Previous New York resident, now Honolulu-based, Alberta-born, daring improvising guitarist Jessica Ackerley’s first visit to Something Else! will be a great thrill for us all.
" Jessica weaves a distinctive path between atonality & tonality, noise & notes, while bringing heart to a style that can often reside in the head." – Guitar Moderne

Bodacious New York City quartet is led by trumpeter, composer Ralph Alessi, with Andy Milne piano, John Hébert double bass, Mark Ferber drums, organically towing the line between jazz, pop and contemporary classical (sans Ravi Coltrane, sadly). The band has toured Europe and the United States since 2004 playing venues such as The Earshot Festival in Seattle, RedCat Theatre in Los Angeles, Bimhuis in Amsterdam and The New Morning in Paris. Recently they released their 3rd album, Imaginary Friends which the London Guardian called “Alessi’s best album yet for ECM.”
Ralph Alessi photo by Peter Gannushkin

Borrowing the project’s title from a work by Canadian poet Meaghan McAneeley, Montréal voicalist / electronicist Erika Angell (was at last year’s festival with Thus Owls), Vancouver composer & improviser Róisín Adams on wurlitzer / piano and Canadian treasure, veteran Vancouver cellist Peggy Lee (also very present at 2022 SE!) explore how memories, pain, and a spectrum of emotions are stored in and continue to be carried by our physical bodies.

$25 advance tickets (for 3 acts) via Eventbrite
$35 door
$65 festival weekend pass Eventbrite
No one is refused admission for lack of funds

Half of Toronto’s multi-faceted Faster duo (with Kayla Milmine), composer, guitarist, visual artist Brian Abbott’s exciting solo project, microtonal guitar excursions, preternatural and organic, performed in Hamilton for the first time.

Evolver is a partially composed, partially improvised piece for 31 tone microtonal guitar. With each performance the piece grows and changes. This was performed at Array Space in Toronto on April 14th 2019. See video ––>

Music and the Shadow People is a story written by William Parker, who self published it in 1995. It takes place in a world that is "for the most part ruled, dominated, and being destroyed by HE," a world built on lies, a world "not in tune with the reality of the universe." It centers around two main characters: Johnson Wordless, a conscripted soldier in HIS Army, and Stockyman, a revolutionary figure trying to show people the path to the “Tone World.”

The story was adapted into a radio play by Andrew O’Connor, premiering on Austrian public radio’s KunstRadio. That work has since been further adapted by William and Andrew into a live performance for musicians, actors, and multi-channel sound design, styled in the German tradition of Hörspiel or live radio/sound play. Featuring original music composed by Parker, and immersive multi-channel sound design by O’Connor developed at the NAISA North Media Art Centre.

In Hamilton for the first time (after 4-5 years of planning), with William Parker writer, composer, ensemble director, bass, flutes, brass • Andrew O’Connor live multi- channel sound mixing, sound design, direction, production • Bea Labikova saxes, fujara, vibraphone • Kayla Milmine soprano sax • Anita Katakkar tabla, percussion • Rosina Kazi narrator • Mike Rinaldi Johnson Wordless • Trent Pardy Stockyman • Gary Kirkham live visual projections.

Tania Gill's name will undoubtedly be familiar to anyone that's been keeping a close eye on Toronto's jazz and experimental scenes over the past two decades. She is a member of the Brodie West Quintet, the Titillators, Rebecca Hennessy’s Makeshift Island; a former member of the Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band and Deep Dark United; and has performed with a long list of other prominent musicians including Steve Reich, Anthony Braxton, Andrew Downing and The Weather Station.

Tania Gill Quartet is a primary vehicle for her writing and playing. The group launched their debut Bolger Station (Barnyard Records) in 2010 to numerous accolades including a nomination for ‘debut album of the year’ in The Village Voice jazz critics’ poll, and a spot on The Globe and Mail's top 10 discs of the year. The quartet’s most recent recording, released in March 2022, is titled Disappearing Curiosities.

Tania Gill piano • Brodie West alto saxophone • Rob Clutton bass • Nico Dann drums

“…cleverly and completely effortlessly balances between modern jazz and the more unpredictable avant-garde” – Ivan RodDK

$25 advance tickets (for 3 acts) via Eventbrite
$35 door
$65 festival weekend pass via Eventbrite
No one is refused admission for lack of funds

PATRICIA NICHOLSON dance, text
WILLIAM PARKER bass, ngoni

Music and dance for a better world! Renowned New York City stalwarts of creative music and dance, bring music, words and movement to open hearts and minds to envision a compassionate world... embracing creativity to find strength and reclaim hope in a difficult time. Inspiring, much needed!

