Elektra - Ikeda, Dolden

[Guillaume Grenier <gollum@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I went to yesterday's Elektra night (Elektra being yet another electronic
music festival in Montreal) featuring a new piece by Paul Dolden (who has a
release on empreintes DIGITALes called "L'ivresse de la vitesse") and a
Ryoji Ikeda - Dumb Type presentation.

I was facing an unnerving dilemma yesterday: Ikeda's show was presented on
Friday and Saturday with different artists preceding them on each night
(Dolden yesterday and the first real inauguration of the "Silophone", a
grain silo transformed into a musical instrument).

Unfortunately, I think I've made the wrong decision... The piece is in a
similar style to his other stuff, using a superposition of numerous tracks
of acoustic and electric instruments. I kinda liked his release on
empreintes DIGITALes (though it's not among my favorites on the label), so I
had good hopes about the piece. However, I was really disappointed by it. It
seemed to me to be much poorer in texture richness than the pieces on
"L'ivresse de la vitesse". The whole thing seemed more "tune-oriented" than
his earlier effort -- not a bad thing in itself, but IMO, it didn't work out
at all, the whole thing amounting to a mere patch of disjointed segments.


Ikeda and his associates saved the night for me. This was a fantastic
performance I wished would have lasted longer. The music played included
"Headphonics" and other stuff in a similar style. I was already familiar
with that music but hearing it on a top quality sound system made the
experience a truly physical one. And I was thoroughly impressed by the
visual "accompaniment". Among the best executed visual presentations I've
seen for electronic music performances. Very pure, not unlike Ikeda's own
music.


All in all, a very good festival (I was also there for Granular Synthesis'
new assault, "Areal" -- which I liked better than "POL", that was presented
last year -- as well as a good night of "acousmatic" electroacoustic music
-- in particular, I enjoyed quite a lot Ned Bouhalassa's mix of Amen beat
wizardry [he does it really well!] with more traditional acousmatic
stylings.). 

g.

-- 
Guillaume Grenier - gollum@xxxxxxxxxxxx

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