Montreal-based audiovisual duo DF released their first EP, abcdf, on Sept. 23. Behind the creative act are two university students, Dustin Finer and Daniel Freder, who met through mutual friends.
Freder had an interest in the performance aspect along with live lighting and visuals melding with sound. Finer could contribute by using a loop pedal with his saxophone playing and composing his own music. From then on the name was born from their initials, and they started performing.
“I took interest in developing my repertoire, for that Dan was getting to work on his reactive visuals,” Finer said. “We just paired it together, trial by fire, and built the act we are today.”
Finer’s role is composing and producing saxophone music. As the sounds play, Freder is in charge of creating motion lights that are synched with the sounds, getting an interactive performance going for their audience.
The group has been performing together for three and a half years, and DF played a show at Pressed Cafe in Ottawa back in August.
“The act meshed well with the music and arts; and kind of indie community that Ottawa really thrives on,” Finer said.
The majority of DF’s tours have been in Ontario. They were an act in the lineup at a young music and arts festival in Sudbury called Up Here, and have also performed for TED Youth Talk Montréal.
Now, the duo is looking to expand with the release of their first audiovisual EP abcdf.
“It’s been an ongoing project over the whole year, a bit of a crazy project too,” Finer said.
The EP has five tracks, and the group went with a shorter album so that each track could have a visual component. In addition, DF collaborated with some of Montréal’s indie and electronic acts to do remixes in order to have a few remixes come out with the EP as well.
Each track and visual component will be online for streaming and there will be a physical copy available as well.
“Dan milled out of 100 per cent recycled Canadian plywood these really nice cases that will house USB sticks,” Finer said. “The USB’s have the audio, visuals and remixes with some extra surprises that will only be on the physical copy.”
“Going into university as a classical saxophone performance major I was getting a lot of warnings from all sides that it wasn’t something I could make a career of . . . I’m fortunate that straight out of university it has been my career. Playing, teaching and creating projects like DF,” Finer said. “A realization I had at Up Here, the music festival when watching Deerhouse perform and they said ‘It’s okay to be weird, do a really job, and have fun.’”
