I’m an armchair promoter, which means I spend a lot of time dreaming up lineups for imaginary festivals in exotic locales. Last year’s MUTEK festival came pretty close to my fantasies: the Montreal festival’s 11th edition featured Theo Parrish, Actress, Shed, and Move D, among many others, and while not every performance lived up to expectation, it was seriously impressive. On the basis of its bill, MUTEK’s 12th edition didn’t quite reach the same fantastical heights as its predecessor, with many of the headliners either past their prime or commanders of cult fanbases. Even so, the festival’s wide range of talent, reaching from DeepChord to Sun Araw, created unexpected juxtapositions that gave plenty of reasons to attend.

Emptyset. Photo by Andrea

Wednesday’s A/Visions 1 took place at Salle Pierre-Mercure, which is a seated theater. I took a seat minutes before Emptyset took the stage, positioning themselves behind a table of complicated electronics. The duo’s first movement featured a sparse tunnel of thickly blotchy bass, occasionally punctured by bits of noise. This was accompanied by a projection of a seemingly aimless journey through a forest, with the camera sometimes focusing in on bark or leaves. The combination formed a kind of abrasive, disorienting trance; the camera’s eventual movement inside, climbing the stairs in a crumbling building, came as a relative shock. The journey from outside to in seemed to be leading to something, though no palpable conclusion arrived. Instead, the ambience shifted into a swung, though no less smudgy, techno movement, while the projection became increasingly abstract and frenetic. Emptyset’s narrative ambitions are a little disjointed, and the random jaggedness of the first movement hampered its resonance. But on the whole, it was a memorable and layered set, with clearly a lot of attention spent on sustaining tension. Mika Vainio was apparently working with entirely new gear after a robbery, and perhaps as a result his set was entirely devoid of visuals, performing in near-darkness. In spite of this, he effortlessly proved that audiovisual spectacle is little match for technical mastery. Starting with a series of low drones, Vainio built up into several blistering climaxes where it seemed like everything was running at once, notably punctuated by a sound that sounded like a pig squealing. Although his set was less expansive than Emptyset’s, Vainio seemed in complete control, with no part out of place.

Mika Vainio. Photo by Caroline Hayeur

The next evening, I attended the Para Nocturne event at SAT, an airy box of a space with an appropriately intimate setup for the evening’s collection of artists. There was a wall of screens behind the low stage, and it was possible to stand or sit around three of its four sides. Attendance was fairly low, probably owing to Modeselektor’s concurrent showcase at Metropolis. Montreal duo Sundrips began things with a guitar-and-synth set that recalled a strung-out Emeralds, the guitar fully smudged by an impressive selection of pedals. Arp followed with a kind of reduced version of Sundrips’ stage setup, relying less on effects than a focused balance between guitar and vintage Moog, his lines all extremely crisp. I missed Amon Tobin’s spectacle, so I might be the only one making this claim, but Arp’s set featured the most impressive visuals of the festival. Unlike the gaudy flashiness so prevalent on the dance side of things, his set accompanied a projection of transfixing landscapes — some were lifted from Tarkovsky, and I think there must have been a few from Herzog films as well, all mesmerizingly beautiful and perfectly paired with his languid compositions, largely culled from last year’s The Soft Wave LP. The final crescendo merged with seriously blissful imagery: shots of Mediterranean coasts, a man piloting a yacht, people running down sand dunes, a fragmented poem that said something lovely about “letting go.” Next, Organ Mood made an unsubtle attempt at mimicking Animal Collective, chanting over their synths and passing out maracas to the crowd, while their friend messily drew on an overhead projector.

Amon Tobin. Photo by Caroline Hayeur

Hype Williams get billed as everything from UK bass to hypnagogic pop, but really they sit closer to a group like Sun City Girls — a cryptic, wholly uncompromising cult act, i.e. you either get it or you don’t. Flanked by two slowly dancing girls, a mask-clad D. Blunt handled the beats in the back while Inga Copeland played a synthesizer and sang (through heavy delay) in front. Often maintaining a weeded distance on record, they felt like real love live, incredibly deep and coherent. Shifting from the sweetly droning ambience of “Your Girl Smells Chung When She Wears Dior” into the slow-motion funk of “Rise Up” and the anthemic “Blue Dream” (launched by a Copeland monologue in Russian), the set expertly showcased the phases of their chameleonic sound. Sun Araw closed out the night. The trio have a real ear for spacious grooves, their parts interlocking in a rugged maze of organic and synthetic. At several points their subtle, sluggish shuffle felt redolent of producers like Matthewdavid (with whom they’ve collaborated) and Ras G. Unlike that Angeleno beats scene, however, Sun Araw are hardly sketchy, and their drawn-out jams sounded like fully realized landscapes.

DeepChord presents Echospace. Photo by Miguel Legault

Friday’s Nocturne 03 event, staged at the sizable Metropolis club, featured a live performance from Plastikman as its centerpiece. I arrived around midnight, as DeepChord presents Echospace were launching into their opening set. It was apparent from the moment I walked in that the night was going to be particularly intense — the duo are obviously all about bass, and in anticipation of this, the system was almost oppressively blasting. As a result, their typically pristine compositions sounded muddy, the low-end was imbued with an uncomfortable pummel. Moreover, it’s no great secret that Echospace are downers — this is an act that dedicated an album to Michigan winter, after all — and their opening the night hardly stoked fires of excitement. People were excited anyway, though. Richie Hawtin is a megastar, and the place was instantly stiflingly packed, which is to say rock concert wall-to-wall packed, good-luck-dancing packed. Hawtin performed behind a screen, a constant barrage of projected visuals giving way to live video of the producer in action. The sound was quite crisp, but ultimately I am not that diehard about Plastikman and checked out the second room, which was hosting a bunch of Canadian bass producers.

Plastikman. Photo by Miguel Legault

Skinnybones. Photo by Caroline Hayeur

I’m hardly a diehard bass guy either, but the room was approaching platonic ideal in contrast to the headliners’ over-the-top spectacle. Skinnybones and XI played homemade material in a significantly quieter space (the sound was quite good, though): lots of chopped up pop samples, heavily swung rhythms, bass drops — we all know the “future garage” drill by now. The crowd was sparse but enthusiastic, steadily growing (perhaps out of frustration) as Plastikman’s set went on. To be frank, the main room made me ask myself things like, “Why am I trapped here in this endless horde of bodies?” The second room was a respite, all smiling faces, people actually dancing, plenty of space to find my own corner — a pleasant reminder of why I was there. Eventually I made my way out into the wreckage of Plastikman — the floor was a mess and the atmosphere was appropriately post-apocalyptic — to catch Traversable Wormhole. Adam X was clearly putting a lot in, scrambling back and forth between machines and pausing to make comically intimidating faces at moments of intensity. Unfortunately, the room was unusually bright and the crowd was slow to get into it — slightly understandable after Plastikman’s onslaught. Traversable Wormhole is tense, and would have made a lot of sense placed beforehand as a kind of gritty teaser.

XI. Photo by Caroline Hayeur

Traversable Wormhole. Photo by Miguel Legault

Piknic 1, held at Parc Jean-Drapeau (an island in the St. Lawrence River), promised a markedly mellower lineup. There’s hardly a better way to hear Luke Abbott’s delirious, sunkissed electronics than under a warm afternoon sun. Abbott’s material is fairly laidback, and his set was more tailored to relaxing and milling about than to any actual dancing. Floating Points followed, armed with his E&S rotary mixer, which of course made his stack of records sound pretty amazing. He whipped people into a serious frenzy with an impressive collection of bouncing disco bass lines, as well as some funk and hip-hop odds and ends. As with Abbott, his set was perfectly suited to the venue.

Luke Abbott. Photo by Diego Cupolo

Floating Points. Photo by Andrea

Four Tet. Photo by Miguel Legault

I showed up at Metropolis for Nocturne 4 in the midst of Four Tet’s set, which fluctuated between his recent excursions in dance music to more experimental numbers and updated versions of old tracks. The energy sagged a bit when he wasn’t playing things like “Love Cry,” but generally he was engaging, helped by the sound, which was far less bloated than the night before. Elektro Guzzi were next, turning out one of the festival’s highlights. To be honest, the live-band techno thing doesn’t usually work for me — many seem to waste their energy trying to replicate machinery, rather than settling for simple tightness. Elektro Guzzi do imitate house and techno but they’re also incredibly limber, and part of the excitement of their set was in that looseness and human feeling, and even the anticipation of failure in wondering how long they could stay in locked groove. Around three, James Holden took the stage to close out the night. As much as his set was filled with trancey, Border Community-style progressive house, he did a great job curbing that genre’s epic tendencies, keeping things perpetually on the edge of euphoria. The inclusions of Actress’ “Maze” and Daphni’s “Ye Ye” were both particularly welcome and fitting — trippy, but not without pop appeal. It was light out when it ended around five, but it still seemed to have ended much too early.

