On Feb. 1, The Union in Kitchener played host to a noise festival called Senseless Fest, the first of its kind put on in Kitchener-Waterloo. The one-day festival was organized by local noise musician and impresario Connor Kurtz, who performs under the name Important Hair and organizes local shows under the name Senseless Sensibilities.
As a normie whose closest habitual contact with noise music is a track by Japanese pioneer Merzbow that I use to find dropped bluetooth earbuds, sat down with Connor to learn what any of this means.
Noise music is a musical genre that eschews the formulas and rules like melody and rhythm that form the structure of every pop genre from hip-hop to country, presenting a more abstract kind of sound art intended to break barriers and reflect each individual performer in a unique way. Each performer approaches the art in distinct ways, and the lineup at Senseless Fest reflected this, showcasing a diverse range of influences from punk and techno to sampled pop and folk music.
According to Kurtz, an unassuming 30-something whose unassuming and pleasant demeanor contrasts remarkably with his chaotic live performances, the only absolute necessity is volume. “It’s loud. After that it can kinda be whatever you want it to be,” he said.
In the early 2000s the genre hit a commercial peak in the west after heavy metal music labels started marketing noise to metalheads. With this increase in visibility came a demographic association with metalheads and the toxic masculinity that plagued metal culture at the turn of the millennium and continues to this day.
But noise music has come a long way since then. Over the last 20 years the genre has undergone a conscious decoupling with heavy metal and a migration toward closer association with underground experimental do-it-yourself communities and punk-derived genres like screamo becoming a haven for left-of-center politics and queer performers. Now, according to Kurtz, “despite the music’s reputation, it’s not really an edgy group of guys that are playing, it’s mostly a bunch of softies and nerds.”
This shift toward inclusivity and accessibility was reflected in not only performers and audience at Senseless Fest, but also the structure of the festival. Unlike something like Lollapalooza or Coachella, the whole festival took place in one day, in one room in the suburbs of Kitchener. The last set of the day was finished before 11 p.m.
While trying to explain the culture of modern noise, Connor described an incident at a show he’d played in Toronto as a perfect metaphor for where the modern culture of noise sits.
At this show, a faux-mosh pit had broken out — instead of the violent pinwheeling, two-stepping and spin-kicking that are typically native to punk mosh pits, audience members had armed themselves with the studio venue’s pillows and spontaneously launched into a pillow fight.
Modern noise music embraces punk rock’s aggression, but dodges its most violent and toxically masculine tendencies. In practice, this means that the night passed without any disruption from drunk guys who are just looking to hit someone in the face. The festival represents a landmark in a mission that Kurtz has been pursuing for years — constructing a healthy, welcoming and self-sufficient noise scene in Kitchener-Waterloo.
The fledgeling scene has to deal with the economic limitations of making underground music. The small size of the scene means it is difficult to find venues; it costs money to put on shows and noise shows don’t usually make money. Because of this, most commercial venues don’t host them. The historical lack of scene in Kitchener-Waterloo and the invisibility of the genre isn’t immutable; Kurtz has seen his scene evangelism over the last few years pay off in the gradual emergence of a scene in KW, evidenced by the proliferation of new acts like Septentrionel, withoutfeathers and Liral.
According to Kurtz, there’s still a long way to go. “When I’ll really believe that a KW scene exists is when a noise show happens in Kitchener that I didn’t have any involvement with and I can go as just an audience member,” he said.
Despite this, Kurtz remains hopeful. “I think a lot of people want to be loud and obnoxious, yknow?” he said. There’s an element of universal appeal to the idea of being given total freedom to let out whatever’s burdening you. As he summarized it at the end of our conversation: “Here’s me, here’s how I feel, here’s it in your face and you can’t ignore that this is how I feel.”
The full audio of the festival is now available on Senseless Sensibilities’ Bandcamp at a pay-what-you-can rate.
Contributed Photo/Owen Kurtz
