IDLEFIELD ART LAB
IDLEFIELD
Idlefield Art Lab is a collaboration between Jake Nicoll, Ariel Sharratt, Mathias Kom and Pamela MacKenzie with a number of other collaborators and comrades. Brought together through DIY music scenes, most of their projects are the results of long conversations in vans criss-crossing continents. As Idlefield they are interested in sound, ecology, collaboration, and bringing elements of chance and life to musical recordings. At its core, they want to make and facilitate music that exists in balance with the planet; outside of industry; and that brings people together to create new things.
To that end they develop projects that bring people together to make sounds, in particular acoustic and natural environments.
Who We Are
Jake Nicoll
Jake is an engineer, producer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He built the solar-powered recording studio, The Scamper, as well as many of the microphones used by Idlefield in their projects. His music production work has been shortlisted for the Polaris Prize and won ECMAs, Music Newfoundland and Music PEI Awards.
Mathias Kom
Mathias Kom is the critically acclaimed songwriter behind The Burning Hell. He holds a PhD in Ethnomusicology and writes about DIY music scenes, collaboration, play, and amateur recording practices.
Mathias is a co-founder of the Lawnya Vawnya Independent Music Festival, and the community based song project the Gorgeous Georgie Revue.
Ariel Sharratt
Ariel Sharratt is a musician and artist. She has an MFA from OCAD University and has organized exhibitions of sound art at the Music Gallery and Open Studio in Toronto, as well as in St. John's, Newfoundland. She has worked in radio at CBC, and several campus stations and studied audio engineering at Berkelee College of Music and via apprenticeship at Big Jelly Studios in Ramsgate, England.
Pamela MacKenzie
Pamela Mackenzie is a musician and academic, creating music and publishing articles about the intersection of art and science. She is currently a SSHRC postdoctoral fellow at the University of Cambridge in the History and Philosophy of Science Department, where she organizes seminars and supervises students, while also working on her first full-length album.