Elektro Guzzi. Photo by Travis Bourque, courtesy of CBC Radio 3

James Holden. Photo by Travis Bourque, courtesy of CBC Radio 3

As in past years, MUTEK was expertly executed and felt like an inherently world-class event. Its success has always sprung from its pairings of fresh younger talent with newer experiments from more established artists. While this was still the case in 2011, it seemed like a disproportionate level of attention was paid to marquee staples like Plastikman and Modeselektor, overshadowing exciting new artists such as Hype Williams and Elektro Guzzi who would’ve otherwise stolen the show. In fact, it felt like the less well-attended events were also those with the friendliest, most exuberant crowds. It’s tough finding a balance between experimentalism and accessibility, so the festival organizers deserve a fair amount of credit for doing it as well as they did. Overall, MUTEK 2011 offered five days of superb, nuanced performances and fulfilled its promise, if not my fantasy line-up.

Positioned as they are on the calendar, Detroit’s Movement festival and Montreal’s MUTEK festival seem like sibling events that arrive a week apart. They share similar aesthetic DNA — focusing on the electronic, dance music side of the spectrum with a mixture of homegrown and international talent — but like siblings they’re quite different when you consider the details. Where Movement’s line up is often aimed at pleasing the broadest audience possible, MUTEK’s is geared towards the slightly esoteric, experimental side of electronic music, engaging the brain and body in equal measures with live gigs, panel discussions, Q&A sessions, and workshops. The festival takes place this June 1st-5th and spans 25 individual events, which encourages attendees to make judicious use of their time and energy. As an official media partner, LWE has assembled its comprehensive guide to the festival, complete with our picks for the must-see events.

Mika Vainio, who plays A/Visions 1

+ Metro Arts 1
@ Berri-Uqam Metro Station / Free / 4:30-5:30pm
Local UK bass music producer Bowly plays an unexpected set at one of Montreal’s busiest metro stations.

+ Windows Live Sessions 1
@ Windows Lounge (1182 Saint-Laurent Blvd) / Free / 4:30-5:30pm
KEXP veteran DJ Darek Mazzone explains how he uses Windows 7 in his widely respected radio show.

+ Expérience 1
@ Place de la Paix (Saint-Laurent Blvd@Juliette Béliveau St)/Free/5-7pm
A showcase of local turntablists and breaks practitioners, featuring DJ Brace, Ken Lo, and Math Rosen.

+ Pre Nocturne Roland Showcase
@ SAT (1195 Saint-Laurent Blvd) / Free / 7-8pm
An interactive evening to see who will win 1st place in the Roland Synthesizer Contest. Featuring special performances by Poirier and FM Radio Gods.

+ A/Visions 1: The Industrial Evolution
@ Salle Pierre-Mercure (300 boulevard de Maisonneuve Est) / $25 / 8-10pm
A showcase exploring the intersection between granular synthesis, fabrications of light and image, and the beauty of inherent rhythm and repetition. Featuring an audio/visual live set by Mika Vainio (ex-Pan Sonic), a live PA by Emptyset, and multi-sensory performance by Purform (Elektra Festival founder Alain Thibault & visual artist Yan Breuleux).

+ Carrément Design
@ UQAM – Pavillon Judith-Jasmin (405 Sainte Catherine East) / Free / 10-11pm
Inspired by The Mole’s 7 Inches of Love label, featuring 7″ re-edits by The Mole and DJ Poontz.

+ Nocturne 1: Machinimations
@ Metropolis (59 Sainte-Catherine East) / $30 / 10pm-3am
The first Nocturne event promises breathtaking live sets from Amon Tobin, Badawi, and Gold Panda.

Modeselektor, who plays Nocturne 2: Modeselektion

+ MUTEK Artists On the Ground
@ Radio-Canada (1400, boul René-Lévesque E) / Free / 12-4pm
Radio-Canada’s Bande à part is hosting an afternoon of free music at the front plaza of the CBC building. Featuring DJ sets by Richie Hawtin, Jacques Greene, Amon Tobin, and Ken Lo.

+ Metro Arts 2
@ Berri-Uqam Metro Station / Free / 4:30-5:30pm
Local techno producers The Gulf Stream play an unexpected set at one of Montreal’s busiest metro stations.

+ Expérience 2
@ Place de la Paix (Saint-Laurent Blvd@Juliette Béliveau St)/Free/ 5-7pm
A showcase of local techno producers, featuring Meek, Sinteg, and Xavier Lebuis.

+ Windows Live Sessions 2
@ Windows Lounge (1182 Saint-Laurent Blvd) / Free / 4:30-5:30pm
World renowned Montreal-based producer Deadbeat explains how he uses Windows 7 in his music.

+ A/Visions 2: Rapid-Eye Dreamers
@ Salle Pierre-Mercure (300 boulevard de Maisonneuve Est) / $25 / 8-10pm
Exploring the combination of classical textures and 3D visuals, this features live sets by Murcof & AntiVJ, Seth Horvitz (aka Sutekh) presenting studies in prepared piano, and the Canadian debut of Comaduster’s “Scrape” live PA.

+ Nocturne 2: Modeselektion
@ Metropolis (59 Sainte-Catherine East) / $30 / 10pm-3am
With Modeselektor doing the booking, this event features sets by the German duo, FaltyDL, Anstam, Jacques Greene, Sirismo, Arthur Oskan, Billy Dallessandro, Mateo Murphy, and Groj.

+ Para Nocturne: Psychonautic Surfers
@ SAT (1195 Saint-Laurent Blvd) / $20 / 10pm-1am
An event running parallel to Nocturne 2, this event features sets by ARP, Hype Williams, The Sun Araw Band, Organ Mood, and Sundrips.

Traversable Wormhole, who plays Nocturne 3: Parallel Spaces

+ Metro Arts 3
@ Berri-Uqam Metro Station / Free / 4:30-5:30pm
Local techno producer Mateo Murphy plays an unexpected set at one of Montreal’s busiest metro stations.

+ Windows Live Sessions 3
@ Windows Lounge (1182 Saint-Laurent Blvd) / Free / 7-8pm
Seattle producer Pezzner explains how he uses Windows 7 in his music.

+ Expérience 3
@ Place de la Paix (Saint-Laurent Blvd@Juliette Béliveau St)/Free/5-7pm
A showcase of local garage and funky-inspired producers Bowly, Hissy Fit, and Knowing Looks.

+ A/Visions 3: Fab Gadgets
@ SAT (1195 Saint-Laurent Blvd) / $25 / 8-10pm
Multimedia arts reign supreme for this third installment of the A/Visions series. Features mind-melting AV sets from Sculpture, Tristan Perich, and Women With Kitchen Appliances.

+ Nocturne 3: Parallel Spaces
@ Metropolis (59 Sainte-Catherine East) / $40 / 11pm-3am
The most coveted names in techno take over the Metropolis for what is expected to be a deep and echo-heavy evening. Featuring live sets by Deepchord presents: Echospace, Plastikman, Traversable Wormhole, XI, Komodo, Skinnybones, and Tomas Jirku.

Floating Points, who plays Piknic 1: Outer House

+ Piknic 1: Outer House
@ Jean-Drapeau Park (Île Ste-Hélène 59) / $10 / 2-9pm
An afternoon and evening of left-field house with DJ sets from Floating Points and Terry Lee Brown Jr., as well as sets by Luke Abbott, Footprintz, Simon Called Peter, The Gulf Stream, and Recife.

+ Expérience 4
@ Place de la Paix (Saint-Laurent Blvd@Juliette Béliveau St/Free/7-9pm
A showcase of local electronic producers Diane Labrosse, Montag, Dominic Vanchesteing, Navet Confit, and Olivier Alary.

