Further (rambling) thoughts on Mutek, 2nd night (30/05)

[Guillaume Grenier <gollum@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(Please forgive the skewed English and any inaccuracies or aberrations you
might find. [I wanted to post this much earlier but life got in the way...
If only I had taken some notes...] Feel free to correct those and to
comment/inquire/send death threats.)


Far from me the idea to compete with co-Montrealer David and his inimitable
prose... but I simply must express my enthusiasm when I witness what I
consider to be incredible performances.


I couldn't attend Wednesday's offerings so Thursday night was my first Mutek
2002 experience. It was also my first "live" encounter with all the artists
who performed. Unfortunately, I couldn't go to the SAT show, missing Zack
Settel about whom I've heard good things -- incidentally, I did see him the
day after at a University graduation... how strange... Too bad the show
seemed plagued (at least part of it, according to David's account) by
excessive chatter. Boy, do I hate that supremely! Sometimes, I feel my
murder impulses inhibitors weakening to a dangerous level when surrounded by
those people engaged in constant blabber. You went to a freakin' music show
which clearly requires very attentive listening, goddamn! (Or a movie.
Or...). If you're not compelled to put in the minimal effort involved in
being quiet and have some kind of respect to the artists and the audience
actually interested in their work, get the fuck out. Grrrrr!!! :)

OK, enough with the animosity, now let's get to the real stuff. I didn't
like 3 out of the 4 performances which took place at Ex-Centris. Now, it
might seem like this would add up to a pretty mediocre evening of music and
sound incongruous with what I wrote earlier but I found the remaining
performance so tremendous it rendered inconsequent everything else.


<begin giant IMO tag which should protect me from most death threats>

Helen of Troy

At first, I thought this purported to be something interesting. It started
with some short bursts of violin "captured" here and there, interspersed
with bits of silence. These sounds were locked in gradually superimposing
loops, forming a disjointed tapestry. Though what was heard in reality did
not sound as exciting as what that description might allude to.

Here, I should probably confess that I often have trouble with heavily
loop-based music. [BTW, I wonder why it is so prevalent in many
manifestations of electronic music... That could be an extremely interesting
discussion, I think...] "Why are you listening to electronic music, then,
dimwit?!" shouts the crowd, I suppose... Well, it's not that I refuse the
approach per se, but I often find myself thinking that the technique was
used out of laziness, lack of ideas or inadequate mastery of the instruments
used. It fills the void of silence and keeps people happy while requiring
only a small expense of effort. Here, I felt that the loops were not used in
a convincing manner. I really had the feeling that the performer did not
know where to go with his material so he simply let it run, hoping that his
adding of pieces here and there would give the illusion that something akin
to music is happening. Granted, once in a while, an interesting groove could
accidentally develop, laying there for a while as the performer and the
crowd asked themselves "OK, so what next?". All the moments (the numerous
bland ones and the occasional interesting ones) did not seem to follow a
path through some sort of "great scheme of things", something that's
important to me. But that probably counts among the great difficulties of
improvisation. Moreover, the performer seemed slightly uneasy to me. Maybe
the preparation was not sufficient? I don't know...

But, anyway, the major problem for me with this performance lied elsewhere.
After the initial moment consisting of the short looped bits forming small
melodic fragments, the performance entered a new phase with the performer
actually taking out his violin and playing it. A short circular G-minorish
(IIRC) loop subsisted as a backing for the long sustained tones now being
accumulated. The playing was amateurish and extremely limited. I don't need
Kreisler- or Heifetz-class playing but it would have been nice to hear some
variety in tone, colors, articulation and so forth. The "well" of sound very
quickly filled up, saturated. It gained a murky quality -- and not in a good
way. Texture could not emerge from the foggy mass of sound. To allow himself
to play some more without blowing up stuff, the performer was making
adjustments to his delay setup and starting anew, only to create the same
cloudy drone. After a while, it was apparent that he wanted to make the
music more intense, but, because he couldn't rely on texture, his only
choice was to increase the volume.

Despite what might seem like harsh criticism, I'd still be interested to
hear Helen of Troy on a later, hopefully more satisfying occasion.


Ghislain Poirier

The intro was not uninteresting, evoking images of tectonic plates "gently"
colliding into one another. The music that followed and constituted the rest
of his show came from an entirely different place, though and, considering
what was served as an appetizer, probably came as a surprise to those (like
me) not familiar with Ghislain's music. He had some sort of Jamaican vibe
permeating his tracks, but I'll leave the ethnomusical analysis to the
experts. Each track emanating from his laptop had a generous serving of
beats, a chord or two, and, occasionally, a melody or some complimentary
textural dressing. All of this repeated ad nauseam in loops with very little
variation. In other words, you guessed it, I didn't like it. Actually, a
more accurate depiction of my reaction to the music would be that I found it
as (or maybe even more) tedious than the pain that resulted from sitting on
the Ex-Centris wooden floor in various spinal-column-destroying positions.
Constantly, I was wondering when it would finally stop only to see my hopes
crushed by the beginning of a new track. I seriously considered leaving
during this set.

