Midsummer Mix Vol.1

Midsummer Mix Vol. 1 sees GTA pixel artist Nelson Wu playfully transform the everyday icons and landmarks of Toronto’s waterfront — from the CN Tower to the Toronto Island Ferry Terminal, Billy Bishop Airport to the Toronto Music Garden — into unique levels of an intimately local video game.

Here, flying fish, fierce dragons, and other fantastic creatures inhabit the spaces once so familiar to us, encouraging us to see the waterfront in another way. Rendered as street banners along a length of the lakeside Martin Goodman Trail, they hint at Toronto’s tourism industry: both local and international. Amidst COVID-era travel restrictions, this is a journey to spark the imagination and explore a world unknown.

Accompanying audio by Wu’s frequent collaborator, GTA composer biosphere, creates a nostalgia-infused yet distinctly contemporary soundtrack to our waterfront journey. Ranging from dreamy to energizing, biosphere’s sounds seamlessly blend fantasy with reality. Signaled by Wu’s visuals, and accessed by personal device through a series of QR code prompts along the path, biosphere’s audio invites us to turn on, tune in, and level up our waterfront experience — within a summer where we could all use a power boost.

Listen Here!

About the Artists

Nelson Wu is a Chinese Canadian artist who is interested in animation and video games. Graduating from OCAD University, he is currently working in the gaming and entertainment industry. He has produced a variety of illustrations, pixel art, and animations. A sense of dystopia, nostalgia, and surrealism are often themes present in the work.

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biosphere is a Taiwanese Canadian composer and producer based in Toronto. He started out experimenting with lo-fi hip hop and orchestral music, but is now focused on branching out into R&B and hip hop. Although his ultimate dream is to compose OSTs for anime and movies in the future, he is more than satisfied creating beats to make a listener’s day a little bit better.