wiggle will “Shock the Dock” with malicious grooves from their imposingly complicated modular synthesizer while screaming into a vocoder about lust and fear of abandonment.…
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Acid Basement
Hailing from Erickson, acidbasement is the alter ego of drummer, synthesist, songwriter, and vocalist-in-the-car Iain Edye. Deviating from his usual role as the drummer for the classic rock outfit Route Ten Collective, Edye’s original productions draw influences from 80’s synthpop, 90’s video games, gothic rock, and the monster under the bed. Saturday, September 20Wiggle & Blunder Electric AfterpartyThe…
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WANDERING WIRES
AMBIENT MORNING SOUNDTREK
SAT. Sept 20
10:00Am – 12:00pm
cHEZ ANGELA AND DOWNTOWN BRANDON
Start the second day of PWM2025 with an energizing soundbath. Grab a coffee and pastry at Chez Angela, then grab your sketchbooks and follow Wandering Brandon’s resident artists Dhairya and Michael on a guided art walking tour of Downtown Brandon. Draw what you hear. The streets will resonate at every unexpected intersection. This part of your journey ends, or perhaps begins again at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba.
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J. Theissen & A. Ortega
The best part of waking up…. grab a croissant and coffee at Chez Angela and bliss out to an ambient performance for viola and cello processed through electronics. Jennifer Thiessen and Ariadna Ortega begin the Ambient Morning Soundtrek Saturday morning. Meet up with Dhairya and Michael of the “Wandering Brandon” drawing group, and take a…
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K.Burwash
Raised in rural Saskatchewan, Kris Burwash had a much different relationship to music and sound. The quiet of prairie nights, the clamour of farm machinery, the blasting of 80s metal tapes cruising down back roads. In 2001, he opened Listen Records in Edmonton, a hub of experimental music in Western Canada. In 2007 he started…
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Qianna Zhen
Illustrations of visceral and subconscious emotion, and paintings to blur the line between living and not living. Qianna paints the abstract and inexplicable soundscape of being using noise, home electronics, synthesizers, and non-conventional instruments. Their sound explores the harsh and abrasive to soft and serene. Saturday, September 20Wandering Wires: Ambient Morning SoundtrekMystery Location (Meet at…
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Thomas Toews
Thomas Toews is an electronic musician from Winnipeg, MB. His improvised drone performances are an exploration of feedback and harmony. Using samples to contextualize a sometimes unfamiliar soundscape, Thomas creates a sort of texture music that is both anxious and hopeful. Toews performed at Prairie Wires’ Dronescape on International Drone Day 2024 and is returning…
this event is presented
in partnership with:
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PATCH & RELEASE
MODULAR SYNTHPOSEUM
SAT. Sept 20
12:00pm – 5:00pm
ART GALLERY OF SOUTHERSTERN MANITOBA
Discover a world of electronic sound at the third Prairie Wires Modular Meetup. Modular synthesists from across Canada will gather to share their passion for modular synthesis, and show off their one-of-a-kind systems that sit at the intersection of music, science and art. Every corner of the AGSM will come alive with electronic sound. Enjoy planned performances and spontaneous jam sessions. Try your hand at patching up a modular synth, or discover how to bend sound waves using free virtual synthesizers in the SoundLab. This event is free & family friendly.
DISPLAYS – DEMOS – PRESENTATIONS – HANDS-ON SYNTHLAB – PRIZES –
and MOREperformances by:
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Princess Dasha
Coming to you live from beyond the official broadcast band, fmmf is the live-sampling music project of Winnipeg/Treaty 1-based artist PRINCESS DASHA. Drawing on techniques and traditions of ghost-channeling, plunderphonics, experimental turntable-ism, and illegal leftist radio transmissions, PRINCESS DASHA re-dj’s the radio, bringing you high-femme glossolalias conjured from—what else!—the dying light of daytime fm itself.…
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probableSelves
probableSelves is a cinematic ambient drone duo formed in Winnipeg in 2023 by Chris Harder and Rob Menard. Emerging from years of collaboration and parallel projects, the two set out to create a living, breathing sonic landscape of tone and texture that feels both intimate and expansive. The project thrives on live transformation. Menard builds layers of…
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Dan Fur
Paul Blandford’s path into audio sprang from his desire to bridge left-field styles of electronic music with dance floor-friendly genres. Adopting the moniker Dan Fur in 2016 he has produced, performed and released his own music on his unique collection of analog, hybrid, digital and modular synthesizers. Paul has been working with Dubreq Stylophone for…
this event is presented
with support from:
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SPECTRASONIC INTERSECTIONS
PWM Finalé
SAT. Sept 20
DOORS AT 6:00PM – SHOW AT 6:30pm
BRANDON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MUSIC
The final concert of PWM2025 begins with a pre-concert haptic prelude in the Kinsmen Rehearsal Studio. Soft Verges, a performance and interactive installation of human activated sound stations that act as “modules” on a conceptual scale. The feature concert will begin at 7:00PM in the Lorne Watson Recital Hall bringing you on a sensory journey of sound and moving images that simultaneously redefine the familiar role of the guitar.
