Show Me the Body Announced as 2024 Guest Curator
We're thrilled to announce that New York experimental hardcore trio Show Me the Body will be joining us as guest curator for Sled Island 2024, running June 19 - 23! The group’s cross-genre musical approach, ceremonial live shows, dedication to creating inclusive spaces, and commitment to fostering a global sense of community made them a very fitting choice for this role, and we’re excited to be working with them for next year’s festival.
Along with guest curator duties, Show Me the Body will perform at the #1 Royal Canadian Legion (116 7th Ave. SE) on Saturday, June 22, 2024. Sled Island passes grant access to this show (subject to capacity).
Each year, Sled Island’s guest curator puts their stamp on the festival through special programming choices and their presence at the event. Show Me the Body’s curatorial selections, to be announced in the coming months, will join over 200 additional bands, comedy, film, visual art and conference programming chosen by the festival in multiple venues across Calgary.
Passes go on sale this Friday, December 8 at noon MST at a special early bird rate of 20% off, and will be available at SledIsland.com, and Lukes Drug Mart (112 4th St. NE). Payment plans and all-ages passes will also be available. For more information, visit SledIsland.com/Passes.
Unfamiliar with Show Me the Body? Start with their 2022 LP Trouble The Water, about which Pitchfork said the band “strike gold” with “daring” music in a glowing review. Also, be sure to check out some of their live footage available on YouTube to get a sense of what we're in store for this June!
Thank you to our sponsors and funders at connectFirst Credit Union, Lukes Drug Mart, Eighty-Eight Brewing, Dandy Brewing Company, Calgary Arts Development, The City of Calgary, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Structured Abstraction, Venture for Canada, and the Government of Canada.
About Show Me the Body
Punk incinerators Show Me the Body made their major arrival with first album Body War in 2016, drawing on the elemental shape of hardcore to lash out at injustice. Then and since, the trio (currently made up of Julian Cashwan Pratt, Harlan Steed and Jack McDermott) has been a disruptor of the genre’s conventions. Shredding on banjo rather than guitar, vocalist Pratt slips occasionally from howls into poetry, and elements of noise, sludge and electronic music frequently interject the trio’s punk core.
It’s not just in their music that Show Me the Body fights for space to exist and create. Partly inspired by their time spent with youth-run artist collective Letter Racer, Show Me the Body formed their own alliance, CORPUS, to unite artists in a community and connect with DIY scenes outside the five boroughs. The resulting mixtape, Corpus I (2017), saw them collaborate with acts like Princess Nokia, Moor Mother, Denzel Curry and Dedekind Cut.
CORPUS has since grown into CORPUS Family, a more fulsome representation of Show Me the Body and their associates’ values. “It’s supposed to be something that galvanizes people to work on their own communities,” Steed told The FADER. They have worked to increase inclusion in music communities, reclaim space, build solidarity and even advocate self-defense. Their direct-action initiatives have included an annual coat drive for the people of Queens, The CORPUS Studio Residency that gives 36 hours of free studio time once a year, the CORPUS Family Mutual Aid Fund and more.
Second album Dog Whistle took punk on a whiplash ride between minimalist metal, invocation-ritual industrial and experimentations that don’t quite have a name yet. But if you’re looking for a starting point, there are three excellent options all released in the last year: LP Trouble The Water (Pitchfork said the band “strike gold” with “daring” music in a glowing review), a remix album (perfect to get a sense for their genre-agnostic experimentalism) and Live & Loose In The USA (a primer for the glorious chaos they bring to the stage).
While the band was supposed to make its Calgary debut at Sled Island 2020 (selected by Sudan Archives), now is an even-more vital time to encounter Show Me the Body, given their prolific-and-rewarding hot streak.