Gene Tellem^CA/QC

Whether taking centre stage as a DJ, party co-creator or producer, Gene Tellem communicates her own style of tweaked soul music through house and techno scripts, dedicating her productions to grooves for both nodding heads and wiggling bodies.

Montréal-bred, Gariépy plays piano, studied jazz guitar at CEGEP and leapt into electroacoustic composition at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal before breaking out as Gene Tellem. Her productions are largely self-taught and inspired by the reverie and energy of electronic dance events, infused with the rhythms, melodies, movements and collective emotions of the live underground club experience. A participant in Red Bull Music Academy Bass Camp Montréal 2017, she debuted with Who Says No, on Project Pablo and Sebastian Cowan's Sounds of Beaubien Ouest (SOBO) label. Inspired by the collaborative nature of the electronic artists around her, despite the rapid disappearance of the urban spaces they gathered and made music in, Gene Tellem crafted freeform structures and subtle transformations in her music, reflective of a state of ambiguity and a push into what comes next. Her follow-up album merges rolling drum machines with live percussion, sweeping and squelching synths and melodic piano, bending between atmospheric soundscapes and a determined bass beat. In duo Loose Excursions, Gariépy and Gabriel Reichhold assemble electronic music from around the globe on their n10.as radio show, adding their own live in studio jams of techno, house, dub and ambient, sometimes all at once.

A now seasoned conductor of vibes, Gene Tellem exudes all the hallmarks of a classic sonic digger, referencing the lush-leaning, groove-laden houses-of-the-past in her sound, with another ear keenly tuned to the progressions and peculiarities of genre-blending that defines our present. She makes her big room debut at MTelus, setting the table for the festival’s biggest night for the collective, transportive body-science of dance.

Appears as part of Amplify.
Amplify is led by the British Council, MUTEK and Somerset House Studios, with the support of Canada Council for the Arts.