Now Hear This 2026
Date: Friday, June 12, 2026 7:30 PM
Venue: Mile Zero Dance Space (9931 – 78 Avenue NW, Edmonton)
Multi-artist bill: kirmeve | Tamarack Cunningham | Borborygmi | Tzadeka | Andrew Noakes and Julian Eveneshen
Program
Subtle Awakening is an extended version of the lead track from kirmeve’s latest full-length release Serenity Revolution, featuring live improvisation. This meditative, ambient, experimental piece reflects the spirituality and healing kirmeve finds through music.
Frequency Modulation is an instrumental work that explores acoustic instruments, digital production, and atmospheric sound design. Developed over long nights and stolen moments, a soundtrack for a podcast that only sort of exists. The deep, organic sound of distortion and decay, lighter on doom than originally planned, but that’s okay sometimes. If you want to pin a genre on it, I suggest something like post-bardcore, electro-acoustica, baroque surf, dork ambient, or baltic-latin-dungeon synth. Frequency Modulation has never been performed live in it’s entirety before.
Peristalsis consists of short composed pieces strung together with improvised sections in conjunction with projected black and white video scope imagery. At the heart of the performance are two electric guitars, each routed through a myriad of effects pedals. The artists will create loops live layering sounds in real-time to build intricate soundscapes alongside the pre-created material. Their voices will also contribute, adding an organic and human element to the electronically manipulated work.
Spells Not Curses is an antidote to disconnection and despair, where, in an upside-down world, we can make sense of the senseless, and collectively hold grief, rage, love, and togetherness, all at the same time. Performance-as-ritual describes a relational experience, where an exchange of energy takes place, (something akin to magic), wherein we can embrace creation, destruction, and the possibilities of sacred transformation. Through ritual acts of poetry and improvised music, Spells Not Curses rejects art as commodity, and uplifts everyday acts of joy and justice.
Strike: music for trombone with effects and reactive visuals explores the emotional landscape of teaching in Alberta: the frustration, solidarity and search for joy. Audiences can expect layered ambient trombone soundscapes with immersive, reactive live visuals that serve as both narrative and setting. This is a collaboration between Edmonton’s Andrew Noakes Dwell and Julian Eveneshen (juni.dreams).
Thank you to our festival media sponsors Taproot Edmonton and Exclaim!, equipment sponsor Long and McQuade, and refreshment sponsor Sea Change Brewing Co!
About the Artists
kirmeve is Edmonton musician Paula Eve Kirman’s stage name for her experimental, drone, noise, and electronic music. Known as a singer/songwriter, kirmeve plays with layers of sounds, long tones, and meditative constructions. Her sound art is beginning to make an impression on the local experimental/drone/noise scene. https://wordspicturesmusic.com https://kirmeve.bandcamp.com
Tamarack Cunningham is a composer and songwriter who has turns up in a lot of different contexts. He’s worked as a soundtrack composer, festival producer, transcriber, educator and more. He’s been a working musician in the genres of traditional Métis and old-time music, afro-pop, jazz, and garage rock, to name a few. His recent work recontextualizes ideas from folk music, both familiar and obscure, within modern recording techniques, like distortion, looping and sampling. He lives in Edmonton.
Borborygmi is an improvisational guitar-based duo consisting of the long-standing collaboration of Clay Blacker and Darren Kooyman. After many years of playing and listening to metal, blues, and rock and the various sub genres within those types of music, they began to break from the rigid confines of the popular. Borborygmi are now meditating on the concept of being in a flow state and ‘painting’ with sound, creating soundscapes that can contain aspects of both realism and the abstract. Blacker and Kooyman are embarking on sonic explorations, creating spontaneous and evocative performances that challenge traditional musical forms.
Tzadeka (TZA-deka) is Maigan van der Giessen, an Edmonton based emcee who has been pushing the boundaries of poetry and music since putting out her first tracks with hip hop collective Eshod ibn Wyza back in 2003. Within her newest witch-hiphop project Spells Not Curses, Maigan’s soulful vocals travel across haunting loop pedal soundscapes, enacting poetic-spells and musical experiments, invoking the transformative power of performance-as-ritual.
Kirsten Elliott (flute & vocals) loves community and collaboration. She teaches both in schools and privately. She has played in numerous different contexts over the past 30 years. Always inspired by improvisation, Kirsten loves to play in a variety of musical genres in the realms of roots, hip hop, folk, jazz and beyond.
Afarin Nazarijou is a versatile pianist, qanun player, composer, and educator with a rich background spanning contemporary improvisation, Western classical music, Persian classical music, and music education.
Andrew Noakes (he/him) is a musician and educator currently residing in Treaty 6 Territory, colonially known as Edmonton. As trombonist, composer and bandleader of Andrew Noakes Dwell, Andrew looks to music as a way to connect to folks and build relationships: both with sound and instruments. For him, music tenderly holds history and experiences while also providing a playground to try out new worlds. https://andrewnoakes.ca/
Julian Eveneshen (juni.dreams) is an emerging audiovisual artist and musician based in Edmonton. He crafts visuals that evoke awe and reverence for nature, offering moments of transcendence and spiritual reconnection in our fragmented world. Julian’s work has been featured by New Standards, the ToneArt Collective, and most recently the Rocky Jazz String Orchestra.
Manny Valencia (percussion) is the musical director of Esquina Latina and was born in Canada from Salvadoran parents. He grew up in a musical family and has performed in various cities such as London, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Detroit, Miami, Calgary and now resides in Edmonton. Manny formed Esquina Latina in 2016 and has been active in the latin music scene of Edmonton as a Latin DJ and as well freelance musician. Esquina Latina brings hot tropical vibes to the dance floor you don’t want to miss
Ethan Graves (electro-acoustic percussion)
Jamie (Pedal Steel)
Jack MacDonald (Bass) currently attends MacEwan University, and is in his second year studying music performance. His playing is firmly rooted in the Jazz tradition; however, he pulls inspiration from many genres, such as funk and fusion. As a sideperson, he has played in many notable venues in town, such as The Aviary, Mimi Bar, and The Common. He also enjoys being a performer in musical theatre pit bands, and has performed at the Edmonton International Fringe Festival. He is currency honing his abilities as a performer as both an upright and electric bass player.
Accessibility
Mile Zero Dance Space (9931 – 78 Avenue NW, Edmonton): accessible building with multiple all-gender washrooms. There is a cleared path from the front door to the warehouse space. We have two accessible washroom facilities on the main floor as well. There is an automatic front door and the sidewalk outside needs to be improved. The #523 bus stops at 99 St and 78 Ave, approx 120 meters from the venue (stop #1542 SB, stop #22729 NB), and the #8 bus stops at Whyte Ave and 99 St, approx 500 meters from the venue (stop #1035 EB, #2824 WB)
