VA - Other Rooms (2024)

Ben McCarthy and Cale Weir (aka Tax Haven, aka Compact Fade) run a bi-monthly event featuring experimental and ambient music. Ranging from noise, to performance art, thrumming beats and gay af rnb, to computer music and improvisation, mainstream's roster has brought together a holy cortege of freaks, bedroomers, avant gardists, virtuosos and minor legends, all of whom are making music in the greater Toronto scene.

With OTHER ROOMS the mainstream lads have paired up with Toronto's premiere ambient label Imaginary North (run by Daniel Field aka Kilometre Club), collecting ten tracks that represent this beautiful, broody and burgeoning scene.

Imaginary North has, since 2022, released a series of ambitious, high concept, and gorgeous albums, EPs, and compilations, on top of finding opportunities to host live ambient experiences in Toronto. In working with mainstream, the label has created a document of the exciting and unpredictable worlds of local experimental, ambient, and electronic music.

Amongst its ten tracks, OTHER ROOMS finds its three creators contributing tracks that reflect the sounds and moods of previous mainstream events. Other tracks include artists from the Greater Toronto area exploring sounds that reflect a vast Canadian metropolis and all of its noise, including Erin Corbett (fractured experimental electro-pop), Carson Teal (electroacoustic experimental sounds), shn shn (moody ambient-electronica), Fan Wu and Kohen Hammond (spoken word and experimental synth), and more.