Snowblower
RJD2, Krazy Baldhead, Ikonika, Mat the Alien, Subvert & more
The second annual FREE outdoor mid-winter dance party! Celebrate Calgary’s Olympic legacy on the plaza!
The mind-blowing music spectacle returns, transforming Olympic Plaza into a winter wonderland of new media. This free outdoor event includes glowing trees, hot cocoa, fire performers, video installations and huge audio from international electronic artists whose beats will get your feet moving.
This year's lineup includes RJD2, Krazy Baldhead, Ikonika, Mat the Alien, Subvert and Piranha Piranha with lighting & stage design by PK Sound. Snowblower also features Arcfire, Beama Visual Environments and HPR's Freak Show and Midway, spilling outdoors! Plus - burn barrels, bodypaint art, fire performances and an indoor bar!
This will be the party of the winter - don't miss it.
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Artist Bios:
Rjd2 - Krazy Baldhead - Ikonika - Mat the Alien - Subvert
RJD2, USA - RJ's Electrical Connections
www.rjselectricalconnections.com
The major labels are crumbling. The economy is collapsing. Your neighbor came home with SARS. Teenage youth are more armed than Ted Nugent. There will never, ever, be a new episode of Friends. Not to worry, though. Rjd2 has a new album.
On his breakout solo debut, Deadringer, Rjd2 sent listeners on a musical foray into instrumentalism, feasting on styles both old and new, and in the process creating a sound that’s emerging as one of the most interesting and exciting new voices in instrumental music. In a genre filled with ambient spacemen and droning techno fromage, Rjd2 brought a sense of song structure and vitality that was sorely missing, harkening back to a time when instrumental groups like Booker T. and the MGs got radio play (no joke). Deadringer was an incredible success globally, appearing on many a year-end list, including Spin’s Top 40 Albums of 2002. In ’03, he followed up the success of his debut with The Horror, an EP of B-sides that played closer to an entirely new album than a collection of leftovers, and cemented Rjd2 as one of music’s most talked about new artists. Touring from Japan to Amsterdam, Rj caught wreck with a dizzying 4-turntable reconstruction/reconfiguring/reinterpretation of the album for fans worldwide, sharing the stage with the likes of DJ Shadow, El-P & the Def Jux crew, David Lynch, The Roots and Prefuse 73, amongst others.
While Rj soon became the name to drop in hipster circles, he made his bones in the underground, playing a major role in that mid-west power surge better know as Columbus hip hop. After setting it off in 1998 with the mighty Mhz crew on Bobbito Garcia’s legendary Fondle Em Records, he caught the attention of El-P and in 2000, he locked in with the Definitive Jux camp, and soon after made his DJX debut on Def Jux Presents I, co-starring with Company Flow, Cannibal Ox and Aesop Rock. Then came the now classic "Good Times" white label 12-inch, and the rest has been indie hip hop history.
As one half of the duo Soul Position, he’s the ultimate team player, taking a back seat to his MC, Blueprint, and letting him do the talking, while RJ’s music keeps the heads nodding. Their 8 Million Stories LP was received in 2003 to rave reviews and continues to nod, and turn, heads.
2004’s self-titled album was a more focused and cohesive effort than Dead Ringer, while still maintaining the vitality and soulfulness that made his debut so enjoyable. Like a modern day Quincy Jones in the abstract, RJ truly orchestrated this record, creating a multitude of new songs from all angles, writing music and lyrics, arranging vocals and melodies, auditioning singers and even experimenting with a vocoder.
2006 saw the release of the collaborative record Magnificent City with Aceyalone. In 2007, he released the solo album The Third Hand on XL Recordings, which he toured extensively in '07 and '08. 2009 saw the launch of his label RJ'S Electrical Connections on which the Jan 2010 album The Colossus was released.
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KRAZY BALDHEAD, France - Ed Banger Recordings
Krazy Baldhead is a French producer and jazzman from Marseille, France. After attending classical concerts with his parents and studying the piano during his youth, he began to make electro beats as soon as he could buy some production hardware in 1998. In 2002 he began to seriously look for a label, released a few "obscure things", and finally joined Ed Banger in 2004 after seducing Pedro Winter with a demo.
