A giddy, childlike glee roams the toy-box electronic music of Carmen Jaci, a French-Canadian experimental music producer who currently resides in the Netherlands. Mixing acoustic instruments with synthesisers and vocal recordings and samples, her sound builds a sunny, playful sense of place. Her debut album, joyfully titled Happy Child (2023), is a flourishing garden of chirpy video-game sounds, deep sound design, chiming bells, and wind-instrument flourishes, with vibraphone melodies blooming throughout. Described as an album about exploration, play, and rekindling with a sense of childlike wonder, it truly meets these themes head on with its buoyant, dancey, sparkling productions that jumble and move around one’s head colourfully like a Rubik's Cube. The weight of the album’s bassy rhythms and percussion are offset by its weightless, ambient pads and melodies which sound as though they’re untethered from Earth’s gravity.

Co-presented by MUTEK.
The presentation of this work was made possible thanks to the financial support of the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec.