Poster by Najeeba Ahmed (@ajeebsir)
Pique returns to the Arts Court for its signature building-wide party showcasing underground music and art from across Turtle Island.
On September 23, 2023, Pique returns to the Arts Court for its signature building-wide party showcasing underground music and art from across Turtle Island.
For the second year, Debaser is pleased to announce its partnership with the Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF) to co-present the animation festival’s closing night party. Hundreds of the world’s leading and emerging animators will intermingle with Pique’s artistically adventurous audience for the multidisciplinary art party of the season.
The all-ages festival will present 25 artists across 7 stages and exhibition spaces, indoors and outdoors, for groundbreaking audio/visual performances, interactive art, screenings, talks, and more.
Admission is PAY-WHAT-YOU-CAN with a suggested contribution of $25-$50.
To purchase a ticket below or above the suggested sliding scale, please register for our pay-what-you-can ticket program.
PLEASE NOTE that while a tickets gains you access to the festival, each individual venue space within is subject to capacity, and your ticket does not guarantee you access to each performance. Consult the schedule and arrive early to the stage to ensure you catch the performance(s) you want to see!
The event is ALL AGES and licensed.
Visit thisispique.com for more info.
FEATURING...
Marker Starling
Yves Jarvis
Dorothea Paas
Mukazi
Jodie Jodie Roger
blackwinterwells
Hex-a-Decimal
MimiVirus
Los3r
Dent
E-Prime
God's Mom
Syana
myst milano.
Don't Trust Ryan
ethan 24k
Hard Science visuals
Mo:Delic and SlowPitchSound
Destiny
For more information, including our health and safety policies, and accessibility information, please visit thisispique.com
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Pique takes place on the stolen land of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg people. If you support our programming, please consider also donating to a local Indigenous organization or fundraiser. Learn more about this land acknowledgement and find educational resources and ways to support at www.debaser.ca/land-acknowledgement
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Please note the following health and safety policies that apply to audience members at Pique summer edition:
Free KN94 masks will be available to audience members while supplies last.
Wash and sanitize your hands often. Hand sanitizer will be placed at all box offices, bars, merch tables, food vendor area, and in large supply around the event.
Before attending the event, please do a self-assessment of your health. Are you experiencing symptoms of any communicable virus or illness? If yes, please DO NOT COME to the event site.
Pique organizers will also be taking the following measures to prevent the spread of infection:
HEPA air filtration units designed for larger rooms will be placed in Club SAW, the Studio and Theatre.
Stage crews will be supplied with disinfectant wipes/spray and asked to sanitize microphones between performances.
Free COVID-19 rapid tests for any artist, worker or volunteer are available on request, while supplies last.
For any artist or worker who must cancel their participation in the event due to a confirmed or suspected case of COVID-19, Debaser will honour 50% of their agreed-upon payment. If there are any artist cancellations related to COVID-19 or another infectious illness, we ask that audience members keep in mind our policy to honour 50% of payments when considering making a refund request.
Attendees are expected to respect one another. Violence, aggression, oppressive behaviour or language, or bullying will not be tolerated. If you are currently implicated in an accountability process, please ensure you are respecting the space and well-being of those your actions have affected before joining this space virtually or in person. If Debaser's staff and/or Board are made aware of any behaviour that violates our safety policy, the person(s) perpetuating this behaviour will be asked to leave immediately. We reserve the right to intervene and/or remove ANY person(s) in the space who are creating or contributing to an unsafe environment.
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The Arts Court is an accessible by entering at 67 Nicholas or 10 Daly avenue. Once inside, attendees can access all spaces and stages throughout, and all levels are accessible by elevator.
Wheelchair-accessible, gender-neutral washrooms are available throughout the building.
Click the following links for more accessibility and visitor information:
https://artscourt.ca/visitor-info-en
https://oaggao.ca/visit/plan-your-visit/
About the artists
Marker Starling
Marker Starling (Chris A. Cummings, formerly Mantler) has been performing in Toronto and elsewhere since 1999. Along the way, he released nine albums on such labels as Tomlab (Germany), Blocks Recording Club (Canada), and 7e.p. (Japan), as well as having a longtime association with UK-based Tin Angel Records. A chance encounter just prior to Covid's first wave resulted in Yet You Go On, a recorded duet with singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Dorothea Paas. The duet and other recordings (included on the recent album Diamond Violence) were followed by live performances in 2021-23 in which Paas became a full-time singer and guitarist in the Marker Starling band, which also includes longtime band members Jay Anderson (drums), Matt McLaren (bass) and Andrew Scott (guitar and keyboards) and brand new member Ed Squires (percussion).
Dorothea Pass
For over a decade, Dorothea Paas has honed her unique, prismatic style of folk songcraft, and has lent her talents as a guitarist and vocalist to artists like Jennifer Castle, U.S. Girls, Fucked Up and Badge Epoque Ensemble. Her debut album, Anything Can’t Happen (2021), was nominated for Polaris and FACTOR songwriting prizes and described by Exclaim as “Joni Mitchell fronting Shellac at a coffee shop”. Paas is now working on a second album while continuing to engage wholeheartedly in Toronto’s independent music community.
Mukazi
For a long time, it was Mukazi and her guitar in their own little world… but after receiving such an enthusiastic welcome from the Ottawa music scene at local events, she’s never been as ready to finally let others in! Now, everyone is welcome to Mukazi’s universe, and if you enjoy acoustic, indie tunes centred around heartfelt story-telling, you might even want to stay a while.
Jodie Jodie Roger
After almost dying at birth in a violent incident, Jodie Jodie Roger (not Canadian) took that personally and brings you a metal, electronic, death grips but not really, misery core vibe. With a blend of dark bass and internalised homophobia, this solo act portrays a poetic retelling of unfortunate events.
blackwinterwells
the enigmatic blackwinterwells has forever shifted the electronic landscape with their ghostly vocals and production since appearing from the aether in 2020. after four albums and hundreds of collaborations, blackwinterwells embarks on their first EU tour, "IMMORTAL," later this year.
Hex-a-Decimal
Hex-A-Decimal is the genre-spanning project of Dot Starkey, serving as an audio-visual artist in both performance art and visuals. Starting as a vaporwave project in 2015, Hex-A-Decimal has since morphed into a rave-influenced aggrotech project reflecting on the industrial cybergoth music scenes Hex used to be involved in while drawing from new internet movements in the digital fusion and hyperpop genres. Working as a visual artist for others, Hex uses 3D animation and modelling to create album art and live visuals using analog processing methods. Hex has run the online music label Lost Angles since 2015, under which she has released over 100 albums, including 3 of her own and working on the latest, "Venom Drenched".
MimiVirus
MimiVirus is a recording artist, music producer and multi disciplinary artist. She is a self identified terrorista fashionista and tranimalia. Being an Arab Trans woman and Alienne born and raised in Canada, she uses her experiences, observatiopns and disdain of the world around her to create experimental, fantasy based music. She loathes reality. She creates music based on various aspects of her and earth's experience, from macro to micro. Her music and art is created to live the extremities of our fantasies and unearthly worlds and inject them into the reality we live in. It is to heal our collective souls and to use the sound and visual as an expression of trauma, joy, and everything in between. She is obsessed with all expressions of the soul, both human and nonhuman in form.
Los3r
Los3r is a three piece experimental pop band from Ottawa, focusing on pushing sonic boundaries, establishing heartfelt melancholic lyrics, while maintaining a high energy. each respective member derives from a range of influences, making the songwriting a melting pot of unique ideas. Los3r formed in November of 2022, by Noah Perkins (Geunf), Thomas Khalil (User) , and Julien Martinet (dulien), who all went to highschool together. It originally started as a visual art project, deriving from Geunf's architectural background, and User's unique interest in experimental digital art. Things quickly began steering toward making music in January of the next year after embarking dulien's production and songwriting skills, having been making music on soundcloud under the dulien moniker for a few years. Since then, Los3r have put out 5 singles, and 1 EP, and plan to release more in the near future.
Dent
Having never succumbed to (in fact outright rejecting) the hip-hop sound synonymous with their native Toronto, DENT stands out remarkably as a rebellious and methodical MC. A dynamic lyricist, producer, and DJ they are an intrepid blender of genres. From turbulent guttural bars to casually intimate vocals. Nostalgia laced club tracks to intense industrial instrumentals. It's hard to deny that they are bending hip-hop past the genres limits, creating a raw new alternative sound.
Spotify | Bandcamp
E-Prime
Since the arrival of E-Prime with their debut single, August is an Angel, the duo, consisting of siblings Trevor & Jaclyn Blumas have been steadily making impressions with diggers and groovers with their infectious blend of 80s pop, old school house, new beat, 90s R n’ B, balearic and more. Thanks to some crucial support from global club DJs and nods from LA’s legendary KCRW and London’s NTS, E-Prime has cemented a solid grassroots following in their short existence thus far. Longtime purveyors of the underground might be familiar with the Blumas siblings from their previous project Doomsquad. Now based between Montreal and Toronto, Jaclyn and Trevor started E-Prime as a playful outlet to explore their shared love for infectious rhythms, melodies and antiquated early digital hardware. The result is a unique fusion that draws from familiar sounds across the aural spectrum of late 80s & 90s digi-pop explorations and situates them within the contemporary dancefloor mindset.