Just like Sebastian, Justice or DJ Mehdi, KRAZY BALDHEAD has become one of the mainstays of the label. He was part of the ED REC Vol.II adventure, with his freezing «Strings of Death», and we saw him again on the last compilation of the label, ED REC Vol. III with the spaced out «No Cow, No Pow».
Fan of big beat, the 90s Ninja Tune and Warp sound (Prefuse73, Amon Tobin, Funkstörung...), he also listens to a lot of old school hip-hop and jazz artists such as Miles Davis (E.S.P. being one of his favourite records), Bill Evans, Herbie, Wayne Shorter. All of these influences can be heard in his sets, mixing electro with breakbeats and hip-hop. There is some blues in his music, but there is above all that liberty his ten years of jazz and his current live performances give him.
2009 sees the release of his first full length album, THE B-SUITE, four movements and 49 minutes of music. We find TES on a track, and Outlines on the single «Sweet Night». More than ever, KRAZY BALDHEAD proves that Ed Banger records isn't only the label of a sound, but well and truly the label of an era. Is it an electro album? A hip hop album? Up to you.
Krazy Baldhead's Calgary performance is made possible with the assistance of the Consulate of France in Calgary.
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IKONIKA, UK - Hyperdub / Planet Mu
With her brilliant debut release Please, Ikonika firmly established her place in the Dubstep landscape. Her unique sound continues to progress with further releases on Hyperdub and Planet Mu, as well as a stunning remix of DJ Mujava's 'Township Funk' (Warp). Ikonika's music combines melodic synth patterns, driving drums, melancholic sub bass and unorthodox song structures, simultaneously heartfelt and heavy. Her tracks have been supported by everyone from Kode9, Martyn and Mary Anne Hobbs (BBC Radio 1) to Rob Da Bank (BBC Radio 1) and Flying Lotus. As an in-demand DJ, her sets showcase the constantly mutating underground sounds of the UK, spanning from the freshest Dubstep and Funky dubplates to the classic foundations of House and Garage. With her debut album Contact, Want, Love, Have released on Hyperdub in early 2010, a raft of remixes and a busy DJ schedule, Ikonika is certain to fulfil her potential as one the UK's brightest stars.
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MAT THE ALIEN, Canada
Let’s clear something up. Technically Mat is not an Alien. He grew up not too far from Manchester (u.k.) and moved to Canada in the mid 90’s to follow his snowboarding addiction, which he stumbled upon during a trip to Austria. He has been dj’ing since 1988 and was inspired to play the drums by local bands such as The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays. After being introduced to the dj culture of the acid house warehouse parties, he was hooked on blending beats on the turntables. He further developed his style while working in his family’s record store, opened by his dad when he was 4. Mat’s music selection appeals to a wide variety of crowds, spanning many genres from Hip-Hop, Glitch Hop, Dubstep, funk, dance-hall, breakbeats, electro, drum & bass, rock, and more. He learned this from dj’ing in Whistler to varied crowds of people visiting from all over the world. His style has been described by Knowledge Magazine as, “Awe inspiring & some next level sh*t.” This regional hero and Calgary favorite will be sure to please.
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SUBVERT, Canada – PK Sound / Rottun Recordings / Muti Music
Subvert hails from Calgary, Alberta and has been winding his path through music since 1996. Proof of his dedication to ‘Bass’ is in his track record of creating the world’s loudest competition vehicles, designing PK’s 100,000 watt sound system and managing the Village Stage at Shambhala Music Festival. He started DJing in 2000 and combined with his extensive work on sound systems and attention to precision sound, he was ultimately & naturally led down the path to creating his own music productions and once again the low frequencies consumed him. Subvert’s sound is a combination of throbbing, relentless basslines, melodic strings and haunting pianos singing through midtempo glitch / acid crunk and dubstep. His attention to detail and the ability to tune into ‘bass that works’ can be felt in all of his music productions.
It’s all about the bass...
this event sponsored by