+ Designer_Mix
@ SAT (1195 Saint-Laurent Blvd) / $25 / 10-1am
This soirée is dedicated to Berlin, Buenos Aires and Montreal, the first three cities to join UNESCO’s Creative Cities Network in the “design” category. Featuring sets from Pole, Deadbeat & Lillevan, Chancha Via Circuito, and Sol del Rio.

+ Nocturne 4: Beyond the Autobahn
@ Metropolis (59 Sainte-Catherine East) / $35 / 11pm-6am
This seven hour event puts the emphasis on live-electronics and genre fusion. Featuring sets by Elektro Guzzi, Four Tet, James Holden, Stephen Beaupré, Max Ulis, Monolithium, Michael Red, Babe Rainbow, Calamalka, Daega Sound System, and Rocketnumbernine.

Horror Inc., who plays Nocturne 5: Perpetual E_Motion

+ Piknic 2
@ Jean-Drapeau Park (Île Ste-Hélène 59) / $10 / 2-9pm>
For Piknic 2 this year, they’re trying something new: the curators spontaneously invite guests from the MUTEK 2011 line-up to break out their DJ bags and go to town on an unsuspecting audience.

+ Nocturne 5: Perpetual E_Motion
@ Metropolis (59 Sainte-Catherine East) / $25 / 10pm-3am
To close the festival, the last Nocturne event features sets by Horror Inc., Wareika, Danuel Tate, and Radiq.

Norman Feller may have got his start by DJing hard trance and rave in the final days of the 80′s and early 90′s, but his first forays into production under guises such as Phasis, Watchman, Norman and Smash would pale in comparison to the moniker he established in 1995. As Terry Lee Brown Jr. he bridged the worlds of house and techno with such finesse that many DJs and producers expressed genuine shock when they found out that the producer with the American afro-centric name was not just white but also from Germany. One of the most prolific producers in his field during the last half of the 90′s, Feller has released nearly two dozen singles and a half dozen albums as Terry Lee Brown Jr. alone. Under alternate aliases like Da Kine and Fonka Delix he has been responsible for classic moments in deep house and tech-house via his Driftwood and Tonika labels he ran with long time friend Frank Cochois, aka The Timewriter. With many other projects constantly on the go including his annual mix compilation, Terry Café, it is somewhat of an understatement to say that Feller’s contribution to electronic music has been considerable. Ahead of his performance at this year’s MUTEK festival, held from June 1-5, LWE caught up with Feller to discuss his dedication to releasing music in long form, the importance of having outlets for different musical expressions and what the veteran producer is currently working on. He also hit us up with an incredible exclusive mix of deep, soulful tech-house that simply has to be heard to be believed.

LWE Podcast 85: Terry Lee Brown Jr. (63:12)

Tracklist

01. Subb-an ft. Beckford, “The Lovers Night” [Spectral Sound]
02. Butch, “Soul Motion” [Bouq. Records]
03. The Timewriter, “Wasteland” [Neurotraxx Deluxe]
04. Rodriguez Jr., “Omicron” [SSOH]
05. DJ Da & Sam Perez, “Camel ln His Mouth” [Neurotraxx Gold]
06. Maya Jane Coles, “Play The Game” [Mobilee]
07. Luigi Rocca & Mario Ochoa, “The Passenger” (Sideburn & Redondo Remix)
[HotFingers]
08. Acirne & Rio Padice, “Tonight Is The Night” [T-Bet Records]
09. Rafael Kakudo, “Hidden Funk” (M.in Like That Remix) [Clap Your Hands]
10. Jerry K, “X As Soul” (Tool Mix) [Gramma Rec]
11. Nick Warren, “Buenos Aires” (Terry Lee Brown Jr. Mix) [Hope Recordings]
12. Lo, “Fear” (Manuel Romero Remix) [Miniatura Records]
13. Aki Bergen & Pezzner ft. Terry Grant, “Taraeando” (Terry Lee Brown Jr. Remix)
[Neurotraxx Gold]

You’re quite the veteran of the house and techno scene. What was it initially that got you into DJing and producing?

Norman Feller: Well I would say that initially when I started it was more of the rave stuff and hard trance music, but then in the middle of the 90′s I switched over to house music. I was very impressed with some house parties that were happening here near my home town in Frankfurt. The whole explosion of this music around Germany as well was so amazing for me, especially the grooves, the tempo and the funky rhythms of the house tunes gave me a lot of inspiration and that was the reason I switched over to this sound.

I know around that time in Germany certainly the sound was generally a lot harder, more the techno and acid trance and all that. So was there a big scene for house and tech-house also?

Yeah, in the middle of the 90′s I went to a lot of the parties of Ricardo Villalobos, who was doing these illegal parties near my home town. This was before he was a big name and there were DJs like Chez Damier and these other American DJs playing, and to go and see these DJs made a very big impression on me.

Using the name Terry Lee Brown Jr., was that to make yourself sound like one of these American DJs or as an homage to them?

Yeah, that’s really a funny story because when I started with that, my first thing I did was for Plastic City because I know the guys from there. So I started to produce my first Terry Lee Brown Jr. production, although of course I didn’t have this name yet. Because in the 90′s I had a lot of different names for different projects, I’m not sure exactly how many but I worked a lot with other friends so all the time we used different names. So when it came to doing the Plastic City release I was thinking on a name that would suit the sound, the model I had created. So I was writing down all these names I thought could work in my studio. Terry I liked because it could be male or female. Lee, I don’t know how I came up with that, and then Brown because an American friend of mine had this last name. So I called Alex, the owner of Plastic City and I told him the name and he suggested to add the Jr. part of it and it was done, it was brilliant.

It wasn’t really my intention for it to sound like an American producer, but then a lot of my black friends from my hometown told me this was a pretty typical name for a black man to have from America. I didn’t really think anything of it, but then when my first album came out, it started getting a lot of positive response from American producers and they said they were very surprised when they found out that Terry Lee Brown Jr. was this white guy from Germany. My main thing was that I was trying to move away more from the techno things that I was creating in the early 90′s and make something more like house music, but it couldn’t help but still have some techno elements to it, so it became tech-house. This was also like what David Alvarado was doing, who was a big influence and a good friend of mine.

Did you have any formal musical training?

I can’t read notes, but I guess I do have a musical background. My father is a bass guitarist and he has been playing for about 40 or 50 years now in a rock ‘n’ roll band, but that was more as a hobby. But I think from him I got a musical understanding and appreciation. But for me to play keys and things, it is coming completely from my soul, just me feeling it; I have never had any teacher or anything like this. I just had a lot of good friends who were in the business as sound engineers and in studios, so I learned a lot of things about the other side of music too.

For your whole career as TLB Jr. you have solely released on Plastic City. What is the reason behind this? I know you’ve released on other labels under different names. Was this partly due to a contract? Have you ever felt that you’ve limited the scope of your distribution by remaining solely on that label?

In the beginning years it was because of an exclusive deal I had with them, but it was not a problem either, it was a very positive situation. At this time Plastic City was under the heading of Under Cover Music Group but it went under in the early 2000′s. So for a while it was in doubt as to what was going to happen to all of the many labels that were under UCMG, but then Plastic City was bought by someone else and I decided to continue with them because after all these years it was like a family situation. I was an artist and DJ for them and also like their strongest artist. It was very much like what Danny Tenaglia was for Twisted or TRIBAL America at that time for example. Of course things have changed a lot and yeah, for example I just signed something to a different label but almost all of my work except for my remixes have been for Plastic City. But yes, for the future I will be releasing on other labels too. Frank [Cochois, The Timewriter] and I have been friends for a very long time and have started making some music together and we will be starting our own label for this too. We did have two labels before in the past [the excellent Tonika and Driftwood labels] but now we have a new one and it’s very fresh right now, so we should hear from that in the next three to four months.

So your aliases in the past were more for the purpose of working outside of your contractual obligations. Do you have any new handles you’re using now?

Not yet. My main project for the last ten years has been Terry Lee Brown Jr. Apart from that, the more down-tempo stuff has been under the name Nor Elle and that has been released through Mole Listening Pearls. In the beginning this was also a parallel label of Plastic City but more fixed on the listening and down-tempo side of music. So for me it’s nice to have this diversity to play around with different kinds of rhythm, especially after I have finished a Terry Lee Brown Jr. album, then I can switch over to Nor Elle and make something completely different to that.