God's Mom
God's Mom is a Toronto-based group comprised of Bria Salmena (Orville Peck, Bria, Frigs, Sigil) and Andrew Matthews (WHIMM, Dime Lifters) that explores the combination of Calabrian folk singing and hedonistic dance music. Drawing equally from sleazy euro-trance, EBM, and Bria's Southern Italian heritage, God's Mom EP is a cacophonous celebration of life.
Syana
Syana is a multi-disciplinary artist, businesswoman and community organizer born & raised in Montreal. From DJ'ing at raves to self-producing her electronica EP '19 Years of Rage', Syana plays with sounds to insight emotions and move your body. Hard Techno or Electronic music, she has DJ'd and performed in many different settings, whether it's a rave, a festival or a local bar.
She is also the founder of DJTAL Studios, a DJ studio that offers studio time, classes, and a free youth program!
myst milano.
myst milano. is a multidisciplinary artist and community advocate best known for being an active DJ, performer and musician and part of the Canadian Ballroom (vogue) scene, as well as a news source and advocate during the 2020 George Floyd protests via online platform Club Quarantine.
Their debut, Polaris Prize long-listed album "Shapeshyfter" showcased their dynamism and range as a rapper and producer, and included 11 songs from different genres, serving as an exploration of themes varying from love & sexuality to dissatisfaction, police brutality and disconnection. The opening track “No Shade” was re-released by legendary London-based House music label Defected Records in October 2022.
Whether DJing a rave, MCing a bashment, hosting Beyoncé's official album release party, commentating a ball, or performing at a punk show in a garage, Myst is able to float between scenes, concepts and expressions with "stunning aplomb" [Bandcamp Daily, 2021]. Myst has shared stages with Rico Nasty, DMC, Lizzo, Tinashe, Kim Petras, Thundercat, and more, recently DJing for Defected Broadcasting House and Boiler Room. In addition, they've toured internationally, playing shows in Vancouver, Montreal, New York, Paris, Berlin, London, and Dublin, and have been featured in PAPER, Bandcamp, Bully Magazine, and the Toronto Star.
Ethan24k
Local DJ from Ottawa specializes in mixing tracks groovy, upbeat, deep & all around a hype & bold atmosphere.
Mo:Delic and SlowPitchSound
SlowPitchSound (Cheldon Paterson) is an award winning Toronto-based composer, mentor, and explorer of sound & visuals. He has collaborated with creators from a wide range of disciplines including opera, jazz, classical, electronic music, theatre and dance. His unique style of music production and self proclaimed "scifi-turntablism" has been nominated for a DORA award for Outstanding Sound Design/Composition.
Mo:delic Arts (Vanese Smith) Creating and performing electronic music as Pursuit Grooves, Vanese began Mo:delic Arts in 2015 as the visual component of her performance and merchandising. Inspired by geometric shapes, psychedelia, fantasy, nature, and architecture, Vanese uses collage, illustration, photography, digital tools, and a turntable to create experimental live visuals for herself and other live performers.
Destiny
Selector-shapeshifter Destiny has spent over a decade honing her inimitable sound on Montreal & Toronto dance floors. From underground raves to late-night FM radio bricolages to her day job slinging dance 12”s at Death of Vinyl, she is a constant, inescapable presence in the fabric of Tio'tia:ke’s music communities. Fearless in her taste statements and mixing style, she deploys a punkish, cut-up approach that encompasses everything from riddims to reels and all in-between.
Thank you to our Sponsors and Partners:
Pique is presented in partnership with the Arts Court, SAW, Ottawa International Animation Festival, Ottawa Fringe, Digital Arts Resource Centre, Ottawa Art Gallery, the Canadian Film Institute, Artengine, and the Ottawa Dance Directive, with support from Kilam Media, Wall Sound, Collective Arts Brewing Company, Postering Ottawa, n.10.as, Apt613, and CKCU FM, and is funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada through the Community Services Recovery Fund, the Ontario Trillium Foundation, Canadian Heritage, the City of Ottawa, the Ontario Arts Council, and the SOCAN Foundation.
