mutek just as you're missing it, part 3/4

[david turgeon <david.t@xxxxxxxx>]

[delayed post because of unexpected ISP glitches.  ~d]

today mutek begun at 2h30 PM for me, which was the soundcheck at the 
SAT.  it was a lot of fun to sound so loud!  FEINULLY!!!  the 
POWA!@  you've got to picture that i play (& thus do) all my music at home 
on a cheap hitachi stereo, so the difference in sound was striking & 
interesting to exploit.  i had to readjust some levels which were just 
unbearable the way i had previously set them!

the show went well.  the rest of the guys who were playing with me were all 
very nice.  xenofonex & capsule are both duos featuring the same guy (whose 
name i forget), who has lots & lots of machines & things to make noise 
with.  overall the music was very deep & droney, but i wasn't so sure about 
some of the themes & melodies.  at some point the guitar in the capsule 
show had this sort of epic 80s feel to it, which i guess worked only 
depending on your mood.  however, there were definitely people grooving to 
it.  :)

i'm not going to say much about my own show other than i had fun.  i think 
i lost it two or three times, but i doubt anyone noticed.  it was best 
after it was done!  vromb finished the 5 PM event with some rather 
old-school beats, not so far off from david kristian's live sets.  this was 
one of his rare local appearances, so it was good to finally get to hear 
him.  although it was not my kind of thing i would be lying if i said i did 
not enjoy listening to his music.

"my kind of thing", what should that mean anyway?  near-silent music is not 
my kind of thing, & yet...  for the last 30 minutes, my speakers have been 
emitting this low hum which i begun noticing about 15 minutes ago.  just 
now i can hear a high pitched sound which i had not heard before.  it's 
truly beautiful & delicate, but only for this very moment.  if i were 
sitting to a wooden floor being treated to that for 30 minutes, i might 
feel totally different.  conversely, i've once been to shows where i liked 
the music but i couldn't bear staying.

the metropolis is a big ass club in the heart of the sinfulest [1] spot in 
montreal, the corner of ste-catherine & st-laurent.  the absolute furthest 
thing from my kind of place, but hey, i was feeling groovy & i wanted to 
enjoy myself a bit.  i arrived in time for radio boy, which was the first 
time i have seen herbert live.  his set was crazy.  he created all his 
sounds on the spot, using various objects from "corporate life" at 
large.  the beats were quite wild, & the whole thing just went too fast to 
keep track.  i can't really explain the rhythms that he did, it was not so 
bizarre per se, but in a club context, it was vastly unusual to say the 
least...  what made the whole thing all the more surreal is the absurdly 
bombastic light show & the fact that the crowd was COMPLETELY into 
it.  they screamed when he was tearing down stuff, or when the lights did 
something obnoxious (both things usually happened at the same time.)  there 
was a magical aspect to his performance, whereby the bells & whistles 
become a smokescreen for the actual background manipulations & you could 
imagine there was a lot of choregraphy behind his set.  it was a very 
strange experience at any such rate.

i eventually made it to the fehler vs 12k exhibit in the back.  nice works 
of minimal graphic design, i must say.  these remixes were either wildly 
experimental, or conceptually clever.  not a dud to be found, sheer 
pleasure for the eye.  & seeing how many women went to talk to taylor 
deupree about those nice little pictures, i can only understand the desire 
for a graphic artist to "go minimal".  speaking of mini-, the "design in 
minature" micro-exhibit was also present.  i knew most of the pieces 
presented (which happened to be CD covers) but i was surprised with some 
new ones, particularly from a group of VJ artists whose collective name i 
forget (i'm sure christopher murphy will immediately rise to the task of 
informing the world as to their identity!)

akufen played next.  i was looking forward to his set as the man is seen by 
many to be a rising star of the minimal house/techno (how do you call it?) 
scene, & well, that must be for a reason.  as a performer, akufen is good, 
there's no question about it; but the music itself was nothing more than 
pleasant variations of the same familiar recipe plastered from start to 
finish.  that said, i wasn't in the pit with the dancers.  sometimes i'm 
unmoveable, & tonight was one such night.  if i had danced i'm quite sure i 
would have appreciated the music differently, in a very real sense.  just 
as i needed to lie down to enjoy stephan mathieu's set yesterday.  & isn't 
all music like this?  requiring involvement & dedication from the 
listener?  although then i must say, herbert's set required NO involvement 
from the listener whatsoever to get its point across...  (& i'm not sure 
i'd say this is better!)

did i hear hakan libdo?  or was it still the inbetween-sets DJ when i 
left?  at some point this repetitive music had gotten on me & i couldn't 
tell the difference between anything & anything.  so enough!  there's a 
good walk home left to do!  & still this absurd self-assignment of 
reporting on mutek!  tomorrow will be host to what i think is the most 
promising line-up of the whole festival, namely the orthlong musork 
showcase.  let's see...  stephan mathieu (as full 
swing)...  timeblind...  agf...  agf again...  but with vladislav 
delay!...  as well as dj philip sherburne to finish it off.  this is 
happening at the SAT at 2 PM.  & it costs 8 bucks only!  because i have to 
go to quebec city for sunday [2], i doubt i'll stay very late through the 
following show: ben neville, farben, luomo, etc., again at the 
metropolis.  i'm not going to dance, so...  i'm just going to listen to 
their CDs if that's okay.

have a nice day
~ david

[1] there is an american sect (i think it's the mormons) who consider 
montreal to be the north american capital of sin.  this harkens back to the 
days of the prohibition, when montreal was the only city north of mexico to 
have not banned alcohol as a law.  as a result, montreal was considered a 
high point for contraband, & ever since it has been named the "capital of 
sin".  the same sect has specific instructions for members who come to 
montreal, more specifically a perimeter that they can not go to.  let's 
just say that you're not likely to run into a mormon when you go to mutek.

[2] why yes, we are launching 2 new no type CDs by morceaux_de_machines & 
oeuf korreckt at the kookening café, 565 st-jean, quebec city, on june 2, 5 
PM.  i know the date coincides with the last day of mutek, that wasn't 
planned as such, & anyway, this is happening at a 300 km distance, so don't 
worry, there'll be some good people at both places.  :)