From a very early stage in your career you’ve released albums. Was this to establish yourself as an artist or more to deal with the prolific amount of work that you were producing?

I think for me every time it was very important to create these albums. And you know, I never really had a club hit as Terry Lee Brown Jr. like some of the other producers. But for me I was always trying to focus on the sound design, to make something arty and not just release for the sake of it. I had my sounds, my harmonies, my chords, my technical understanding of production and it felt very important to put this into albums. These days it is very sad because everybody is just downloading tracks and not many people are so into the whole album. For me I loved to have a whole album to listen to, whether it was CD or vinyl and have a booklet to read and get the whole experience of listening to something for about 80 minutes. It seems to me that the whole digital culture has changed not just how people are listening to their music but how it is being made. You used to talk about the sounds and how good things would sound and now it’s just all about tracks. Some of these have still very good production but then after two weeks nobody remembers it. I know it is very much part of the zeitgeist and there are some very good things about this digital age in terms of distribution and being able to create your own story outside of record labels. That part of things is not so hard for artists now.

But then you look at how people get their music, too. I used always to go record shopping one or two days of the week and would spend up to four hours or so with my record dealer going through new music, but now everyone is sitting in front of their laptops scrolling through thousands of tracks online. Also I think this affects the club culture a little bit, too. This whole music scene is based on vinyl so I can’t see what these digital DJs are doing on the stage. For me it makes no sense to be talking about what [gear] a DJ is using because it should be all about the performance. It’s a two way thing, though, because even though so many people are supporting this they are at the same time crying out for vinyl DJs, so it’s very strange times right now. I do like some aspects of it too, that you can finish making something new and then send it to a friend or a DJ across the other side of the world and they can play it that night in the club and let you know how it went down, that is a big thing. You can now create tracks and they can become a hit in the same day, so there are positive and negative things on both sides.

So tell me a bit more about the label you’re setting up with Frank.

The label is going to be called Refine and we have everything set in place business-wise for starting it. The question now is the starting date which I think is going to be in the next few months, so then from there we can start creating the sound of the label and how we will continue as older DJs in the year 2011.

Will that label be more for your own productions or will you release others on there too?

No, it will definitely be for others too, because we have a lot of good friends who are producers and we want to make a nice network. But to start it will be our own productions and then we will open it up.

Cool, so what can you tell us about the mix you did for us?

That is a mix I did especially for you in my studio in one take and I just can say it is a good mix of my music taste with some new tracks and some older ones. When I play I don’t believe in just playing new things because the age of a track shouldn’t matter, so I really like to sometimes get into some older things for a while and refresh the crowd with that. But of course this depends on the crowd, I just like to make things different every time.

OK, so we talked about the label already but what else can we expect from you in the next year?

Well, I will continue also with my compilations like Terry’s Cafe and you will also hear more productions with The Timewriter, because even though we have had our studios side by side for the past 11 years we have only ever made I think five tracks together, which is not very much considering we see each other almost every day. It was usually just us listening to each others tracks and helping each other but not with actually making things together. So now we are doing that some more and you will hear more of our co-productions on our new label Refine and also for other labels too.

Great, thanks very much Norman.

Thank you.

LWE Podcast 85: Terry Lee Brown Jr. (63:12)

MUTEK and LWE are teaming up to give away two festival passports for all the MUTEK’s 12th edition, June 1st through 5th. To win the prize so good it has us plainly jealous, simply answer our trivia question:

What was the name of MUTEK headliner Plastikman’s first release? Send your answer with MUTEK CONTEST in the subject line to contest@littlewhiteearbuds.com by Friday, May 6th at 10am CST. One winner will be chosen at random from the correct entries and notified. Good luck, and don’t fuck it up.

For those wondering if they should make the journey to the MUTEK festival, the fine folks behind the annual gathering in Montreal may have a localized solution for you: The Avant_MUTEK events, which provide a first taste of the festivities to come, are arriving in cities around North America in the run up to the festival. Their line-ups encompass previous MUTEK favorites and fine local talent as well. As an official media partner of the MUTEK festival, here is LWE’s guide of the Avant_MUTEK events.

Saturday, April 9, @ W2 Media Center — 8PM; $15
MUTEK and New Forms Festival present:

Theo Parrish [Sound Signature; US] — DJ set
Jason Lev [CA] — live set
Love Dancing [CA] — live set
{click here for more info}

Thursday, April 21, @ Preston Bradley Hall at the Chicago Cultural Center — 6:30PM; FREE
MUTEK and the Chicago Cultural Center present:

Gemmiform ft. The Banjo Consorsium [CA] — live set
Thierry Gauthier presents Nord/Sud [CA] — live set
{click here for more info}

Thursday, April 21, @ The Mid — 9PM; $13.50
MUTEK, React, Meiotic and The Mid present:

Trentemøller [Denmark] — live band
Dorit Chrysler [US] — live set
Decimal [US] — live set
{click here for more info}

Friday, April 22, @ Bottom Lounge — 9PM; $10
MUTEK and Meiotic present:

Stephen Beaupré [Musique Risquée; CA] — live set
Frankie Vega & Sevron [US] — multimedia DJ set
{click here for more info}

Saturday, April 23, @ Smart Bar — 10PM; $15
MUTEK, Meiotic, Smartbar and Abstract Science present:

Monolake [DE] — live surround set
Deepchord presents Echospace [US] — live set
Karl Meier [US] — live set
Chris Widman [US] — live set
{click here for more info}

Friday, May 6 @ The Bunker
BACK ROOM:

Akufen [CA]
Stephen Beaupré [CA] – live set
Vincent Lemieux [CA]

FRONT ROOM:

Kangding Ray [DE] — live set
Safety Scissors [US] — DJ/live
Sutekh [US] — DJ/live

After a few days’ rest, LWE contributor Steve Kerr offers his review of MUTEK 2010.

On the week prior to MUTEK, The Montreal Mirror (the city’s main English alternative weekly) ran a cover story on the Còmeme-signed Mexican producer Rebolledo, who was to perform at the festival’s opening showcase. Jack Oatmon, the paper’s clubbing specialist, described Rebolledo as “the antithesis of the stereotypical MUTEK artist… raw, guttural, punchy and simple… not preciously niggling over the minutiae of subtle, minimal techno tracks.” Oatmon isn’t inaccurate in his description, but his words also speak to the widespread perception of the festival as humorless and overly intellectual. Granted, MUTEK has always prided itself on representing all categories of electronic music; brainy acts like Matmos and Mouse on Mars were included on this year’s schedule, and the festival remains an event for followers of studied, experimental composition. However, the notion that quality dance music and challenging, subtle arrangements are somehow mutually exclusive feels painfully outdated, especially in comparison to the number of iconoclastic artists on the bill. This was the first year I’ve attended that felt relatively cutting-edge, which is largely attributable to the refined lineup and the trimming of dubious attempts at live bands. The festival focuses on live performances rather than DJ sets, and while there were still a few missteps in this respect, the artists generally appeared to have been granted more freedom in how they presented themselves. Still, audiences occasionally seemed unsure whether to dance or chin-stroke, and the flow of certain lineups was marred in equal parts to the venue and the degree of the artist’s experimentalism.

Còmeme crew. Photo by Caroline Hayeur

On opening night, I headed to the Còmeme showcase at SAT (La Société des arts technologiques), a spacious box with fantastically crisp sound that typically plays host to sound-art and bass music events. I arrived as Diegors’ opening set transitioned into Matias Aguayo’s live band performance, in which Aguayo and Diegors, alongside Vicente “Original Hamster” Sanfuentes, proceeded to jam out on an assortment of hardware and hand percussion instruments, frequently chanting on top. The trio wildly shifted between jacking, tropical house, digital cumbia, and Aguayo’s dream-pop, a blurry mess that was far too much fun to dance to; no doubt a widespread sentiment, judging by the room’s convivial atmosphere. True, it was an attempt at a live band, but it was successful because it wasn’t far from a DJ set, which it eventually became. After awhile, Rebolledo materialized to play a selection of tracks that generally sounded like Skatt Bros’ “Walk the Night,” all hairy motorik motorcycle disco, and almost inevitably the dance floor gained a more masculine presence. The set melted back into another performance from the trio (now with Rebolledo in tow), and again, the combination of DJing and live set was absolutely seamless. Put simply, it was the friendliest introduction one could hope for.

