By defying performance norms, Annie-Claude Deschênes bridges the gap between music and art. A mainstay of the Canadian cult scene with Duchess Says and PyPy, her solo venture explores dystopian electronic sounds through a mix of club-ready beats and intense, unfiltered live shows.

Liverpool gothic alt-pop trio THE DSM IV, formed by Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster frontman Guy McKnight, crystallise the ultra real and the otherworldly, bringing a focused hyperrealism to the party. Their convention-defying live performances toy with audience expectations and stimulate questions of the narratives being sold to us as news—or entertainment—all to the beat of the drum machinist.