The public seems to have a strange relationship with dark electronic music. They’ll enjoy high caloric popcorn while trembling to the eerie sounds of a Hollywood blockbuster but without the visuals they won’t do so at home. Meanwhile the best in the field have infiltrated the movie business, with former industrialites like SPK’s Graeme Revell and Lustmord’s Brian Williams working on sound design for big budget films including Jurassic Park. In their wake comes Montreal-based i8u whose self-titled CD, from the web company Multimedias Pandora, is among the very best Canada has to offer the subterranean genre of dark-ambience. Her impressive synth atmospherics and speaker-shaking closely tuned drones light the way to a brooding landscape of your own imagination. Don’t miss the Toronto debut of i8u at The Opera House on Saturday, February 12th. - Chris Twomey