CITIESOF
GLASS TWO
PART
IN 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’S
ELECTRONIC GEARS. TOBIAS C. VAN VEEN
PUTS ALL THE PIECES BACK IN PLACE.
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
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 ISLAND
Vancouver 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
CANADA__ 75

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-
76__ CANADA
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.
NETTWERKED EMPIRE
AND INDUSTRIAL ISOLATION
The 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.
PART TWO
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.
CANADA__ 77
PART TWO
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
78__ CANADA
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).
pre-date the first album: Total Terror and Nerve War). Two tan- EXPANSIONS INTO BROAD(ER) BAND
TACTICAL NEURAL IMPLANTS gents also overcame expectations: Delerium and Noise Unit. After The commercialization of Nettwerk’s roster heralded the mix-
There remains a cataclysm that matched Skinny Puppy in its a few dark ambient releases replete with chanting monks, begin- down of an era. Nettwerk was the inspiration and the glue to the
own right. The dark ambiance of Front Line Assembly (FLA), ning with Faces, Forms and Illusions (Dossier 1989), the cold drones city’s foul underbelly. At the same time, it failed to grasp the com-
tinged with the industrial aggression of electronic body music of Spheres and Spheres 2 (1994)—two underrated and subtle decla- ing electronic revolution (Although if Goettel had lived...? “I don’t
(EBM) is a labyrinth of productivity. When Bill Leeb left Skinny rations of spatial silence—were met the same year with a turn- know if the scene died as such but it changed,” says Spybey, after
Puppy he joined up with Michael Balch (1986-1990), and then around in sound, as the duo embraced “tribal” ambient house and Dwayne’s death and Key’s move to LA, taking Download with
Rhys Fulber (1990-) to create FLA, recording 50 releases to date, became known to the world with Semantic Spaces (Nettwerk). him). Perhaps this is too strong—but if the books be writ, we
beginning with 1987’s The Initial Command (KK Records) up to Noise Unit was Delerium’s inverse (Bill Leeb and Marc Verhaegan, must acknowledge a split...
this year’s, Civilization (Metropolis) (two cassette self-releases later Fulber), often serving as the basket for FLA outtakes. Vancouver is primarily known for its house scene through
In the early ’90s, tendrils were grasping at Puppy, with the the Nordic Trax label, and probably the most recognised DJ from
project Cyberaktif (Leeb with Key and Goettel), producing Vancouver in this respect is Tyler “T-Bone” Stadius. Tyler moved
Tenebrae Vision (1990, Wax Trax). A few other projects bloomed to Vancouver in the early ’80s, DJing funk, acid house, soul, reggae
(among too many to list here), including Fulber’s Will, with future and a “spot of techno.” Were there links between Vancouver’s
FLA member Chris Peterson and vocalist John McRae, and the industrial scene and the early rave culture? “No, not at all,” says
FLA techno/house incarnation Intermix. Tyler. “In the early days I’d play a Ministry or Front 242 track but
Today, it is with some surprise that FLA has released afresh. it was never my first love.”
Many felt that 2001’s Epitaph, with the uncanny release date of What of DJ Noah, friend of Robert Shea’s? Tyler remembers
“Everything Must Perish” on September 11th, 2001, would mark Noah well as a DJ who “played more techno than most,” but—
the last time that FLA was the duo’s focus after the massive suc- like most Vancouverites, native or immigrant—indifferent to the
cess of Delerium’s trance-pop superhit, “Silence” featuring Sarah wheels of history. Although Jones and Shea’s Discotext covered the
McLachlan (Nettwerk, 2000). Yet Civilization proves that the omi- industrial and electronic scene in Vancouver and worldwide for a
nous grey palette of Vancouver is beckoning once again, and that number of years until 1992, and faithful Discorder magazine from
the zone remains ripe for the programming of global angst via CiTR kept a finger on the screen, for many—and before the days
the interface of apocalyptic and spastic music. 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
CANADA__ 79
PART TW
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-
80__ CANADA
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
ads tk
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 VICTORIA
It 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,
 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.”
82__ CANADA
THE FESTIVAL CIRCUITS
Festivals 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.