Darkroom (2025 / current)

Darkroom is a free annual experimental music event that takes place during the Constellation anarchist festival in Montreal.

I really wanted to organize an event that took place in a blank space - I didn't want to see TV's, I didn't want there to be a bar selling drinks. I think I'm sort of sick of people wanting my money and pulling my attention. Amazingly, my friend Stefan from Toronto recently opened a used clothing store in Montreal and told me about the empty space on the second floor above. I went to check it out and it was absolutely perfect. The fact that people would need to enter the space by first walking through a clothing store was even better.

I met Stefan somehow, maybe through a group of Toronto people that put on monthly synthesizer events there. We had been emailing back and forth for a few years about resonant strings and he introduced me to the music of Alvil Lucier. He DIY built his own musical instrument based on some of these concepts and I've been totally obsessed with it since I first heard it - this is the exact type of thing I wanted this music event idea to highlight.

My buddy Patrick has been organizing events around Montreal for years and also does some fantastic modular synth performances and recently started experimenting with reactive lasers. Between the three of us, the event came together fast. We all agreed that the space should be lit dimly with red incandescent light bulbs and after a late night phone call with my buddy Ryan, I figured it should be called "darkroom".

Darkroom is a way for me to meet musicians in Montreal that are doing cool shit and so far I have not been disappointed. We've hosted people making music with extended Hurdy-Gurdy, arduino-controlled harpsichords, modular synths, dimmed flourescent lights and bowed cymbals. Since I'm trying to avoid social media for this event, we have people write their email address on a clipboard if they'd like to be notified of the next event. I try to capture audio from all of the performances and post it on the website.