Primitive Isolation Tactics had a darker, more constrained sound, as if channelling the voices of arcane shades through sound processing and what seemed to be a child’s turntable. There was a strange intimacy to the Montreal based performer’s sound that brought many audience members from standing, to sitting on the hard floor near the front. There was plenty of comfortable seating to the side, but it seemed no one wanted to miss the experience.

Finally, The Nausea, from Vancouver, stepped forward with a violin and plugged it into her equipment. She then proceeded to weave together haunting violin lines, combining them with screams of white noise created with an aggressive bowing technique that sent bow hairs flying.  While other performers had created what seemed like individual, evolving, exploratory creation, The Nausea performed discrete movements with detailed attention to structure and flow. She played simple melodies, raised them to orchestral glamour, and destroyed them with some of the most intense and cathartic distortion I have ever heard. It was a satisfying finale to a night of unconventional, yet beautiful, music.

This night of harsh noise stood out to me as the kind of thing that rarely happens outside of events like Sound Symposium. Challenging sonic explorations struggle to find a place in a music industry biased towards tourism and commercially viable cultural exports. Sound Symposium, however, puts art and community at the forefront. At this year’s symposium I felt things. I learned things. I listened to music in a public pool with my friends and what seemed like half of the local music community. Most of the events are free or inexpensive, and frequently interactive or immersive, making a range of art and sound accessible to the public. I am already looking forward to the next Sound Symposium, where surely there will be more enchanting and wholly unexpected sonic experiences.