Actress. Photo by Caroline Hayeur

Friday’s Nocturne, held at SAT and the neighboring Club Soda, was curated by FACT Magazine and boasted two impressive lineups; the former venue handled the bass-music side of things, while the latter, where I spent most of my time, focused on more techno-oriented acts. Club Soda is more claustrophobic than SAT, and the system suffered from some muddiness, but the night’s true problem was in its fluidity. I got there immediately after Orphx’s set, purchased a hideously overpriced bottle of water, and made my way to the front for Actress. His set, performed via the standard tweaking-apparatus-and-Macbook, was a reasonably smooth mix of tracks old and new. However, it was very much apparent that Darren Cunningham is foremost a producer of headphone music; his more delicate compositions were pulverized by the club’s system, and at one point the sound even cut out. His brooding stage presence — hood up, eyes closed — complemented the downcast material, but the set was too moody to successfully kick off the evening. It may have made more sense to put him on in a more intimate setting, with more effort on the visual front.

Cheap & Deep. Photo by Caroline Hayeur

After a pause, Cheap and Deep’s Jay Ahern materialized behind a table crowded with hardware, removing his sandals and launching into a set of athletic techno. Almost immediately he convinced a good portion of the crowd that it was already peaktime — frenzied shouts erupted, a friend ran up to give the producer a hug — people were happy and dancing. But because Ahern started so intensely, there was very little to build on, and after the initial thrill, the assault of raw, rhythm-heavy tracks began to wear. It was too much, too fast. Another energy-decimating pause and Jacek Sienkiewicz began his laptop set, which, in spite of some comforting atmospherics, also lacked momentum, though for entirely different reasons than Cheap and Deep. His tracks were too minimal for their own good; one cannot move a crowd by simply dropping in and pulling out the bass. The dancers appeared to feel the same way too, moving lethargically, like they were only dancing because they happened to be in a club. Sienkiewicz’s tracks may work in the context of a DJ set, but played live, there simply wasn’t enough substance to warrant enthusiasm.

Shed. Photo by Caroline Hayeur

Already on the edge of the dance loor at this point, I left to check out what was going on at SAT. A fog-shrouded King Midas Sound were starting their last song, an apocalyptic thrashfest totally removed from the weeded melancholia of their releases. I had to remind myself that this was Kevin Martin, after all, and the fans were there to experience bassbins pushed to the extreme. A little too intense for my tastes, but it was nice to have my expectations jarred a bit, which is part of the beauty of MUTEK. Back at Club Soda, Shed had the estimable task of redeeming everyone’s night, which he absolutely did. Running through material from his various aliases, his tracks felt especially warm after the austerity of the preceding acts. People were going nuts the entire time, and the unassuming Berliner received a star’s ovation. He looked floored –and awkwardly apologetic –in response to the ubiquitous encore request (which unfortunately never came, as he was promptly cut off at three o’clock), gingerly closing his laptop and shuffling offstage. Again, I left the club beaming.

Vladislav Delay. Photo by Caroline Hayeur

On Saturday, dissuaded by inclement weather from attending the Piknic (which featured DJ Koze and Minilogue, among others), I dropped by Vladislav Delay’s set at SAT, where the crowd was markedly different from those of the dance events I’d been attending;although I wasn’t expecting a throbbing techno performance, the collection of stiff, serious people sitting on the floor was still sort of a shock. The set was reflective of his recent material, an abstract bassy clutter with quick glimmers of beauty. I sat down and thought about how James Blake might be doing pop takes on that sort of thing, and then it was over. As much as headliners Tim Hecker and Ben Frost held interest for me, I wanted to give my ears a rest for Move D, who was to perform later that night.

Move D. Photo by Andrea

Metropolis is one of Montreal’s catch-all venues (accompanying MUTEK on the marquee were George Thorogood & The Destroyers), a large space with a balcony and reliable sound. The early crowd, regimented into a side-street line by young, stressed-out bouncers, was noticeably brightly-colored and druggy. With headliner Dixon slated for a four o’clock timeslot, people were quite ready to dance all night. As David Moufang opened his set with a luxuriant ambient passage, someone loudly requested that he “drop the beat!” — which he proceeded to do, and quickly everyone in the room was hypnotized. As with his releases, one gets the impression from his labyrinthine live set (again, laptop-and-controller) that he could go on jamming forever; he’s truly a master at improvising on top of grooves that expand and expand. It’s also worth noting that Moufang had by far the coolest stage demeanor of any performer — right at one of the set’s peaks, a look of intense concentration gave way to a wide grin, and he casually danced over to the side of the stage, as blissfully lost in it as the rest of us. Afterwards, I couldn’t help thinking about how well Move D could have complemented Shed’s set, though like Shed, he was outstanding on his own.

Pépé Bradock. Photo by Myriam Rafla

It was raining hard enough on Sunday to warrant a move of the day’s Piknic from Parc Jean-Drapeau (located on a neighboring island in the St. Lawrence River) to Metropolis. San Proper was playing repetitive, clattering tracks to a sparse, reasonably enthusiastic crowd when I arrived. After nodding my head a little bit, I went to find the coat check, only to be informed that there wasn’t one — not a big deal, but it made things a little uncomfortable, especially when Pépé Bradock took over for a DJ set. As expected for someone with his track record, Bradock is a consummate professional on stage, immediately locking into a set of loopy disco house; the dance floor immediately got dense, people were appropriately sweaty and psyched. His tendency to throw everyone off guard with sudden bursts of incongruous noise was also appreciable.

Brandt Brauer Frick. Photo by Caroline Hayeur

Later that night, I headed to SAT for the final Nocturne. Brandt Brauer Frick, who began late, were basically a Krautrock jam band — incredibly tight, perhaps too tight for their own good — whatever funk they had was canceled by the palpable excitement for Theo Parrish’s closing set. After a slow start punctuated by some unpleasant feedback, Parrish launched into one of his classic sets. Gritty and filled with otherworldly equalizer tweaks, he ran through Mr. Fingers, Fela Kuti, James Brown, and the Police, exposing the house at the heart of everything. His raw style was definitely polarizing; there were a lot of folded arms and glum looks (and unfortunately some of these people forgot to clear the floor), but most everyone else was going crazy, begging for more when the lights were turned on around three o’clock He concluded things by barking one of his infamous speeches about being a specialized vinyl operator (I wasn’t close enough to hear, but I got the gist).

Theo Parrish. Photo by Caroline Hayeur

While this was easily the best MUTEK I’ve attended, I hope the festival’s organizers take note of Parrish’s words. There was very little in the way of Oatmon’s boring, hyperdetailed minimal techno, but I see room for improvement in providing rawer material, phasing out the Ableton sets in favor of more uncompromising live presentations. A classicist, all-vinyl DJ set would have been a welcome substitute for certain dead-end laptop excursions. I have to digress, though. Aside from the occasional problems, MUTEK did a wonderful job of showcasing some of electronic music’s most revered names. Almost wholly ignoring the more ambient and experimental side of things, I was still able to catch a broad swath of talent in some well-chosen venues. As long as organizers continue to place originality above what’s fashionable, the festival has a bright future ahead of it.

Positioned as they are on the calendar, Detroit’s Movement festival and Montreal’s Mutek festival seem like sibling events that arrive a week apart. They share similar aesthetic DNA — focusing on the electronic, dance music side of the spectrum with a mixture of homegrown and international talent — but like siblings they’re quite different when you consider the details. Where Movement’s line up is often aimed at pleasing the broadest audience possible, Mutek’s is geared towards the slightly esoteric, experimental side of electronic music, engaging the brain and body in equal measures with live gigs, panel discussions, Q&A sessions, and workshops. The festival also lasts five days and spans 28 individual events — all of which encourages attendees to make judicious use of their time and energy. To aid in this process, LWE has assembled its comprehensive guide to the festival, complete with our picks for the must-see events.

Matmos, who play A/Visions 1: Pandora’s Music Box

+ Expérience 1
@ Monument-National (1182 Saint-Laurent Blvd) / Free / 6-7:45pm
Presented by Bande à Part in collaboration with Exclaim.ca, the first Expérience showcases audio-visual artists Gemmiform and Videovoce who combine organic and found source material to convey unexpected connections.

