You were young once, and I am sure you had time to conduct your own experiments in your basement. Well, the tradition continues with FRED from Project Nowhere. Here is a section of their website describing their mission.

Established in 2023, Project Nowhere is an innovative music festival featuring a lineup of local and international artists across multiple venues in Toronto’s buzzing Little Portugal neighbourhood. The team behind Project Nowhere is an artist-run collective, intent on cultivating and supporting the city’s vibrant music community with a strong DIY ethos.

The festival’s forward-thinking curation leans left of centre, featuring underground legends and ones-to-watch across genres spanning psych rock, post-punk, hardcore, avant garde/experimental, synth pop, and a range of electronic music. For a true multi-sensory experience, venues and stages are transformed with electrifying live projections from intentionally selected visual artist

Lee & Gamble Unlimited

With a windy opening the mood got dark really quickly with a fuzzy bass and what felt like a funeral drum. We seemed to be entering into a clodhopping mind meld of ritualistic uneasiness.

It was just two people at the helm, and they were constantly shifting space and reality into short stories. Soon after that, the logic goes and then goes and then…

This is a duet that likes keeping you off balance throughout their performance. It really works for older people because their equilibrium is already deteriorating.

This band creates a collage of original sounds that are filled with fleeting characters and have short choppy messages of despair.

Within these walls of a shifting sanitarium, you may hear music that zombies like to dance to. In fact, their garden of gothic delights is full of tiny thorns just waiting for you to walk straight into them.

Near the end of the set a plastic hose came out and that is when reality left the building.  You stood by left in a frozen status as you stood by and witnessed new spiritual traumas.

Once the music finished, a rush of reality filled in as you were left standing in a basement reeling from experiment #1.

Animatist

Once the opening notes began to fill the room with technical math problems, I was transported back to some early King Crimson, I am thinking circa early 1970’s. It was their tone and rhythm that brought me to this deduction. The band doesn’t try to be too progressive but using odd time signatures really keeps your listeners on their toes and at the edge of a migraine headache if they are not use to notes being played this way.

The beginning was a rough and ready ride on a decrepit train as we entered into the cloud like state of early Pink Floyd, who dropped acid rain for the sane. Yes, I am that old guy that will compare new sound to the ones I grew up with, so bear with me.

Once this band locks onto a solid sonic path, it really does feel like you are riding in a silver machine, and you have no map.

At one point the Sax and the guitar blended so well, the vibe seemed to slip between your super-ego and steal away your night.

The band played for about 40 minutes with an audience full of bliss because they all turned off the outside world and the basement became their bubble. The bubble burst when Danielle Fernandes began to spew blood all over her white T-shirt.

Experiment #2

High Alpine Hut Network

Now that is an interesting name. Now That I am reading it again, the sound they make seems to fit the name. What is more interesting is they had to extend the stage so the 8 members of this band could fit onto the stage.

It began as a far cry from a saxophone, as it slowly pulled the rest of the band to participate. It molded itself into a jazz fusion outfit. It was a blend of technical proficiency and improvisation.

It has a similar energy of Mahavishnu Orchestra and a bit of Weather report.

 I would like to take this moment out and mention the drummer whose fashion consisted of a really cool poncho. So, I would like to know, Is that a real poncho, or a Sears poncho? (Frank Zappa).

Another fun little moment is that the band each got different drinks by their station, but they were all working so hard, they couldn’t find the time to drink. Once the Saxophone player went into a solo, every member grabbed their drink to cool down in that moment.

This band has an erratic charm that beats your overactive brain into an active submission. It really is nice to have a band that creates an alternative universe where the entire room wants to congregate and thrive in the moment.

At one point the saxophonist seemed to be trapped in a vacuum and the rest of the band acted like a protective bubble to contain his meanderings.

Other moments sounded like torturing elephants, atom smashing and a duel between incoherent linguists.

That was just the second piece of music. By the third, they sounded a little more like a classic rock band that swerved into Miles Davis on a ski slope. As you neared the bottom of this trajectory, the groove ran a triathlon through a sweaty jungle.

They only played four pieces and that was all you needed to feel satisfied in the basements of non-stop experiments. Experiment #3

If you are into mind expanded and open concept music, feel free to check out these Instagram accounts.

www.instagram.com/projectnowherefest/

www.instagram.com/animatist.music/

www.instagram.com/highalpinehutnetwork/

Here are the images of an experimental night: