Have you ever heard of Cadavre Exquis? It is a game consisting of producing a collective oeuvre, without knowing what others have drawn or written before your turn.

At Octov, we thought it would be an interesting and fun challenge to transpose this exercise to music. So we asked artists to create a track together, having only for reference a musical theme and technical specs.

Each artist was assigned to focus either on the rhythmics (kicks, percussions, rhythmic structure etc. mixing), melody (synthesizer, melodic orientation, lead bass etc.), or sound design (other synthesizers, effects, ambience, sound design, final mix etc.)

This first edition was a real success. Stay tuned for season 2!

It is a fact by now: COVID hit us and did not spare the music industry. But we could not stop everything, our contact with the public, the artists…

So we decided to keep the night on, even though we could not be reunited. That is when RAVE’IN was created. We developed a streaming concept where artists could still play their music and share their creativity through a platform.

This way, the idea of partying on Friday or Saturday was still alive, but at home!

The concept of Parenthèse was first born from the desire to make accessible different international DJs who were never produced in Canada to electronic music lovers as well as neophytes.

With this concept, we are trying to find different venues for each night and to keep an underground spirit which is specific to our universe.

The goal is usually to invite an artist to perform a set (live or DJ set) for a duration of 6 to 7 hours. A prowess for some, a challenge for others, everybody put their heart into the process. This allows DJs to challenge themselves for such a duration and to perform unique sets.

We usually have the artists representing OCTOV for the warm-up. We also invite other local artists to show to our public the diversity of Montreal’s scene.

We offer workshops on Zoom, designed for artists to know more about a specific topic. We aim at helping creators and musicians boosting their careers. In the past years we talked about: the queer techno scene, raving and safe spaces with softcoresoft, Mathilda Von der Meersch -founder of Possession, and RIEN VJ; promoting your music with Bittercaress.

And our most recent conference with BitterCaress: “being your own manager” where you learn how to,

• Understand what are the main challenges of being your own manager;

• Understand how to build an effective career strategy;

• Structure and organize the business side of your artistic career;

• Understand what should come first and how to prioritise tasks;

• Sell yourself and contact promoters.
  
  

We meet so many talented artists, we decided to dedicate them a monthly podcast series combining interview and music.

Expect to learn a little more about artists and their projects as well as to satisfy your ears for an hour.

(WIP, more to come)