Renowned new electroacoustic artist Kaffe Matthews brings us music for bodies.

With Sonic Bed_Quebec, Matthews invites spectators to experience music on a sensory level by lying on a catalogne-covered mattress in a large wooden bed and letting themselves be lulled by the vibrations and pulsations of sound. With its bark-covered side panels, six concealed subwoofers and eight surroundsound speakers, this recent Quebecois version of Sonic Bed provides an opportunity to explore multi-channel music created not only for the ears, but also the body.

Sonic Bed started in London in 2006, spawning local versions of beds in different cities such as Shanghai, Taipei, Mexico and Marfa. This version of the resonant bed is infused with commissioned soundtracks by Canadian sound artists Magali Babin, John Oswald and Georges Azzaria.

Presented at Mois Multi in 2007 and 2008, the original version of Sonic Bed_Quebec was coproduced by Avatar and Recto-Verso. Sonic Bed_Quebec (version 2) is a coproduction by Recto-Verso and OBORO presented in collaboration with Elektra Festival.

Since 1990, Kaffe Matthews has been one of the most active artists on the new electronic music scene. She uses custom designed software as well as a mic, a theremin, and feedback. It is this practice that she has shifted to sonic furniture building with Sonic_Bed London (2005), which has led to the creation of a substantial ongoing venture: the worldwide Bed Project. It is an operation led by the research project music for bodies directed by Matthews, and of which she plans to create twelve versions internationally.
http://www.kaffematthews.net
http://www.musicforbodies.net

Georges Azzaria is a sound artist who, drawn by radio experimentation in the mid-1980s, later became involved in the creation of sound object. Law professor at Laval University, Georges Azzaria was a member of the group Bruit TTV (1987-1993), has given numerous performances and recorded two CDs. Aside from exhibits of his instruments and his sound performances in Quebec and Europe, he has produced a number of soundtracks for film and the theater.

Magali Babin alters, performs, composes, improvises with noises, sound, and the sound of noise. She does so with certain digital tools but mostly with ordinary objects, contact mics, and turntables, not to mention the environment surrounding her. She acts alone, as part of a trio (Mineminemine), a quartet (Martin Tétreault’s Quatuor de tables tournantes) or within variable geographies (Nocinéma.org). Magali Babin meditates very seriously and as frequently as possible on the following concepts: the sound geography of objects, the space of sounds and sounds in space, interferences between sound microcosm and macrocosm, inexistent silence. Her work has been heard here and there: Mutek, Rien à voir, Suonidelpopolo (Montreal), MoisMulti, Excavation sonore (Quebec), send+receive (Winnipeg), Transmédiales (Berlin), Hight Zero (USA), NewMusicFestival (Vancouver), Root Festival (England).
http://www.magalibabin.com
http://www.myspace.com/magalibabin/
http://www.electrocd.com/bio/babin_ma/

John Oswald is a saxophonist, composer, dancer, media artist, and among the most remarkable Canadian artists on the current music scene. Active on a number of fronts since the 1970s, he is renowned worldwide, especially for his album Plunderphonics (1990), which is a sonic patchwork of existing music. His arrangements belong to the repertoire of major orchestras, for example the Kronos Quartet, and several national ballets. In 2004, he won the Governor General’s award for Visual and Media Arts.