What exasperated me the most was his usage of harmony. Most certainly, his
understanding of its workings is close to void. The harmonic sequences were
extremely ineffective, boring -- unnerving actually -- and did not even
begin to support the melody or whatever was on top of it. I find this (very
frequent) lack of harmonic command maddening for musicians working in such
an idiom. Some people avoid the problem by not using this parameter in their
music. That's fine. But if you use it, know how to use it intelligently.
That's a minimal, absolute prerequisite.

On the rhythmical side, I also found the music unsatisfying. At the core
level, the performer had a rigid dominant rhythmic background to keep the
heads or toes or what-have-you bobbing. This aspect of the rhythmic
structure, while not highly imaginative or perfectly fluid, was OK. However,
maybe to maintain some abstract creds or something, it seemed that the
musician felt it was necessary to add some slippery rhythms to this. You
know what I mean, those pseudo-elastic beats? This sounded really tacky to
me. They seemed awkwardly patched on top of the main rhythmic structure
instead of elegantly woven in, something that Vladislav Delay, for instance,
does with such an expert hand. Also, to shake things up and surprise the
listener, pauses sometimes appeared. Again, I felt these were very
ineffective because they occurred in a clumsy, predictable manner.

Toward the end, there was a moment I actually enjoyed. A loop [of course ;)]
engulfed between a low A and a high B flat managed to gather some cool
tension. But of course, it just laid there endlessly looping, which totally
killed any tension that was accumulating. If only some variation or
development would have been applied to it, this could have been very
interesting... I also liked one of the melody earlier, which had a "lazy"
quality and swelled here and there (sorry, can't give much more details).
But once, again, it should have been mutated (this is Mutek, for Christ's
sake... [sorry about, that, I needed the cheap relief]), transmogrified, put
on a different foundation, modulated in another tonality, something,
anything!

The crowd seemed very much into it all, though, and expressed its enthusiasm
in a warm manner (the applause was more energetic than for the other
Montrealer). Perhaps I was alone not enjoying the moment that had just
passed.

I'm confident that Ghislain's music is going to get technically very solid
pretty soon. But I don't think I will ever garner any pleasure from it.


Stephan Mathieu

Stephan Mathieu's set started in a strange way that once again seemed to
destabilize the crowd, establishing a strong contrast with what preceded. It
was as if people weren't sure that the set had really begun. But sure
enough, his PowerBook was emitting noises. It was glitch music, shifting
nervously from one state to another similar, but new state. A noisy
background hum that sounded involuntary -- but what do I know? -- distracted
me during this portion of the performance.

Next was a long choral-ish tune bathing in F minor/A flat major. The only
sounds used had an organ quality to them -- or, more precisely, some sort of
mini-organ. At first, I thought this was cool. There was a nostalgic
atmosphere to the music due to all the suspensions (I think that's the word
in English -- we say "retards" in French) taking some time to resolve on
tonic chords. There were several simultaneous voices, moving in a somewhat
independent manner -- "Wow, some counterpoint!", I told myself, surprised.
So, what have we got here: some pleasant floating tones moving timidly...
and that's pretty much it. It's nice enough at the beginning, but I think
the musical ideas contained in the piece were not able to sustain its
length. I wonder if there was some "randomity" to the flow of notes... It
certainly sounded as it could have come in real-time from Max/MSP. But then
again, I'm not familiar with Stephan's releases... There seemed to be clear
recurring patterns -- a C note growing to a high intensity, certain chord
sequences -- but I didn't perceive any sense of direction. I missed that
sorely. It rendered the music too static, I feel.

Another piece followed, of which frankly I don't remember much. Is this
attributable to my quickly fading memory or to the piece itself? Place your
bets... It was much less tonal than the previous piece. A series of
disjointed tones. I remember thinking that the tones and the way in which
they were linked (actually, they weren't and that's the problem -- it was
more an indifferent series) seemed "careless". I also felt it suffered from
a lack of direction, as with the choral piece before. That's about all I can
summon from my memory.

Reaction from the crowd was again good, though maybe not as uniform as for
Ghislain; IOW, some individuals seemed to enjoy the set highly while others
appeared less enthralled.

Oh yeah, there was a visual background during the performance that was
gradually (though not in a very smooth matter) changing colors. Just a plain
colored background, going from pink to red to yellow, something like that.


Janek Schaefer

So there I was, almost ready to quit the place sorely disappointed/deeply
frustrated/in horrible pain from my rapport with the Ex-Centris floor. "One
more to endure and off I go", I was thinking. People were gradually turning
themselves towards the center of the room, where throned his 2-arm
turntable. I sat right beside it. Eventually, Janek made his appearance,
slowly walking to his work place, telling the crowd "I'm coming... Just
grabbing my beer...". "Great, I thought. Just what I need. Another
nonchalant fellow." Turns out (at least I think so) he never even glanced at
the beer during the set. The atmosphere, more "communitarian" as a result of
the convergence of attention towards the center of the room, was also light
with laughter in reaction to Janek's words. The attention of the crowd
seemed very focused, probably because of the unusual gear/setup and the fact
that the guy was closing the show.

