MOTHER CLOUD 2024 presented 9 programs, with a total of 38 artists, between February 21st and 25th. It saw roughly 1000 unique guests come through Performance Works on Granville Island to listen, hang out, discuss, dance, and reconfigure their senses in sound diffused by a 48-channel omnidirectional speaker array powered by 4DSOUND. 

The festival was presented by Strathcona Spatial Sound Society with the generous support from its sponsors and a group of volunteers that assisted with hospitality at the events. 

As the only music festival powered by 4DSOUND in North America, MOTHER CLOUD gathers boundary-defying sound artists, musicians, and pioneers of electronic music working with this software. The festival is also an opportunity to present selections from the incredible catalogue of spatial compositions created at Lobe, our home studio in Vancouver, and MONOM, our sister studio in Berlin. 

The program featured live, spatialized performances by world-class artists like Robert Rich, Marina Hasselberg, Huerco S, and Hiro Kone –  the world premier of Ruby Singh’s Vox.infold II –  spatial sound diffusions by international artists like Kali Malone, Andrea Belfi, Rrose, Huma Utku, and Zöe Mc Pherson and local artists Brandon Wint, Pendamental and ZAMEEN-A – sound baths and facilitated listening by Rena Anakwe, Romila Barryman, and Kate De Lorme, and late night DJ sets by Iha, Margo XS, Michael Red and Young Dene –  plus much more.

Across the breadth of these 5 days, MOTHER CLOUD celebrated the particular relationship between artist and audience that only a spatial sound system can manifest;,  we experienced the capacity to suspend time, thicken space, and diffuse temporary worlds. There were opportunities to go very deep, opportunities to go very far out, and opportunities to dance and be together.

What was shared will be imprinted on the ongoing work in spatial sound carried out at Lobe year-round, with great excitement to reconvene with new work for MOTHER CLOUD 2025. 

This festival would not have been possible without the enormous efforts of the team of people that put it on:

Alex Penney • Technical Director

Van Lefan • Assistant Technical Director

Hannah Acton • Head Curator

Kate De Lorme • Production Manager

Sevin Shabankareh • Graphic Design and Marketing

Edo Van Breemen • Artist Liaison

Photo Credits: Weylan Media