+ A/Visions 1: Pandora’s Music Box
@ Monument-National (1182 Saint-Laurent Blvd) / $25 / 8-10:15pm
Pandora’s Music Box showcases music through the prism of technology, bringing together the dot-matrix symphonies of [The User], proto-noise performances by Nicolas Bernier and Martin Messier, and an all-synth exhibition by LWE favorites Matmos.

+ Nocturne 1: ¡Fiesta Espontanea!
@ Society for Arts and Technology (1195 Saint-Laurent Blvd)
$25 / 10pm-3am
¡Fiesta Espontanea! is more or less a showcase for Matias Aguayo’s Còmeme label/collective which kicks off with a Latin disco DJ set by Diegors, followed by sweaty and energetic performance from Aguayo’s new live band featuring Vicente Sanfuentes, Pablo Castoldi and Diegors, concluding with a nu-electro DJ set by Rebolledo.

+ Ectoplasmes³ 1
@ Monument-National (1182 Saint-Laurent Blvd) / 10:30pm-2am
The first Ectoplasmes³ event explores sound through the unpredictable process of improvisation, with a sets by Dominique Pétrin (ormerly of Les Georges Leningrad) and Georges Rebboh, Alexandre St-Onge and des Impatients (multi-instrumentalist Siou et Lavigne, keyboardist Félix Lavigne, and theremin virtuoso Frank Martel), Pierre Tanguay, Filteau and Christian Richer, and Jason Lescalleet.

Uwe Schmidt aka Atom Heart, who participates in Panel 2: Beyond the Sequence: Finishing It Off

+ Panel 1: The history of The International Cities of Advanced Sound
@ Monument-National (1182 Saint-Laurent Blvd) / Free / 11am-1pm

+ Q&A 1: Depth of Field
@ Monument-National (1182 Saint-Laurent Blvd) / Free / 1-2pm
The Wire’s Derek Walmsley interviews the brainy couple behind Matmos, Drew Daniel and Martin Schmidt.

+ Workshop 1: A/V Feedback
@ Monument-National (1182 Saint-Laurent Blvd) / Free / 1-4pm
Serbia’s Incredible Bob explains the history and uses of video feedback and helps participants create their own video art.

+ Panel 2: Beyond the Sequence: Finishing It Off
@ Monument-National (1182 Saint-Laurent Blvd) / Free / 3-4pm
David Last moderates a discussion on how artists arrange and structure their music to have the intended impact. Panel features Uwe Schmidt (aka Atom Heart), Dave Aju, Guillaume Coutu-Dumont, and Vicente “Original Hamster” Sanfuentes.

+ Q&A 2: Depth of Field
@ Monument-National (1182 Saint-Laurent Blvd) / Free / 5-6pm
The Wire’s Derek Walmsley interviews “extreme music” purveyor and current dub architect Kevin Martin, currently of King Midas Sound.

+ Expérience 2
@ Monument-National (1182 Saint-Laurent Blvd) / Free / 6-8:15pm
Presented by Bande à Part in collaboration with Exclaim.ca, the second Expérience explores the relationship between sound, image and movement. Features peformances by ambient loop trio, If Then Do, laptop glitch by Sébastian Cliche, and the droning work of Aun.

+ A/Visions 2: The Cult of Longer Memories
@ Monument-National (1182 Saint-Laurent Blvd) / $25 / 7:30-10:30pm
The Cult of Longer Memories explores the wide open spaces of post-industrial music, bringing together performances by A/V artist Freida Abtan, an unusual spectacle of manipulated 78s by The Caretaker, and a rare North American appearance by noise legends Nurse With Wound.

+ Roland Pre-Nocturne
@ Society for Arts and Technology (1195 Saint-Laurent Blvd)
Free / 8pm-9:30am
Roland showcases two of its favored artists, FM Radio Gods and V-Topia.

+ Nocturne 2: Radical Connectors
@ Metropolis (59 Sainte-Catherine East) / $30 / 10:30pm-2:30am
This dual-room event packs the room with talent, featuring performances by Hrdvision, Jon Hopkins, Chris Hreno, Mossa, Mouse On Mars, and Nathan Fake.

+ Ectoplasmes³ 2
@ Monument-National (1182 Saint-Laurent Blvd) / 10:30pm-2am
The second Ectoplasmes³ encourages attendees to be active listeners and features improvisatory performances by Bernardino Femminielli, Random Transfer and Joshua Bonnetta, Stéphane Claude, Philippe-Aubert Gauthier and Debashis Sinha, and the debut performance of Eleh.

Actress, who plays Nocturne 3: Shedding the Past, Dubbing the Future

+ Workshop 2: Ableton Live
@ Monument-National (1182 Saint-Laurent Blvd) / Free / 1-2pm
Pheek discusses his methodology for using Ableton and participants are welcome to share their own Ableton creations.

+ Q&A 3: Depth of Field
@ Monument-National (1182 Saint-Laurent Blvd) / Free / 1-2pm
The Wire’s Derek Walmsley interviews “copyright terrorist,” The Caretaker.

+ Panel 3: Moment of Impact: The Physicality of Sound
@ Monument-National (1182 Saint-Laurent Blvd) / Free / 3-4pm
Moderated by Mat Schulz of Unsound Festival, the panel discusses the physical side of audio. Panelists include Ben Frost, Tim Hecker, Pimmon and Carl Michael von Hausswolff.

+ Workshop 3: Produce, Perform, Progress
@ Monument-National (1182 Saint-Laurent Blvd) / Free / 4-5pm
The third workshop, presented by Serato and Ableton, shows of their latest innovation — The Bridge. The workshop will also include a Serato Scratch Live tutorial.

+ Q&A 4: Depth of Field
@ Monument-National (1182 Saint-Laurent Blvd) / Free / 5-6pm
The Wire’s Derek Walmsley interviews “post-everything” duo, Mouse On Mars.

+ Expérience 3
@ Monument-National (1182 Saint-Laurent Blvd) / Free / 6-8pm
Expérience 3 kicks off the evening with a session of analog glee from Citofono, The Square Root of Evil, and Jacob & Francis.

+ A/Visions 3: Sublime Distortion
@ Monument-National (1182 Saint-Laurent Blvd) / $25 / 7:30-10:30pm
An evening of ambient experimentation with Thierry Gauthier, Marsen Jules Trio & VJ Nicolai Konstantinovic, and Pimmon.

+ Nocturne 3: Shedding the Past, Dubbing the Future
@ Society for Arts and Technology (1195 Saint-Laurent Blvd) & Club Soda (1225 boul Saint Laurent) / $35 / 10pm-3am
Presented in collaboration with FACT Magazine, this is sure to be Friday’s most anticipated event. Performances at SAT by King Midas Sound, Ikonika, Overcast Sound, and Demdike Stare; performances at Club Soda by Orphx, Actress, Cheap and Deep, Jacek Sienkiewicz, and all time LWE favorite, Shed.

+ Ectoplasmes³ 3
@ Monument-National (1182 Saint-Laurent Blvd) / 10:30pm-2am
Ectoplasmes³ ups the ante on collaborations with a showcase designed for dramatic intensity and explosive physicality with improvised performances by Arnaud Rivière (solo and with) Grkzgl and Philippe Lambert, Drainolith, Blake Hargreaves and Nate Nelson, Steve Bates, Hyena Hive and Katherine Kline.

Henrik Schwarz, who plays Nocturne 4: Bringing Down the House

+ Piknic 1: Respect is Burning
@ Parc Jean-Drapeau Park (Île Ste-Hélène) / $10 / 2-9pm
The first outdoor event of Mutek 2010 takes place in beautiful Parc Jean-Drapeau and features DJ sets by Krill.Minima, Minilogue, DJ Koze, and Paul Kalkbrenner.

+ A/Visions 4: Live Wires
@ Monument-National (1182 Saint-Laurent Blvd) / $25 / 7-10pm
The final A/Visions event brings together some of the leading lights of experimental electronic music, featuring live performances by Ben Frost, Tim Hecker, Vladislav Delay, and Carl Michael von Hausswolff.

+ Free Outdoor Concert: Around the World with Señor Coconut & His Orchestra @ Place des festivals (Jeanne-Mance between St-Catherine and de Maisonneuve) / Free / 9-11:30pm
Mutek’s first ever free concert features performances by Latin lover Señor Coconut & His Orchestra (ft. Agenis Brito) and Le Golden.

