Thisquietarmy x Philippe Léonard^CA/QC

Thisquietarmy is an experimental guitar-based project created by Montrealer Eric Quach. Revolving around improvised drone music, he pushes his sound experiments further by adding textural and structural elements of post-punk/shoegaze, krautrock/spacerock and black/doom metal. The results can be described as dark, melodic, expansive and engaging landscapes. Since 2005, Thisquietarmy has released nearly 50 albums on more than 30 different labels and has accumulated nearly 600 performances in some 40 countries.

Philippe Léonard's artistic career is undoubtedly linked to media arts. Working with film, photography and video, his theoretical and aesthetic reflections focus on the complex temporality of still and moving images, the spectral dimension of physical spaces and extended documentary practices. Since 2009, his works have been presented in numerous festivals and galleries around the world. Director of 16mm films for the concerts of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Philippe Leonard formed the A/V duo Alchemic Rites with Eric Quach, an experimental alchemy project between cinema and sound.

Thisquietarmy x Philippe Léonard ^CA/QC - MSC ZOE 01.01.2019
World premiere

With MSCZOE-01.01.2019, Thisquietarmy x Philippe Léonard A/V duo pushes the concept of an enlarged cinema even further to recreate the scale of the maritime disaster of the MSC Zoe, which resulted in the loss of 290 containers at sea, swapping analog hardware for modern, minimal digital technology. For this work as immersive as it is post-apocalyptic, Leonard works with digital controllers and software from VJ-ing, while Thisquietarmy trades his guitars and amplifiers for more synthetic kosmische electronic drones and off-techno industrial rhythms pulsed from 'recorded samples.

In collaboration with Suoni Per Il Popolo