X AVANT XIII: Los Poetas

EARLYBIRD FESTIVAL PASS $40

The Music Gallery presents
X Avant XIII: The Halluci Nation Night 3
Los Poetas Ajpu CD Pre-Release + Above Top Secret + Ziibiwan

Bear envisioned Saturday’s programming devoted to creative beats. Toronto has a lot to offer on that score. This is music that resonates in vastly different ways but proves our hometown vitality.

Los Poetas features Louwop, Che Uno, and Afantú, Vancouver-based producer Vago, DJ Grouch. They are supported by a group of Canadian-based, Pan-Latinx master musicians.

Originally their collective musical gaze was on 1970s Nuyork Salsa and the era of boom bap Hip-Hop that would come out of New York two decades later; now Los Poetas have gone further back and deeper into their genetic memory. Los Poetas look beyond the music of their parents generation towards the indigenous roots of spoken word cadences, drum patterns and melodies. Their forthcoming recording is entitled Ajpu and a special pre-release selection of tracks will be available at the show.

Above Top Secret is one of the main projects of Toronto cultural force Ayo Leilani, AKA Witch Prophet, who’s both performed and curated at the MG in recent years. Cultivating a hardcore electro/dub/hop mash-up sound with self-produced bass-heavy beats and politically charged lyrics, the group also features producer/vocalist/co-writer Sun Sun and percussionist Brandon Valdivia. They demand attention and help to awaken those still asleep in this ever growing matrix we call life. They’ve shared the stage with the likes of  Shabazz Palaces, Lido Pimienta, THEESatisfaction, and DāM FunK just to name a few.

Ziibiwan, tipped as an electronic musician to watch by Now Magazine this year, explores many different genres with they work but pulls most inspiration from contemporary R&B and alternative artists such as Radiohead and Björk. Their ethereal sonic landscape opens into deeply hypnotic spaces where land, sky, and deep sea meet.

Stepping in for Jax A Muse for our first Saturday night concert is veteran VJ zumone (Solstice Gathering, Suma). Teaching children by day, and bringing big kids together to dance by night, zumone is a multitasking and multidisciplinary artist that works with space, audio, video and light to create alluring and mystifying experiences.