SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, 2026 Nate Waters (solo) + First show of 2026! Sometime back in 2025, Nate Waters (multi-reedist of various local jazz combos, including the Nate Waters Trio with Jeff Gammon and Afo Fapojuwo; leader of post-punk weirdos Eye of Newt; and member of Temps, Bennett Mitchell, and Samantha Savage Smith's band) played one of the finest sets of reeds & electronics that we've seen in recent memory. To help kick off the new year, Nate has agreed to revisit this approach on alto sax. Behold! Chris Dadge, along with Scott Munro and David Laing, formed Bug Incision some 20 years to release their own music and help audiences understand what they're getting into at their shows. Since then, he's played with many improvisors from all over the world (Joe Morris, Peter Evans, Eugene Chadbourne, Jason Kahn) and also established himself as a producer, engineer, and session musician in the pop music world (Alvvays, Chad Van Gaalen, Lab Coast, Samantha Savage Smith). On this night he will also play solo, on a relatively conventional drumkit. Jonathon Wilcke, the other runner of Bug Incision since 2012, is one of the city's most adventurous sonic explorers, most recently seen using the soprano saxophone as their highly potent method of delivery. Last year saw two fresh releases from Wilcke's mind, mouth, lungs, and fingers: the debut release from Eating Speed (their free jazz trio with Rob Oxoby and Eric Hamelin) and the head-spinning solo release My Horn Is Straighter Than Me. Jeremy Brown heads up the music department at the University of Calgary, and is widely regarded as one of the preeminent purveyors of reed-based new music. Recent highlights from him include Seas Coming For Me, a collaboration with experimental electronic duo NUM, and a few years ago, a killer duo recording with guitarist Joe Morris. This the first time these two intrepid hornspeople will have tussled, so don't miss it!
Tys Burger will be known to most as frontperson of the wonderfully weird and effusive post-punk ensemble Dial-Up, but is also a documentary filmmaker whose recent film Trans Canada was released in August and can be viewed on CBC Gem. This set will see Tys explore a short set of solo acoustic guitar music, that maybe has more in common with the solo album that was recently completed in late 2025. |
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SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2026 JESSICA ACKERLEY + in-between set music by DJ Jeremy Curry |
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SUNDAY, MARCH 29, 2026 Ad Hoc Ensembles, featuring: EZ HD: electronics + in-between set music by DJ Jeremy Curry |
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SUNDAY, APRIL 26, 2026 H ii Regions (from Montreal) An absolutely stacked night of fresh, forward-thinking groups traversing the crossover between free improvised music, jazz, and electronic textures. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ H ii Regions
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Way Ahead Trio is a coming together of composer/multi-instrumentalist David Lavoie, bassist Adam Pettigrew, and drummer Jon May. David can be found playing in a bewildering array of different projects, including singing and playing guitar in his post-punk band Temps, drumming in Aidan O'Reilly's (also of Temps) project Bluffing, and even playing double bass in a bluegrass combo. Here he is found playing the electronic valve instrument - EVI - a tool that translates his prowess on the traditional trumpet to an endless supply of electronic sound sources. The synth-like textures he conjures recall certain corners of '70s jazz/fusion such as Bob James' Touchdown album and certain strands of Weather Report. He is ably backed by the fluid and flexible rhythm section of Pettigrew and May, who are also insanely busy, in-demand Calgary players who collectively cover stylistic ground from jazz to ska to rock to funk and beyond. Their debut album Strays was released last year.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Quit Music is a new project from the duo of Nate Waters and Eric Hamelin. Both of these fellows are no stranger to the Bug Incision world; Hamelin first performed at a proto-Bug Incision concert at the Mutton Busting Festival in 2005, as part of an 8-piece group called The Whistleburn Ensemble. And for the better part of the last decade, Waters has been seen in a variety of ad hoc groupings, focused projects, and finely detailed solo performances at the series. When not quitting music, Hamelin also plays in Ghostkeeper, free jazz trio Eating Speed (with Jonathon Wilcke and Rob Oxoby), and maintains an ongoing musical rapport with composer, guitarist and instrument-builder Jay Crocker, mostly through their longrunning Nomoreshapes project. Waters is highly in demand, fronting his own art-pop project Eye of Newt, leading a jazz trio with Jeff Gammon and Afo Fapojuwo, co-leading Secreted Language (with Brock Geiger, Keith Rodger, and Chris Dadge), and playing bass and guitar with Samantha Savage Smith, Bennett Mitchell, and Brock Geiger. |
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SUNDAY, MAY 17, 2026 LAST ARK OUT (Vancouver) + Last Ark Out is a genre blending instrumental music project based in Vancouver (xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ lands) and Montréal (Tiohtià:ke), Canada. The group's sophomore album Lift is replete with “clever melodies and just enough harmonic curveballs [to] keep the genre fresh and alive.” (Downbeat Magazine). For fans of "Weather Report, Kneebody, Return to Forever, and Snarky Puppy, [Last Ark Out] is sure to appeal.” (Textura).
