Infrequency was established in 2001 as a platform for artists to explore sound as an art form through informal public concerts in a local Victoria (British Columbia) gallery. These events brought together various disciplines and provided a venue to create improvisational works. Within this framework, artists collaborated to created works in front of a live audience, for example musicians worked with painters, poets collaborated with synthesizer enthusiasts.
The next step in the evolution for Infrequency was to publish works focusing on live recordings and documenting installations. In 2002, the first such release was the self-titled live ep by Jeffrey Allport and Tim Olive, followed soon after by Tablet and snow:field, both by founders Jamie Drouin and Lance Olsen. As an early adopter of web-exclusive digital releases, Infrequency went on to publish several works under the title re:mote, a project which explored geographically specific soundworks, as an edition of free MP3s.
After a brief hiatus, Infrequency was relaunched in 2007 to coincide with the release of Snowfield+Remix, a remastered selection of seven tracks by Jamie Drouin and Lance Olsen from an installation created in 2003, and which included a second CD of remixes by invited artists Yann Novak and Tomas Jirku. Snowfield+Remix received critical acclaim from magazines such as The Wire, and reestablished Infrequency as a valuable platform for experimental sound works.
Since then, label curator Jamie Drouin has developed a unique catalog of works ranging from the poetic improvisation of Chiaroscurious Blues, to the recent Au Clair De La Lune featuring nine international sound artists reinterpreting the earliest known recording of the human voice. With the merger of Infrequency and Dragon's Eye Recordings, Drouin hopes to further define Infrequency as an important catalog of sound installations and performance, focusing on the transformation of these works through their dislocation from the original venue and how this expands the concepts in unexpected ways.