Craig Dunsmuir, Kurt Newman guitars • Josh Cole electric bass • Jay Anderson Roland Handsonic • Blake Howard percussion • Colin Fisher, Brodie West, Ted Crosby saxes 
"..reminiscent both of prog and Afrobeat, with sequenced rhythms cued by Dunsmuir and executed by the rhythm instruments while the electronics and saxes played through, occasionally dipping into composed melodies." – Nilan Perera

Susanna Hood photo by Frederic Chais

Unpacked by Susanna Hood Trio
Montreal-based bandleader and vocalist-dancer, Susanna Hood, along with the superb Toronto-based musicians, Tania Gill (piano) and Kayla Milmine (soprano saxophone) bring poet, Judith Malina and composer, Steve Lacy’s “Packet” suite to life through sound and movement. At the heart of the suite, a provocation: the emotional, embodied, unfettered female voice. Heart-felt, yet unsentimental, these eight songs hold no punches as they bring voice to a woman’s later life, grappling with imperfection, sexism, paradox, grit, beauty, regret, invisibility, death and love. 

"Remarkably, Susanna Hood proves to be impeccable when it comes to interpreting Steve Lacy's repertoire of magnificent songs. Her voice, expressive and sumptuous, makes us favorably forget the interpretations of Irene Aebi, Lacy's collaborator and first interpreter of his songs." – Montreal drummer, Michel F Côté

$25 advance tickets (for 3 acts) via Eventbrite
$35 door
$65 festival weekend pass via Eventbrite
No one is refused admission for lack of funds

Sarah Good conductress
Annie Shaw piano

Vocalists:
Tee Caterini • Bailey Duff • Babette de Jong • Olga Kirgidis • J Burbage • Katie Penrose • Jess Carey • Rebecca Duyzer • Christeen Urquhart • Emily Sattler • Ian Challenger • Jon Dalton • Kieran Commanda • Lee Skinner • Hope Wickett • Ania Fritch • Mimi Vukasevic • Amy Gowling

This ever-evolving local vocal institution Earth Wind & Choir introduced their fun, adventurous sound some 15 years ago. Conductress Sarah Good plays the choir of 15-20 dedicated creative vocalists like an instrument, presenting idiosyncratic takes on the most beautiful, ugly and/or interesting music the group can find—from early polyphony to avant-pop.

One time Blue Rodeo keyboardist, singer, guitarist, accordionist & songwriter Bob Wiseman has become even more prolific and artistically omnivorous since leaving the band in ‘92. His music is hard to pigeonhole varying from avant-garde to political pop. Wiseman makes super 8 films and videos that he accompanies live on accordion, guitar or piano.

He has co-written, produced and played on records for a wide variety of artists ranging from the Barenaked Ladies to John Oswald to Mendelson Joe, as well as scoring music for many television & film projects.

Wiseman toured with Feist, Final Fantasy, Ron Sexsmith, and Scott Thompson and was a guest performer with Wilco, The Wallflowers, Eugene Chadbourne, Jimmy Carl Black (of Frank Zappa), Edie Brickell, Michelle Wright, Ashley MacIsaac & Garland Jeffries.

From Chicago, New York City and Siena, HEAR in NOW is comprised of Mazz Swift on violin/ vocals, Silvia Bolognesi on double bass and Tomeka Reid on cello. A world-caliber collective of women working in a class almost entirely their own, HEAR in NOW is a string trio that composes and improvises fluidly between free jazz and contemporary classical, folk music and avant-garde. In over a decade since their first encounter, Hear in Now has become a rare egalitarian ensemble for three highly active musicians who are as often singular band leaders as they are sidewomen.

The trio’s compiled musical CV is as impressive as it is diverse – including collaborations, performances and recordings with Anthony Braxton, Nicole Mitchell, Butch Morris, William Parker, Common, Jay-Z and Kanye West. As a unit they have comprised half of the Roscoe Mitchell Sextet for several European shows in early 2017. Not Living in Fear, their second studio album, was engineered by Griffin Rodriguez (Icy Demons, Beirut, Modest Mouse) and Alex Inglizian (Experimental Sound Studio), and features guest vocals by Chicago jazz legend Dee Alexander.

"They begin by telling us stories, these stories have all kinds of twists and turns plots and counterplots. . . . The musicians use sound hieroglyphics to set up structures that construct and deconstruct regrouping after every excursion. These compositions change hue and timbre, landing at different positions then eventually returning to a place of silence. This is music with a new sensibility that flies and hops over fields of blues, jazz, bluegrass, classical, yet it is none of these things; it is MUSIC – nameless, eloquent, not locked into category." – William Parker

$25 advance tickets (for 3 acts) via Eventbrite
$35 door
$65 festival weekend pass via Eventbrite
No one is refused admission for lack of funds