++++++++++++++++ We are pleased to welcome back Tim Olive, Canadian improviser and operator of 845 Records currently residing in Kobe, Japan. He will be joined on this date by Bug Incision founder Chris Dadge, reprising their duo documented on the 2020 album Nice You. From his website: Tim Olive uses magnetic pickups and simple analog technology to investigate, invoke and amplify the inner voices of metal objects. Born in Canada (Moose Jaw), long residing in Japan (Kobe), he has collaborated extensively with Alfredo Costa-Monteiro, Anne-F Jacques, Jason Kahn, Takahiro Kawaguchi, Katsura Mouri, Takuji Naka, Kayu Nakada, Jin Sangtae, Martin Tetreault, Yan Jun and many others. His discography includes releases on Asian, European and North American labels including AAD, Bent Window, BISAD, Chocolate Monk, Coherent States, Dasa Tapes, EM Records, Falt, Grisaille, MRM, Molt Fluid, Neus-318, Notice Recordings, Pilgrim Talk, Rural Isolation Project, Spleen Coffin, Steep Gloss, Tsss Tapes, Un Poco Fria, 845 Audio and more.
++++++++++++++++ i.o and Pet Retina are back, for what is quickly and happily becoming an annual tradition. They will be bringing their unique blend of mangled, chaotic electronics and Maxwell Patterson's jaw-dropping, densely detailed drumming style, which fuses studies in Carnatic rhythms with post-rock maximalism in the tradition of Zach Hill, Brian Chippendale, and Greg Fox. Always a face-melter, never to be missed.
++++++++++++++++ The Nate Waters Trio plays a bracing version of original modern jazz, threading their lean and conversational playing approach with samples and electronics. The trio consists of the titular man himself on saxophone and said samples, Jeff Gammon on double bass, and Afo Fapojuwo at the drumset. This will be their first appearance on the Bug Incision stage, and we are excited for this. |
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| SUNDAY, JULY 19, 2026 EMMEDIA: 2005 10th Avenue SW, Calgary Alberta Canada T3C 0K4 TICKETS: Free, $10 and $15 >>> GET THEM HERE DOORS AT 6pm, SHOW 7-10pm Bug Incision @ EMMEDIA We are extremely excited to be back at the Emmedia screening room for co-presentation featuring Bug Incision-curated 4 acts improvising alongside 2 Emmedia-curated video artists. Emmedia has been a central part of the Bug Incision story since the late '00s, and we are positively jazzed to be re-uniting with them for this collaboratively-programmed multi-media evening of music and visuals. |
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| MUSICIANS: NTH is the improvised synthetic noise project of Chad VanGaalen that has been in the works for almost a decade. It blends un quantized beats with morphing melodic samples that come and go with tape machines that are constantly being dragged through the swamp. Andrea Scala (drums + electronics) : The project involves the use of acoustic drums, samples, and other electronic elements, all played in a sort of one-man band. These compositions incorporate abstract rhythms, textures, noises and electronics, employing analog and digital processes. Everything is expressed through a system of improvisation within a musical structure, dictated by the interaction of different rhythms that overlap and generate incidents with other sounds in transit. The idea is to fuse all these elements together and transport them beyond the static, aiming to express something happening in the moment, generating chaos and movement. Organic and digital, human and machine, in total creative freedom, conceptually jazzy and adventurous. Born in Italy and based in Toronto, Andrea Scala is a drummer and composer. He showed a natural inclination towards percussive instruments and creative arts since he was a kid. Andrea started from a teen age to work as a live and studio session drummer with various bands and songwriters, gathering several collaborations with established musicians in the field of rock and progressive music. He toured with pop, alternative, jazz, folk and world-music bands, performing at festivals, venues and clubs in Europe, Canada, USA. He continues to collaborate and develop original musical projects together with creative composers and musicians. Chris Dadge (since 2006) and Jonathon Wilcke (since 2012) are the core operators of the Bug Incision series, which is currently in its 20th year of programming improvised and otherwise experimental music in Calgary. The two have maintained a duo for the last decade, Wilcke currently focusing on the soprano sax and Dadge negotiating a pile of drums and percussion. Their language is a spiky, abrasive one, filled with extremes of tone and dynamic shifts, and a moment-to-moment constant renegotiation of the music's trajectory. They've played and recorded with legendary improvising guitarist, and are two fifths of the group Circular Sparrow, alongside Nate Waters, Jiajia Li, and Lydia Pineau.
Meghana Iyer is an experimental video maker based in Mohkínstsis, Calgary, Alberta. Through the use of video, sculpture, performance, and glass, her practice explores themes of the self, materiality, and punk subcultures. A sampling of the work of multidisciplinary artist MODAL can be found on Instagram here. |
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