+ Nocturne 4: Bringing Down the House
@ Metropolis (59 Sainte-Catherine East) / $35 / 10pm-3am
This dual-room experience, done in collaboration with Resident Advisor, lets the house music flow with sets from Move D, Guillaume Coutu-Dumonts & The Side Effects, Henrik Schwarz, Dixon, Woo + Incredible Bob, D Numbers, Smirk, Konque, and Attentat.

Moritz Von Oswald Trio, who play Nocturne 5: Soul Control

+ Piknic 2: Be Like the Sun
@ Parc Jean-Drapeau Park (Île Ste-Hélène) / $10 / 2-9pm
The second Piknic, done in collaboration with Musique Plus, keeps the good vibes of Piknic 1 rolling with sets by Nicolas Jaar, Dave Aju, Snork, San Proper, Xavier Lebuis, Kressel, Spooloops, and a very rare DJ set from Pépé Bradock.

+ Nocturne 5: Soul Control
@ Society for Arts and Technology (1195 Saint-Laurent Blvd)
$25 / 10pm-2:30am
In case you’re still eager for more, Mutek closes with arguably its strongest event. Features sets by Detroit legend Theo Parrish, rising trio Brandt Brauer Frick, supergroup The Moritz Von Oswald Trio, and Chris McNamara presents Nospectacle.

Each year at the end of May, thousands of somber looking people wearing muted tones descend on Montreal for Mutek, a festival celebrating electronic music performance. It’s one of the most important electronic music festivals in the world, and along with Movement, one of the two biggest in North America. In some respects, Mutek offers a counterpoint to Movement. Kicking off only a week after the Detroit festival ends, Mutek focuses on electronic performance of all kinds, including the avant-garde, while Movement is primarily a festival for dance music. Furthermore, while Movement is characterized by swarms of DJs at official and unofficial parties, Mutek encourages artists to perform live rather than DJ. This makes for a rather unique experience for electronic music fans who rarely get to see and hear their favorite artists playing their own songs. Which isn’t to say the festival looks down on DJing as an art form. Rather, Mutek strives to offer a panoramic view of everything going on in electronic music today, from ambient drones to schaffel beats and everything in between. For their 10th anniversary, Mutek pulled out all the stops and put on a truly exceptional festival, affirming their position as one of the best music festivals worldwide.

SND. Photo by Sherry Kennedy

I arrived in Montreal on Friday night, having already missed three days of performances, including Appleblim, Ezekiel Honig, and worst of all, Gas. (Painful, but who can afford five nights in a hotel these days?). After seven hours in the car, I was ready to get loose, but my weekend began on a very experimental note: A/Visions 3, with SND, Nsi. and Artificiel, in an intimate, old fashioned theater called the Monument National. It was hard to get too cozy with the likes of SND, a very Raster-Noton outfit with ultra-clean synth sounds that gimp along awkwardly, falling into a glitchy groove every now and then. Their performance was good, but would have benefited from a dance floor; to a seated audience, their lapses in and out of rhythm had much less impact than they should have.

Nsi. Photo by Andrea

Nsi., on the other hand, were much better suited to the venue. Throughout their hour-long set, Tobias Freund and Max Loderbauer led us through a vivid sequence of inky soundscapes that were equal parts soothing and unsettling. The pair had a very good sense of pace; whenever the audience began to zone out, they would jar us back into attention, once with some of the clacky piano meanderings a la Plays Non Standards, and later with a pair of truly creepy vocal samples (“JA!” and “nein…“). It was hard to tell exactly what they were doing, though from the balcony I could see Max playing piano and Tobias holding his hand beneath a very small, rapidly pulsing light. The entire performance was elegantly back-lit with an installation by Jimmy Lakatos, consisting (from what I could tell) of little more than tin foil, canvas and light. The result was something very distant and mysterious, and perfectly compatible with Nsi.’s set. I found myself dozing a bit during Nsi., so rather than sticking for Artificiel or trying out the good-but-not-great lineup of that night’s Nocturne event (Mike Shannon, Ernesto Ferreyra, Ghislain Poirier, etc.), I opted for poutine, blonde beer and bed. At festivals like this, its important to conserve your own energy, and Saturday’s lineup promised to be wonderfully exhausting.

Robert Henke’s “Atom.” Photo by Andrea

The day started with Robert Henke’s “Atom,” an event I’d been anticipating for quite some time. “Atom” is, in short, an audio-visual performance involving 64 remote-controlled balloons that move and flicker in patterns, with live music by Henke (member of Monolake and one of Ableton’s developers). The performance took place in a pitch-dark room in the back of the theater, with the audience all sitting cross legged on the floor while the balloons drifted and flashed over our heads. The music was very experimental at first — maybe closer to rhythmic sound art — with all of the meticulous attention to detail one would expect from Henke (some unbelievably clear metallic clicks toward the beginning stand out in my memory). The balloons moved under the control of Christopher Bauder, the visual artist who produces “Atom” with Henke, shifting back and forth between nebulous swarms and more architectural configurations, always flickering in patterns that mirrored Henke’s music. A bass drum appeared about thirty minutes into the performance, and was followed by a very stark and heavy Monolake-eque techno track.

For this “scene,” the balloons formed a pyramid consisting of several wobbly rows, with each row flashing in correspondence to a different loop in Henke’s track. This was the best part of the performance, though virtually every moment seemed to hold the crowd agog. Of the dozen or so experimental performances I’ve seen, this one most easily held the audience’s attention from beginning to end. Later, the room filled with red light and the balloons continued to bob and flicker, forming more of a static art installation for members of the audience to approach and inspect. Henke and Bauder stuck around for an informal Q&A session, during which I heard Henke say, “Yeah, I pretty much used Ableton for the entire thing.” As I left, someone asked for his autograph.

Outside the Theatre Maissoneuve, the wind was up and the sun was bright — good news for the Piknik Electronik, which until then I had only attended on gray, rainy days. Located in Parc Jean-Drapeau, the Piknics are possibly Mutek’s most prized events, and understandably so: The setting is truly exceptional, with an amazing view of the Montreal waterfront and a strange metal sculpture encasing the dance floor. The park itself is accessible to festival goers as well; anyone looking for a break can wander down paths to secluded areas with picnic tables, waterfalls, and even a few woodchucks scuttling around. The only problem is the weather. At last year’s Mutek, Piknic 1 got rained out, and Piknic 2 went on as planned despite highly mediocre conditions. This only made it more exciting to be headed to Parc Jean-Drapeau on such a bright and blustery afternoon — definitely the best weather I’d seen in Montreal. Brendon Moeller was giving off good vibes when I got there, playing a live set full of bouncy tracks like “Electricity” while a sunglassed crowd happily grooved. Thomas Fehlmann took over from there, and stole the afternoon with a live set of truly epic techno that sounded amazing under the sun and blue skies. His jacking schaffel beats and euphoric chords weren’t always my style exactly, but there was no denying that he got the crowd more amped than anyone else that day.

Trus’me. Photo by Matt Cheetham

This made for a slightly awkward transition into Trus’me’s live/DJ set, but it was only a minute or two before the crowd was swaying to the slow and baggy beats turned out by Prime Numbers’ boss. His live set mixed samples and motifs from nearly all of his own productions, most notably “W.A.R.” and a few things from other Prime Numbers artists, like Linkwood’s “RIP.” It was a great live set, especially for those of us who’ve gotten so much mileage out of “Working Nights,” his 2007 album (I was particularly pleased to hear a few samples from Jackie Brown). But somehow he seemed eager to switch to the decks, and things picked up when he finally did. His set was heavy, loose and lethargic, and did a great job of easing the now-tipsy audience into a tawny dusk.

Sometime during Trus’me’s set, I spotted Villalobos and Zip leaning against a rail and looking out over the crowd. Ricardo was wearing a nauseatingly busy zip-up that probably cost him five or six hundred euro, and was gleefully chatting up a group of fans. One young couple asked if he’d like to smoke a joint with them, to which he replied, “Ahh, I already said I would be smoking with some guys over there… but in general I mean, ja, of course… always!” The Mole came on around 7, and though it seemed like a lot of people were won over by his DJ/live set, I found it a bit sloppy and uninspired. The tracks were good, but the beats were only OK — I never got the feeling of being forced to dance, which Trus’me and Thomas Fehlmann had both achieved. Nonetheless, it was great to hear “Baby, You’re The One” in such an appropriately sunny setting.

