Re: [microsound] mutek just as you're missing it, part 3/4

[tobias v <tobias@xxxxxxxxx>]

...where are we ... sleep deprivation ... I am writing this
in a coffee shop, been lugging the laptop around, and yes,
that was me writing away at the SAT with the damn thing during
the Orthlorng Musork showcase ... but we aren't there yet, I've
got to catch up .

david's set: I can comment I guess -- very linear, unexpected,
went in a bunch of different directions and was anything but
repetitive. david is all about the linear exploration of uncharted
topographies, if we want to put it that way. he's an explorer with
all sounds and hums and samples and he wants to see how they talk
and relate to each other through various placements. this is fundamentally
different than the duree-time of the groove: david's time is a time
of the event.

needless to say, dear list members, it was good: david makes good
music -- here here ... & are we not all talented members on this funny
email exchange .. unfortunately, it being Sunday, my memory is not
up to commenting on the music past this point as my mind hears sounds
from every direction. there is a crazy man who lives above me in montreal
with a cane who rocks back and forth on the squeaky floorboards at 9:20am
every morning. this morning it sounded like he was sawing a table. like
that crazy NFB cartoon .. "stop sawing the table!" .. I was pondering this
as I tried to sleep a little this morning .. grabbing a broom and making
some rhythms on my ceiling ... or anti-rhythms ... and that's the whole
thing with david, or the sort of division between sounds repetitive and
linear -- a strange dichotomy that is also at the point of ripping Mutek in
half or propelling it forward ..

as for the rest of the evening. Metropolis is a massive old theater, round,
three levels ... bars and security everywhere and you are not supposed to
smoke -- you get hit with some French piece of paper by the beef security
which tells you that you cannot smoke in cabarets. Montreal is an
ass-backwards city, given that Metropolis is in the heart of seedy
hookerville -- an amazing experience walking out of there at 3:30am into a
city bursting with life and a potential dangerous energy. Look: there passes
the ghost of Leonard Cohen... but don't light up that friggin cigarette, bon
ami .. 

Metropolis performances are stage performances. this is a major shift for
Mutek. things are beginning to feel like a much larger festival -- I prefer
the warehouse art-hall that is the SAT and its floor-level intimacy.
Metropolis is a concert venue. the Friday night, however, was good in the
sense that it was rammed. everyone was there. the performers openly mingled
with the public, like at the SAT (this is important: because the next night,
last night, they did not -- the crowd was much different, hostile, vicious,
security was called in to remove drunken/high jocks from the dancefloor, and
all the whose-who were sitting behind the fence separating the backstage
from the floor ... one felt the crowd was no longer an appreciative crowd
in a major sense -- it was different -- dark -- villalobos picked up on
that and played vicious -- and so the musicians felt that need to separate
themselves from the crowd, the Them, the floor, and form the hierarchies
often found at raves and concerts: VIP / floor -- are you important enough
to be back here, do you have the right pass?)

But I am getting ahead of myself: the Friday was a rammed affair. Yes,
Herbert was good, my impression being different -- having seen him over 8
times now. His performance was very similar to what he was doing in 1997 and
I was having strange memories of him playing a packed 200 person warehouse
in Vancouver. In fact, I ran into David later and we talked about this. He
was trying to understand Herbert's popularity; fact is, Herbert was quite
popular back in the rave days. He was a strange anomoly back then, even more
so than now when what he is doing is more conveniantly packaged under Art.
Several years ago it was just madness .. Herbert in a suit and tie ... with
blenders and chip bags making weird noises to 200 people fucked on many
drugs .. who at that point had only been schooled in house and techno on the
west coast: Herbert comes out like a being from another sonic planet.

Tonight, the rhythms Herbert makes are hard, ranging from polyrhythmic
techno to banging house. Dancefloor material and very good. Throws the GAP
bag on his head and raises both arms with anarcho-devil signs with the
fingers ... crowd goes wild ... but are they simply entertained by him or
fully grasping his political statements? I was talking to someone about this
that night -- I think it was the German editors of this magazine -- they
mentioned that in order to do the RadioBoy performance, Herbert must
purchase all these consumer products -- Big Macs, etc., a TV. Therefore he
is participating in the economy and consumerizing his political statement
and the domain of art. I am not so sure about that .. the purchase he is
making is only an economic purchase, yet the utility he applies to it is in
the realm of the symbolic -- like culture jamming. The symbolic
exchange-value of destroying these items has more representational
affect--the realm of politics--than their economic purchase .. of course
things are not so black and white and this dialectic is a little more
complex -- for the same reasons that culture jamming can backfire -- for
the advertising potential, the representational power of the consumer
objects, maintains a certain affect even when being erased, destroyed,
deconstructed. Re-appropriation and counter-appropriation... The power can
never be deleted -- only put under erasure. The question is, then, how you
affect that dialectic and whether it can be put to a line of flight. But
enough -- back to the show and away from the philosophizing: that was more
the rambling commentary of Saturday night in any case, when I should have
had a microphone taped to my head .. more on that later ...

Before Herbert, btw, was Repair, aka the Thibideau brothers, who threw down
some excellent dub techno beats. I've been a fan of them ever since their
releases on Blue as Altitude here in Canada, they have a very deep,
toronto-influenced sound that is nonetheless driving. It has that edge to it
that Villalobos has, but not so Chilean -- it has the Detroit techno
influence, what I find is missing in so much euro-white-minimal-techno: funk
and soul. Dub sound effects do not make dub .. dub is an investment in a
much deeper realm .. and the Thibideau brothers know this. Their live
singer, Dawn Lewis, was beautiful but very shy ... and she only sung on a
couple of songs... hiding behind the gear... the response was enthusiastic,
however, and here's to Dawn's brave stage performance: it certainly isn't
easy!

