A recent trip to the Utopia Now Festival at W2 just hammered home what I’ve known for a long time now. There are some amazing female producers in this city.
Jen Pearson makes what could only be described as ‘Geektronica’. As the Square Root of Evil, she’s spent the last few years taking breakcore, IDM, 8-bit chip tunes, and a stiff dose of acid and put it in a blender.
It’s the kind of art punk techno that only Vancouver could’ve created and it’s been acknowledged with sets at Mutek and across Europe. I have fond memories of watching Jen building a tune at a laptop battle a few years back and then going out and absolutely demolishing a room with it. The kid’s are definitely alright with what she’s doing. Anyone that has the legendary Patti Schmidt as a long time supporter has to be doing something good, and this doesn’t even account for her ambient work as X-41 (editors note, I’ve booked them more than once, they’re that damn good).
The lack of Platypus Toof at Utopia Now was an intriguing counter point – another prominent female experimental voice in this city who wasn’t there. I’ve known Amber Leigh for ages, she’s worked door at more bass music shows in this city than you would care to imagine, so she’s a face everybody knows.
Her early incursions as Red Clover were breathing taking walls of sound that could’ve and should’ve gotten more love at the time. She can sing too, anyone that can bust accapella about their laptop crashing deserves love. Now, drum machine in hand, she’s attacking dance floors as Platypus Toof, making the kind of music Alan Vega and Martin Rev could only hope to grind out of a synth and a drum machine at this stage.