The future is risky and possible.
Andrew Zealley is Toronto-based. His work situates at the shifting nexus of HIV, queer ecologies and identities, risk, and the body. Organized around sound and listening practices, Zealley’s creative work extends from audio and music methods (and structures) to inform mixed disciplines and media — including music, video, photography, bookmaking, pedagogy, activism, and public sex practices.


Zealley holds a Ph.D. through the Faculty of Environment and Urban Change (EUC) at York University; research project: Risky Beeswax: Artistic Responses to the Biopolitics of HIV/AIDS. His dissertation includes the audio intervention, Soft Subversions, published as a 2LP vinyl record edition in February 2021.

For 2023-2024,  Zealley presents four new vinyl phonograph records: METHODOLOGY LP, METHODOLOGY EP, New Variant, and Heads On Platters. Produced by House of Intergenerational, and mastered by Stefan Betke.

HEADS ON PLATTERS (UNDETECTABLE III) LP

Released January 2024

Disco Hospital Books & Records, the independent imprint based in Toronto, is pleased to announce the release of Heads On Platters (Undetectable III). This LP is published in an edition of 200; with jacket, centre labels, and insert featuring artwork by Dutes Miller (Chicago, USA). 

Heads On Platters is the third in a series of three vinyl LPs that respond to issues of queer pleasure and pandemic, a project funded by the Canada Council for the Arts. The series, Undetectable: Queer Pleasure and Pandemic, explores and listens to queer sexualities, chemsex practices, public sex, and emerging queer cultural production models that respond to increasing global homophobia, transphobia, drag-phobia, violence, and silencing. True resistance is loud, and is rarely sober.

Produced by House of Intergenerational, and mastered by Stefan Betke (Pole), Heads On Platters features voices that speak critically to the subject(s) at hand. Mikiki (artist, activist, and gay men’s sexual health worker), takes a leading role in the recording and speaks candidly and explicitly about sex, substance use, and mental health. Graeme Lamb (activist, organizer, and writer), responds to issues of queer anonymous sexual practices, bathhouse cultures, and app cruising cultures. Maticus Adams (artist and activist) talks briefly about the ways methamphetamine takes root in users. Sonically, the LP opens with the staid, overture-esque “Meth Ascending” before transitioning into the extended meditative float of “Platters On Heads.” On the B-side, “The Law of Disclosures” shudders under a twisted synth-horn motif; “This This This (Not This This This)” lets loose with a dynamic rhythm section that supports Lamb’s diatribe on the benefits of anonymous sex in bathhouse darkrooms and the manipulative tendencies inherent in cruising apps like Grindr; “Lights Out” draws the LP to a close with vital beats, a bouncing bass station line, and a ghostly chorus of disco dancers. 

This is audio harm reduction. 

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NEWEST: WHAT HAPPENED TO SILENCE = DEATH?

Zealley was invited to write a text piece for issue VII of the digital magazine NEWEST, as part of their series of time-travelling interviews.

"Part of Newest’s series of interviews between living artists and figures from the past, the following speculative dialogue finds Andrew Zealley in conversation with an earlier self. While battling to stay alive, mostly everyone around them was, as Zealley puts it, “dropping like fruit flies.”

Imposed by aging, the differences between the two selves, A and Z, are revealed in reflective surfaces and time’s often cruel yet frisky elasticity. Their conversation re-collects the urgency of queer activism. It’s a tactical warning, calling for consciousness-raising in times of crisis—especially when issues are disorienting, mournful, and stigmatized—and cycles of gendered and homophobic violence are on an upswing."

Read the piece: https://www.newest.co/stories/what-happened-to-silencedeath

DISCO HOSPITAL RECORDS • OTHER CURRENT RELEASES
Andrew Zealley/House of Intergenerational -  NEW VARIANT LP
Released May 2023

NEW VARIANT listens to queer pleasure and pandemic. The album is made with Anthea Black (activist and educator), Dianne Bos (vocals on the title track), Ted Kerr (activist, writer, and educator), Ruth Mascelli (Special Interest), and Rahim Thawer (queer-identified Muslim psychotherapist); each of whom voice concerns and ideas about the album's primary thematic. NEW VARIANT is a vinyl-only publication, in an unnumbered edition of 200. Includes a full colour insert with artwork and notes. Artwork by Rodrigo Cienfuegos. Mastered by Stefan Betke.

NEW VARIANT is funded by the Canada Council for the Arts.

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Andrew Zealley/House of Intergenerational -  METHODOLOGY LP
METHODOLOGY LP listens and responds to chemsex, PNP specifically, in relation to gay-, queer-, and trans-identified male sexual practices, in Toronto. The voices of users, harm reduction workers, queer socio-sonic and socio-sexual spaces (clubs, bathhouses), public health, and users are situated in sonic settings. An audio intervention to PNPLP—Party and Play Long Play—a research study by Andrew Zealley and Nick Mulé. METHODOLOGY LP is a vinyl-only publication, in an unnumbered edition of 200. Includes a full colour insert with artwork and notes. Artwork by Bill Thelen. Mastered by Stefan Betke.

METHODOLOGY LP is funded by the Canada Council for the Arts.

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Andrew Zealley/House of Intergenerational -  METHODOLOGY EP
METHODOLOGY EP is the 45 rpm sister release to METHODOLOGY LP. Over four non-LP tracks, METHODOLOGY EP listens and responds to chemsex, PNP specifically, in relation to gay-, queer-, and trans-identified male sexual practices, in Toronto. The voices of users, harm reduction workers, queer socio-sonic and socio-sexual spaces (clubs, bathhouses), public health, and users are situated in sonic settings. An audio intervention to PNPLP—Party and Play Long Play—a research study by Andrew Zealley and Nick Mulé. METHODOLOGY EP is a vinyl-only publication, in an unnumbered edition of 200. Includes a full colour insert with artwork and notes. Artwork by Bill Thelen. Mastered by Stefan Betke.

METHODOLOGY EP is produced with funds from by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

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House of Intergenerational - The Magic of the Think Machine Gods EP
The Magic of the Think Machine Gods is the second vinyl release by House of Intergenerational. Released hot-on-the-heels of House of Intergenerational’s debut 2LP, Soft Subversions, this new LP features two long-form works, one per side: “The Magic of the Think Machine Gods” b/w “The Intolerable Weight of Seventh Heaven”. The title track features the voice of Anglo-American queer writer, Christopher Isherwood, reading from his novel, A Single Man (1964). “The Intolerable Weight of Seventh Heaven” features the voice of African-American writer and activist, James Baldwin, reading from his novel, Giovanni’s Room (1956). All spoken word sonic source material is drawn from public domain recordings made in 1976 and 1967 respectively.

Pressed on white vinyl in a numbered edition of 150. Drawings by Bill Thelen. Vinyl-Only release.

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House of Intergenerational - Soft Subversions 2 LP
Soft Subversions is the debut release by House of Intergenerational, the DJ and production platform for Toronto-based artist Andrew Zealley. Published as a 2LP vinyl gatefold edition of 250 numbered copies with a two-sided poster/insert of visuals and notes, Soft Subversions is the sonic culmination of six years of research into risk, art, and sex in the era of AIDS industry: listening to risk and risky artistic and sexual practices as a method of aesthetic self-creation.

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Q: What are you wearing?
Andrew Zealley
Toronto, ON, Canada

Inquiries: safespacedynamite@gmail.com
 
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