Then Copacabannark, whose simple set was nonetheless brilliant. There is a
difference that I immediately begin to notice with performers -- those who
are DJs, or came out of a dance background, perhaps the rave scene or house
scene, and those who are rock-musicians-turned-electronic-artists .. the
former have a real sense of performance and the audience and bringing people
somewhere in a set: Ricardo Villalobos, Thomas Brinkmann, Ben Nevile,
Repair, Copacabannark -- they all take it and bring it -- to a certain
extent also Luomo and Losoul the next night. (Farben, however, was in the
wrong spot for the evening -- and played deep, which was nice and deep, but
absolutely in the wrong slot for the evening in terms of flow). Anyways --
the two Copacabannark guys have some sequenced drum loops, a crazy synth,
and something that makes great squelching noises, of the sort you here all
over Speedy J's "Public Energy No. 1" record, those massive echoing sounds
on the last track -- "As the Bubble Expands" from what I can remember. The
result? Instant dancefloor appreciation -- and they are into it, headbanging
away like spring-filled robots with the smoke pouring out the back, the
lighting guys must have been going apeshit that night ... simple squelch
beats and crazy live organ playing, but very fun, entertaining, and kicking,
throwing down pounding minimal rhythms that are, for me, the heart and soul
of stripped minimal techno from the days when minimal techno meant a dark
and dangerous listening experience at 4:15am in some blacked-out warehouse
save for the red spot on the DJ and perhaps that strobe at the periphery of
your vision ...

Akufen -- I like his records -- it was good -- but I find overall that his
sets are more of the same -- however, this set was the most varied I have
heard of him yet, much more varied than last year and from his set on
Wednesday at the cocktail party. He played much more of a house vibe, with
synths, exhibiting more of the maturity he is picking up -- you can hear it
on the first two tracks on his new album "My Way." He was trying bloody hard
-- I think it is just a case of him finding the right balance with his sets
and fully learning to play his Ableton Live software like an instrument... I
also think, like Ben Nevile, he needs to jack the volume on his samples.
Either that or it was the sound rig at Metropolis -- a concert rig which was
loud and good once they turned it up, but separated the mids and
hi's--hanging from the ceiling--from the bassbins down below and as opposed
to most dance rigs which are stacks .. I much prefer stack sound as it gives
you the whole spectrum from one source: splitting it up is for bands and
rawk music, not electronic beats and washes and drones ... but that is part
of the whole shift from the SAT to Metropolis: this new space is affecting
Mutek in profound ways, all of which culminated with the vicious vibe of
Saturday night, a half sold-out venue, paranoid security, people puking in
the bathroom, violence... and the feeling that Mutek was no longer safe ...

At the end was Hakan Libdo, but to be honest I had trouble appreciating his
washed out beats which were a comedown after Akufen's energy and not close
to the experience of Copacabannark. It was good, good listening music, good
opening music, good 4am dub house music, good for the chill room -- but not
good with this lineup... See here's the deal: Mutek is trying to incorporate
artists working with beats who are obviously on the cutting edge of
dancefloor sounds. For me this is wonderful as it is tears down boundaries
between high and low art, ripping apart the eurocentric view that says that
essentially african based rhythmic music is not artistic but "just dance
music" -- however, this was essentially the entire movement of rave culture,
that very project, Detroit techno, Chicago house. Now, this music,
appropriated by Europeans and North American white culture--and this is a
very true observation, all one has to do is go to DEMF and then Mutek to see
a serious racial divide in this music that is unsettling--is seeking
validation with European high art -- this is not a purely negative movement,
for it reasserts various territories and broadens visions on all sides.
However, Mutek as the spatial nexus of this musical movement is desperately
trying to figure out how to program these artists .. shall we program them
like a rave, with peaks and valleys? Or mix things up to remind people that
this is "art" ? In the way that "art" is not suppposed to be fun? Euro-art
appreciation as opposed to African dancing? A good example of the euro-art
mix was the Epsilon Lab show here in Montreal a week before Mutek, where
live acts and DJs were scattered at odd times coordinated with a massive
multimedia VJ battle ... that worked .. but it has not worked so far at
Mutek except for the experimental performances at Ex-Centris; the SAT show
with solvent et al was a monumental failure in programming; and although the
Friday and Saturday at Metropolis weren't as bad, they still needed
fine-tuning. The debate, however, is a much deeper one: will Mutek become a
dance party split from the experimental music ("art in the afternoon,
dancing at night") and if it does, will we have to accept that rave culture
has something to offer experimental culture? The question resonates on many
levels-- for within current experimental culture is a certain bitterness and
distaste for certain things, despite our fascination with pop culture.
Indeed, it feels that experimental culture is even conservative compared to
the hedonistic days of not only rave culture, but Hugo Ball, the
Surrealists, Artaud, the Bohemians and the Beats, the punks, the French
hardcore anarchists, UK Spiral Tribe squatters .. we need to lighten up --
not intellectually, not in the sense that people who tell you to lighten up
want to infantalize you into postmodern childishness and the abdication of
responsibility: we need to lighten up in the sense that we need to undergo a
little revalutation of all values at the level of the subject and the
subject's passage to politics, the polis, and this passage is the realm of
music ...


-- tobias v











> [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.  :)
> 
> 
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tobias c. van Veen -----------
http://www.shrumtribe.com
http://www.targetcircuitry.com
------------- tobias@xxxxxxxxx
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