"Chris Dadge lives in Calgary, Alberta, where he works as a percussionist, producer, composer, multi-instrumentalist, record label operator, and concert organizer.

As an improvising musician, Dadge has spent the bulk of his years playing percussion, developing a voice based on an increasingly open-ended variety of sound-generating objects, integrating found items, extreme tunings, and re-purposed strings. Massimo Ricci writes, "the almost perfect balance between skin, wood and metal-derived timbres is definitely cherished," and a review from Volcanic Tongue noted, "Dadge has a fleet, needling style that would transpose Milford Grave's multi-pulse work to a looser, more thought-paced setting, working in bursts of propulsion and single emphatic sound events." This underlying quest for a personalized vocabulary led to the broadening of the instrumental palette, adding violin, broken electronics, crude sampling, and various other small instruments to the list. The current realization of this approach can be heard in Dadge's solo work (on albums such as A Bird Is A Light Thing and What Comes After Dust) as well as with Scott Munro in the Bent Spoon Duo. The duo, which has been active for over a decade, "approach[es] improvisation from an anti-classicist stance, instead opting for a scrape and drape sound that finds the two moving between instruments and mood in rapid fire succession," (Ear-Conditioned Nightmare) and The Wire's Byron Coley calls it "splendid, low-bore Improv racket in the classic pots-and-pans style." Dadge plays regularly with guitarist Cody Oliver (as The MIdnighties) and saxophonist Jonathon Wilcke, and has worked with Peter Evans, Joe Morris, Eugene Chadbourne, Jack Wright, Chris Riggs, Eric Chenaux, Mats Gustafsson, Christian Munthe, Ellwood Epps, Chad van Gaalen, Bill Horist, Fossils/David Payne, John Oswald, and Colin Fisher.

The activities in improvised music were umbrella'd over a decade ago, under the name Bug Incision (www.bugincision.com), which is a concert series and record label run by Dadge. Over 50 critically acclaimed recordings and over 10 years' worth of near-monthly concerts have occurred.

Concurrent activities in the world of pop music have resulted in appearances on over 50 albums and recordings, and countless shows and tours with acts such as Lab Coast, Alvvays, Chad VanGaalen, Un Blonde, Samantha Savage Smith, Crystal Eyes, Pre Nup, Jon Mckiel, Gold, Chairs, Jay Crocker, Monty & The Beasts of Monty, Lorrie Matheson, Sandy Cassels, Jon Gant, Extra Happy Ghost, Faux Fur, You Are Minez, Laura Leif, Snailhouse, Thighs, Crests/A Relative Distance, Dolly Sillito, Woodpigeon, Embassy Lights, John Rutherford, Ryan Bourne, Kenna Burima, Mama Safari, Tariq, Aaron Booth, Clinton St. John, Vail Halen/Key To The City, and Chris Vail. He has also spent two years as a support musician for the Banff Centre Indie Band Residency, where he worked alongside the likes of Brendan Canning, Charles Spearin, Kathleen Edwards, Shaun Everett, and Nyles Spencer. With Scott Munro and Jay Crocker, in 2009, he also recorded a solo album, which is available online. He is currently playing drums with Samantha Savage Smith and Chad VanGaalen and bass in Pre Nup.

Dadge co-leads Lab Coast along with David Laing. The two write and record the as a duo, while the live band features Samantha Savage Smith, Darrell Hartsook (Pre Nup, The Gooeys, Sissys), and Henry Hsieh (Crack Cloud, Cold Water). Lab Coast has released two short albums, Wilding and Pictures on the Wall, three split EPs - with Extra Happy Ghost (a 7" on Saved By Vinyl), Friendo (a 7" on UK label Faux Discx), and Diamond Mind (a tape on Tranist) - and an EP, Editioned Houses, on Night People. Walking On Ayr, their third album, was released on CD in 2013 and LP in 2014. FFWD Weekly praised their "effortlessly appealing pop songs" and Exclaim! refers to the music as "short, deceptively simple drops of catchy-as-hell indie rock". Their fourth full-length, Remember The Moon, was released on April 29, 2016, and the Toronto Star said of it, "Lab Coast has grown so good at making a certain species of scuffed-up, small-scale psych-pop that the rest of Canada really no longer has any excuse not to pay attention." In May of 2017, Faux Discx issued a compilation LP of the band's firstg four albums, called Lab Coast, which AllMusicGuide calls "catchy lo-fi pop gems ... solid from start to finish".

Over the last few years, Dadge has developed a reputation as a recording engineer and producer in his home studio, 606, where he specializes in "mid-fi" productions, hybrid analong/digital recordings incorporating unorthodox recording techinques and diverse instrumentation. To date, his recordings of Calgary acts such as Empty Heads, Hex Ray, Ashley Soft, Crystal Eyes, Pre Nup, Dream Whip, Sunglaciers, and Samantha Savage Smith have been released.

From 2010-2013 Dadge was a member of Theatre Junction's Resident Company of Artists, composing and performing music for original creations Lucy Lost Her Heart and Sometime Between Now and When The Sun Goes Supernova, and a production of Martin Crimp's Attempts On Her Life. He composed two scores - POLKA(dots) (2015) and We All Need To Say GOODBYE/ADIOS (2013) - to the dance/multimedia performances of flamenco artist Rosanna Terraciano, and accompanied Montreal-based dancer/choreographer Katie Ward on theremin for her piece Reality 1."

"Rachael Wadham. B.Mus (UVic), Dip. Jazz (Humber)

Rachael Wadham is a performer, composer and instructor based in Metchosin. Rachael was trained classically from a very young age and has always been a keen improviser. She studied Jazz Piano Performance for 3 years at Humber College in Toronto but was drawn back to classical music and eventually transferred to UVic where she completed a Bachelor of Music Composition and Theory.

As a teacher, Rachael teaches all ages, and has a focus in music education for young children. She likes to gather material from numerous sources to provide a well rounded introduction to piano performance. Rachael has been working as a composer, performer and instructor for over 20 years in BC and Toronto. She has attended numerous composers workshops in Canada and Internationally.

Rachael was a co-founder of the Fernwood Difficult Music Society, a new music concert series that ran from 2002 - 2005, and is currently an active member of triPOD, an improvisation based dance and music collaborative. She is currently working towards her diploma in piano pedagogy...and raising 2 active boys. When not immersing herself in musical projects, Rachael enjoys spending time in her garden."