Words fail me to express what I felt during this set. What can I say? MAJOR
FUCKING TALENT ALERT!!! This guy is a genuine visionary, a true artist. It
had it all. The music was incredibly detailed, extraordinary rich. Just with
his 2-needle turntable and his knobs, he created multiple layers of sonic
beauty. The layers were clearly defined and worked magically well against
each other. There was momentum, variety, a *very natural flow*. I tell you
it had it all. Changing atmospheres, ranging from ominous tones to an airy
breeze. The music was performed with a chirurgical precision (I kid you
not!) with total concentration from the artist. He had written down a score
that looked very precise and he glanced quickly at it from time to time to
refresh his memory. He definitely knew where he was headed! It was a truly
fantastic journey. I was suspended to his every moves and to the most minute
changes in the music. Maybe I'm projecting my own experience here onto the
crowd, but the quality of listening seemed especially good. Once in a while,
he placed something new on his turntable (strange-looking discs, I don't
know what they were exactly) and positioned carefully his needles. The rest
of the time, he was manipulating his knobs in an expert fashion. Every tiny
move seemed to be a life-or-death operation, and that's where music becomes
true art.

Sometimes, the sounds had certain similarities with the musique concrète
tradition. At other times, it used much purer electronic tones. The music
carried a lot of energy, tension. It also had a lot of character, being very
much itself.

Totally mind-blowing, my-head-exploding music-making.

The crowd appreciated it a lot too, it seemed. As for me, I thought it was
so good as to be a bit ridiculous considering the other stuff happening at
the show before. IMO [but I already said that earlier... :)], he so totally
dwarfed the other participants of the evening, it's not even funny... I even
felt uncomfortable for them...

I tried to clap very energetically, even though I'm not very demonstrative
by nature... I feel really stupid/pathetic for not having
congratulated/thanked the artist. Everybody seemed to just hang there after
the performance, with nobody talking directly to Janek and I didn't break
the ice. In a way, this ridiculously long and delayed message is a sort of
penitence for that.

So, there you go, thank you again Janek for the fantastic music.

I bought the CD of his that they were offering, "Pulled Under", on the
"audi0h" label. I haven't listened to it yet (can't wait to do it!) so I
have no idea if it sounds like the set he did. If it does, I'll be a very
happy man.


Wait, it's not over yet!


I quickly took my person, Janek Schaefer CD in hand (I had wanted not to
burden myself with personal effects... but this idea turned out to be pretty
bad, forcing me to stupidly carry the rectangular object), to the SAT. There
were more people than at the Ex-Centris (though probably not at the very
beginning) but I'm very poor at evaluating crowds so don't expect any number
from me. The distribution of the sexes was also much more balanced (whereas
I could almost count the girls on my hands' fingers with regards to the
Ex-Centris show). After a rabid survey hunter caught me and threatened me
into participating in Mutek's marketing shenanigans, the show was about to
begin.

I'll keep this part short, mainly 'cause I'm rather sick of typing and
you're probably tired of reading.. that is, if you made it this far
(congratulations!).


Solvent/Lowfish

Not really my cuppa tea but it was good nevertheless. Puts a smile to your
face, you know? Really solid and really cheesy. Very well executed. The
crowd absolutely loved every moment of it.


Bola

The music was of course great (mostly taken from the last album Fyuti). But
it was the visuals that totally blew my mind (after having it reassembled
from the Janek Schaefer-induced explosion). Such incredible beauty, again.

I must know who is responsible for these. Again, MAJOR FUCKING TALENT
ALERT!!! When this guy releases movies or something, he's going to make
quite a splash. You read it here first ;) Obviously, these were all
carefully crafted in advance, but it seemed like some kind of live editing
was being done. It used elements from the albums' artwork. The bizarre
mollusks occupied the prime role. There were also beautiful shots of
machinery. Everything was smoothly sliding, spinning,
deconstructing/reconstructing itself, glittering. In addition to the
photographs/drawings, there was also video footage of nature, cities, etc.
But, for once, it was actually good. Maybe just ever so slightly cliché, as
Bola's music can sometimes be, but still very touching.

I don't get why some people seemed indifferent to the beauty taking place
before them and did not pay attention. Personally, my jaw was pretty much
locked to the floor the whole time with the only occasional distraction
being a pretty girl entering my field of vision momentarily. Still, the
crowd reaction was once again very enthusiastic.


Ensemble

I only stayed for the first 5 minutes or so. From what I heard and the
"RIOTRIOTRIOTRIOT" message a guy wrote on a Sticky, I was expecting brutal,
hectic stuff. The little I heard sounded more like Oval at its absolute
friendliest, or something like that. Warm, washed tones.


I did not go to other events because of life/money-related reasons. It is
possible I'll go tonight (last night).




Recent non-composed sounds of interest:
- A particularly musical segment on a dead TV channel (it had the nicest
variations in frequencies and intensity)
- The sounds of the streets at night after/during rain


(No fucking way... I'm not reading this over and revising...)

g.

-- 
Guillaume Grenier - gollum@xxxxxxxxxxxx

in space there is no north  in space there is no south
in space there is no east   in space there is no west