Alva Noto. Photo by Landon Speers

Next up was A/V+ at SAT, another experimental event, this time consisting entirely of Raster-Noton acts. I got there in time to hear Atom TM finish his set, during which I sat drinking beer on a surrealistically over-sized picnic table. He sounded pretty good, but an afternoon under the sun had left me feeling languid– I would need a little more recuperation time before I could enjoy such a glitchy affair. Fortunately, I was able to drag myself over to the stage for Alva Noto, someone I’ve enjoyed seeing live in the past. Like many Raster-Noton acts, he does an excellent job of making his music engaging in a live situation (which might seem hard to imagine after hearing his recent Xeroxx albums). He works the crowd with the same sleights of hand a DJ might use — deceiving everyone into thinking the bass has already dropped and then smothering us with low frequencies, or turning an awkwardly mechanical glitch sequence into an almost-funky groove by use of a single hand clap. His visuals were very original: behind him, a video screen displayed what looked like a map of his own audio-visual set up, in which various spectrographs jumped and shifted with the music. After a while, the “camera” would temporarily zoom into one section of the map, so that after a while each new song was characterized by a different spectrograph. Alva Noto himself was drenched in the light of the video projector, which gave him a fittingly creepy persona.

Tobias. Photo by Matt Cheetham

After a brief wink which turned out to be a rather long wink, I finally found myself back at Metropolis sometime around 2 am. Word had it that Matthew Johnson and Dandy Jack tore it up with their dual live set, but I missed them by a hair, arriving just as Tobias. was warming up. Upon entering the main room of Metropolis, I was immediately blown away by the stage lighting: Tobias. stood poised in the center of what looked like a fluorescent blue vortex, with a video screen behind him displaying a three dimensional geometric plain. I made my way onto the large dance floor while the crowd shifted awkwardly to “Go,” which in this context, served as something like an extended break down. Tobias. looked exactly as he had during Nsi.’s performance the night before — handsome, with slicked back hair, a dark polo shirt, and the posture of a man 100% in control. (Incidentally, I heard he was having technical difficulties for much of the set, but at the time I was none the wiser.) Sooner or later a bass drum finally kicked, and from there Tobias. slipped through a long medley of his best singles, including “Street Knowledge,” “I Can’t Fight The Feeling” (with a much heavier beat than on record), and “Clapper,” whose huge and menacing vibe sounded perfectly appropriate on such a massive dance floor. He finished with a few hard and reduced tracks I didn’t recognize, one of which rode an undulating bass line that everyone on the dance floor could feel in their stomachs. He ended up being my favorite act of the night.

Carl Craig. Photo by Andrea

Carl Craig took the helm at 3 am, and quite ostentatiously so: the first five minutes of his set were modern classical music that started out minimal and swelled into an absurd crescendo before the bass finally dropped. Personally, I appreciated the nod to his recent work with Moritz von Oswald, and in general I think Carl Craig can pull off this kind of showmanship, but I know some people found his intro pretentious and overblown. Either way, it set the stage for several hours of hard, monolithic techno, during which the visual display became absolutely eye-popping. Craig has a real knack for breakdowns — it seems he has some kind of trick where, a measure or so after the beat drops, a swarm of new sounds rush in out of nowhere. He pulled this one at least several times that night, and the crowd went completely nuts every time. The only track I recognized during his set was Len Faki’s new one, “BX 3,” which sounds like basically all the other songs Craig played that night. Sometime around 5 am, the mammoth energy level still hadn’t dropped, and I decided to call it an early night (by techno standards) and rest up for the weekend’s most anticipated event: a seven hour back-to-back DJ set by Ricardo Villalobos and Zip at Piknic 2.

As I headed to Parc Jean-Drapeau on Sunday afternoon, the weather was good but the forecast was grim: Rain was predicted to begin sometime around 4 pm and continue throughout the night, with temperatures dipping as low as 49 degrees Fahrenheit (about 9.5 degrees Celsius). Metropolis had been reserved in case of rain, and the weather forecast probably would have convinced some other festival promoter to move the event there, but Mutek decided to roll the dice and have the party outdoors, on a windy island, with a dance floor only a dozen yards from the gusty waterfront.

At 3 pm the Piknic was packed. Zip and Villalobos were getting into some very bouncy, very minimal tech-house, and the crowd was eating it up. This was the poppiest part of their set; later in the afternoon and evening, they would get into long, trippy techno and house records, but for now it was diva vocals galore. The two played off each other just as well as I’d heard: Zip favored moodier, more melodic tracks, while Villalobos focused on extra-funky house, always dropping the beat a moment sooner or later than expected. Villalobos always knew exactly how to build on Zip’s rhythms, so the really jacking moments always seemed to occur a minute or so after Villalobos took the helm.

Ricardo Villalobos and Zip. Photo by Matt Cheetham

The rain started right on cue around 4, but the crowd was unperturbed. More and more people showed up, and soon the dance floor was more crowded than I’d seen it at any Piknic. But after a while, the conditions got really miserable. People were visibly shivering, and some of the sound was getting lost in the cruel wet gusts repeatedly tearing through the crowd.

Everyone continued to be good sports, including the DJs: at one point, Villalobos put his palms up in a “what can you do?” gesture as one of his records seemed to sing “We’re OK… under the rain…” Nonetheless, I soon realized I wouldn’t make it for the whole afternoon like this, so I decided to take some drastic measures. I dropped $30 on an extra hooded sweatshirt, $7.50 on a double scotch, and left the dance floor to seek refuge under a canopy of leaves near a small pond. As the ripples increased on the pond before me, I wondered if (and hoped that) the party would be moved to Metropolis. I was admittedly in despair — it seemed ridiculous that something I’d been looking forward to for months would be spoiled by such avoidable circumstances. But the pond before me soon became glassy, and the sky went from gray to white. Encouraged by the whiskey and the muffled booms coming from beyond the treeline, I ventured back to the cold, wet dance floor.

Ricardo Villalobos and Zip. Photo by Matt Cheetham

By now the party was really packed, and the energy of the music was way up. Everyone was jacking in spite of the weather, including the girls serving drinks and making crepes at the bar. Pot smoke swirled through the crowd almost constantly, and I saw at least several sets of massive pupils. I suppose it makes sense that Quebecers would have a high tolerance for bad weather, but I was still amazed at the crowd’s determination to keep the party going. (A local told me later that a very popular edition of the Piknik Electronic occurs in the dead of winter, on a bed of snow, with everyone dancing in subzero temperatures.)

Mutek under sunlight. Photo by Katrin Schaefer

And sometime around 5:30, the tipping point finally came. Sunlight breached through the clouds during an extended break down, and a current passed through the audience. People pulled their hoods back and craned their necks around to see their newly amber-lit environment, while a spree of whistles peeled through the air. Someone threw a pair of panties onto the stage, and Villalobos laughed as he draped them around Zip’s neck. Still laughing, he sauntered into the orange light at the turn tables, carelessly twisted a knob, and dropped the first truly explosive beat of the day, to hail of ecstatic cheers. From then on, the front of the dance floor was so packed it almost felt like a punk show — dense mass of bodies all bouncing and bumping to the music.

The rain made a brief encore, but hardly anyone seemed to notice. DJ Sneak showed up at one point, doughy and gray-skinned as ever, smoking a blunt and busting out his Case Logic. But for whatever reason, Zip and Villalobos didn’t seem too keen on the idea of him getting on the decks, so Sneak just hung out while the three of them shared his blunt. By sunset, the weather had completely cleared, leaving a light purple sky as the backdrop for Zip and Villalobos’ final tracks, many of which were beatless and very trippy, and played out while the duo collapsed on a couch in the back of the DJ tent. For the final transitions, their heads would pop up from behind the turntables, covered in rascally grins, and finally Villalobos finished the set while completely hidden behind the decks — only his right hand was visible as it tweaked the mixer.

Modern Deep Left Quartet. Photo by Andrea

I swung by Nocturne 5 that night to catch sets by Stephen Beaupré and Akufen, neither of whom were terribly impressive, and left during Modern Deep Left Quartet (essentially Cobblestone Jazz plus The Mole.) Villalobos and Zip had been the climax to my weekend, and left me feeling extremely satisfied and extremely tuckered out. Some spotty weather aside, I couldn’t have been happier with the festival, and like all great techno events, this one left me happily buzzing for days to come.