Special Guest: Musical Performance at the 2023 Canadian Psychedelic Summit
Ruby Singh is a multi award winning performer, composer and producer residing on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ/Selilwitulh Nations (Vancouver BC.). His creativity crosses the boundaries of music, poetry, photography and film engaging with mythos, memory, justice and fantasy. Singh is an artist whose work is informed by sound found all around us, from the whirling planets and stars of distant galaxies to percussion of an umbrella under coastal rains, to the perpetual moving birdsong of the dawn chorus, constantly circling the globe. The richly imaginative visual textures to his sound design have found kinship in the theatre, film and dance worlds, where he has been celebrated by multiple Jessie and Leo award nominations. His distinct approach uses traditional and emergent sonic practices to create compositions that express the vast spectrum of the human experience. Singh’s artistic impulses gravitate in many directions, in 2022 he received the Lieutenant Governor’s Jubilee Award for excellence in art and music. In 2023 was nominated for a Juno award for best Global Music Album of the Year and was awarded Artist of the Year by the BC touring council.
Singh’s offering are wide ranging and expansive from ambient audio-visual worlds of the Polyphonic Garden to Jhalaak, a Sufi hip hop album made alongside Manganiyar musicians recorded in the clay huts of the Thar desert in Rajasthan India, reinterpreting 13th century Sufi poetry. Vox.infold, an a cappella project bringing together the sounds of Inuit, Indigenous, Black and South Asian voices that has been met with critical acclaim. RupLoops, a solo live looping project that is a highly engaging, interactive experience using vocal percussion, rhythmic rhymes and an arsenal of eclectic instruments from around the globe. The Future Ancestors a blues and soul infused live hip hop project; kraKIN a more-than-human collaboration that brings together a boom-bap menagerie of banging Westcoast flora, fauna, and fungi. Singh believes in art’s ability to reimagine futures, to repurpose aesthetic freedoms toward civil and environmental justice.
“a visionary artist … blending the technological world with art, social and environmental causes … Singh’s work reveals a new, malleable reality
that is long overdue.”
CBC Radio Canada
“Mesmerizing, vibrant … Singh isn’t just crossing genres, he’s stadling astral planes”
Globe and Mail
“Ruby Singh keeps on dropping dynamic sonic experiments”
Vancouver Sun