Playing without singer Maggie Smith, Toronto's ambient pop unit WEARENOTWHOWEARE set up their laptops, synths and effects pedals facing each other in a triangle and set to work like a panel of lab technicians tending to an experiment. In the seamless series of tests they carried out, they collided field recordings with harsh white noise, stirring everything into a woozy soup.
Eventually, that gave way to more pastoral drones, and by the third quarter of their 20-minute set, the amorphous sound they'd been pulling and prodding at entered more rhythmic territory, climaxing in a dreamy downtempo pop ballad. Like their liar paradox of a name, their set was a reminder of the material unreliability of appearances, but the gorgeous sounds their clinical approach gave way to still made your ears feel like they were in good hands.
Eventually, that gave way to more pastoral drones, and by the third quarter of their 20-minute set, the amorphous sound they'd been pulling and prodding at entered more rhythmic territory, climaxing in a dreamy downtempo pop ballad. Like their liar paradox of a name, their set was a reminder of the material unreliability of appearances, but the gorgeous sounds their clinical approach gave way to still made your ears feel like they were in good hands.