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Painting patterns in a new musical landscape

Originality is hard to come by in an age where pop music is churned out in assembly-line fashion to the masses, and an album's success depends not so much on the music itself, but skimpily clad dancers in a video.

Vancouver-based musician/composer Chad Nantais doesn't subscribe to that cynical present reality. With his debut CD Zero Ground, Nantais dares to push the boundaries of the medium using technology as both an inspiration and a tool. He opens up a world beyond the hype, where the message of the music is in how it was created.

That's pretty deep and pretentious-sounding hyperbole until you listen to the music and get caught up in the whimsical and eclectic soundscapes that Nantais weaves. It's a hybrid concoction of jazz fusion, electronica and multi-layered synthetic instruments. Zero Ground is the soundtrack to a modern world where machines allow one person to re-create what was once accomplished by an entire band, and technology can create as emotional a connection as a human. It's Frank Zappa meets the cyborg replicants from Blade Runner's Tyrell Corporation – a synthetic musical creation that's eerily “More Human than Human”.

It's a sound and style that comes from the natural evolution of Nantais' strong background in both music and computers.

Born and raised in Windsor, Ontario, Nantais bought his first guitar when he was just 9 years old. It wasn't long before he was playing in neighbourhood heavy metal bands and experimenting with the recording and producing process. Later he took up the drums, and also began a career as a DJ, laying down hip-hop, techno and house music at parties.

Meanwhile, he was also immersing himself in the emerging world of computer programming, exploring virtual worlds and discovering new modes of expression.

Living so close to Detroit, Nantais was heavily influenced by the Motown sounds coming from the airwaves when he was growing up, along with Gospel, R&B, jazz and soul. Later, heavy metal, progressive and techno music would help shape his musical sensibilities, as would the midi-sampled soundtracks to video games in the 80s and 90s.

Such diverse influences converge on Zero Ground for a unique voyage through the veil of homogenous pop and into a place where previous notions literally have no ground upon which to stand.

“The tone and feel of the songs is meant to commemorate the sense of not knowing where to go, but also hints at where we can go,” says Nantais. “I am creating new patterns and spaces that are relevant to the present, rather than retrievals of earlier stages of our technological evolution.”

It's a post-postmodern reality check. It's one man and some digital editing software doing the job of a roomful of musicians, engineers and producers – and still keeping the soul of it all intact.

“My songs are also composed and arranged to be interesting and challenging for good musicians to perform,” Nantais says.

So, while Zero Ground was created within the confines of a hard drive, its message will be delivered live by a six-piece band at a VIP launch party December 6 at Flux in Vancouver's Gastown, as well as at forthcoming gigs.

Zero Ground is where man imitates machine imitating man – and what came before has been left behind in the debris.

Visit chadnantais.com to buy Zero Ground