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arc
Arc creates dream-like meditative soundscapes with melodic layers, unique timbres and driving rhythms. The trio comprised of Indo-Canadian musician Stephen (The Venk) Venkatarangam (modular/semi-modular synths, plucked strings and effected flute and voice), Annabelle Brault (modular/semi-modular analog synths), and Adrian Aitken (digital drums) came together in 2018. The musicians’ diverse worlds merge in arc, a deep…
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Jeremy Young
Jeremy Young is a maker of concrète electronic tape music from Tiohtià:ke/Montréal, Québec. Making use of a sine and square wave oscillator system, analog 1/4″ tape and open reel loops, filtered radio and EMF signal, and foley-inspired sound treatments from amplified surfaces and objects, Young’s improvisational and compositional techniques are influenced by Cagean aleatoricism as well…
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greenhouse
Greenhouse is the moniker of St. Andrews, MB guitarist Curran Faris. Since 2009, Faris’s work is concerned with pushing, disguising, and erasing the sonic trademarks and tendencies of the electric guitar (and the guitarist) by utilizing an array of outboard effects and processing techniques commonly used in dub and electronic music. The results are akin…
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soft verges
Soft Verges is a newly conceived performative sound-art installation by cellists Leanne Zacharias and Ariadna Ortega Torres, both of Brandon. This modular adjacent installation involves a series of sonic and visual stations that act as modules in a grand structure: a Count to Five pedal connected to a vocal mic, a prepared cello lying on…
this event is presented
in partnership with:
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THE LAST PATCH
pwm WINNIPEG éncore
SUN. Sept 21
3:00PM – 6:00PM | doors 2:00pm
PUBLIC DOMAIN wINNIPEG, MB
Tickets $25 at the door$20 Advance Tickets available here
Prairie Wires and send + receive present a special Prairie Wires Modular Winnipeg Éncore Matineé featuring ex-pat and indie-darling Blunderspublik making his first Winnipeg appearance since moving to Guelph in 2015, playing old and new tracks reimagined for guitar and modular synthesizer. Also on the bill, Jeremy Young (Cloud Circuit, s+r 0.26) returns for a solo performance using 1/4 reel to reel tape and oscillators extrapolating the material from his two recent releases, “Cablcar” and “Masses”. To round out the afternoon, Edmonton ambient recording artist k.burwash makes his Winnipeg debut in a special collaboration with local experimental violist Jennifer Thiessen. Do not miss this once in a lifetime sonic event at Public Domain. Only in Winnipeg.
Program:
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k.burwash & j.theissen
For Prairie Wires Modular 2025, Edmonton synthesist Kris Burwash will collaborate with Winnipeg Violist Jennifer Theissen to perform a new semi-improvised work inspired by the piece Zinia Elegans from the album Amaranth Coral Fountain on Berberophone Recordings originally recorded by Burwash and Nadir Bellahmer in 2023. Friday, September 19 Electroacoustic Intersections: PWM Opening Night Showcase…
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blunderspublik
With over 20 years experience in sound design, editing and music composition, Winnipeg expat Curtis Walker (a.k.a. Blunderspublik) has written and recorded music and sound for film, podcasts, dance, and live performance. The “spublik sound” is a blurring of synthetic and organic sound sources translated to binary code, sculpted, and organized into complex structures and…
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Jeremy Young
Jeremy Young is a maker of concrète electronic tape music from Tiohtià:ke/Montréal, Québec. Making use of a sine and square wave oscillator system, analog 1/4″ tape and open reel loops, filtered radio and EMF signal, and foley-inspired sound treatments from amplified surfaces and objects, Young’s improvisational and compositional techniques are influenced by Cagean aleatoricism as well…
this event is presented
in partnership with:
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