Mutek 2011 report by Esben “Sondinas” Harding

This years’ 12th edition of Mutek festival of Montreal kicked of with a metro station event succeeded by some outdoor dj-sets on a sunny day with high wind speed. In the evening it was time for A/VISIONS 1, the first in a series of three audiovisuals events. It took place in a theatre with seats, which gave the scene a lot more focus, than would have been the case in a regular club or venue.

The first performance was done by Canadian White Box, who presented floating metallic sounds accompanied by three screens of mostly black and white visuals. The visuals could be described as a moving Rorschach test of geometric figures and patterns. Quite intense. The subsequent act was Emptyset from the UK. The visuals were not as elaborate, but the music was mindblowing. Dominated by stripped down bass-drones and whistling, dusty rhythms, the sound almost became one with the building. The duos background in the dubstep scene was recognizable, but the club feeling represented by the likes of Skream and Rusko seemed far away. Definitely one of the highlights of the festival.

Finnish Mika Vainio, the former half of the now disbanded duo Pan Sonic, closed the event on an almost totally dark stage, only lit by his various equipments. To begin with, it seemed a bit uninspired, but through the end, he did manage to make the building resonate with his inferno of industrial noises.

The late evenings of the Mutek festival was reserved for the series of the so-called Nocturne events, which of course had a lot more dance floor-appeal. On the first night Gold Panda had brought his macbook and an Akai MPC-1000 to deliver his hipstertronica. Unfortunately that didn’t quite work out for him. The sound was thin and undefined. He seemed to be having a good time though.

(Amon Tobin)

The main act of the first day was the world premier of Amon Tobins audivisual project ISAM. Musically Amon Tobin has made a departure from his jazzy breakbeats to find a more”organic” symphonic style. What could easily have turned out to be a way too pretentious effort, actually turned out to be a quite compelling experience. The show was a pure extravaganza of boxes projected with stars, galaxies and cosmic fires. The symphonic expression of his sounds was the perfect soundtrack to the lavish sci-fi projections.

On the second day the A/Vision show started off with Seth Horvitz, who represented a piece of music on an automated piano. He made a short appearance on the stage, where after the piano started playing for about half an hour. It was odd, but not much more than that.

Much more stimulating was the soundscape dominated electronica delivered by Comaduster, accompanied by undefined pictures, that was swirling in and out of focus.

(Murcof)

Murcof was the last act of the event. Teamed up by French VJ Simon Geilfus, the two clearly demonstrated the potential of combining sound and vision, with a truly mesmerizing show. Different pieces of music faded into each other, each time combined with a new visual figure, that slowly grew to overwhelming 3-dimensional proportions.

The second Nocturne event had the theme “Modeselektion”. Different artist chosen to perform by Modeselektor. The 21-year old local prodigy Jacques Greene distinguished himself by performing without a laptop. Instead he had brought a collection of machines, which I couldn’t identify. He made his talent clear with some very groovy sounds. Falty DL took over with some luscious rhythms and a nice vibrating bass sound.

(Anstam)

German Anstam even raised the already high bar, with some incredibly punchy and atmospheric dubstep. Fucking wicked, clearly the surprise of the festival. Modeselektor closed the evening with a laptop set, that got the waves rolling among the crowds. It didn’t really move me though. It had too much resemblance of the average generic party-electro, played in so many nightclubs. But you got to give them that they did indeed choose an awesome line-up for that night.

On the third day Tristan Perich gave an intriguing performance based on one-bit sounds from his small programmed hardware devices. It was sounds of raw data that got together to create a symphonic unity that was larger than the sum of its parts.

(Plastikman)

At the Nocturne stage Deepchords Echospace was warming up for what was probably the festivals biggest attraction: The homecoming of Richie Hawtin and his Plastikman show. It was a strange experience. The first twenty minutes was rather boring, and you got the feeling of “Yeah ok, he sure knows how to handle those Roland vintage machines, and whatever sounds and equipment he may be using, but who gives a fuck.” But then the familiar sounds began to get some life of their own, and the music started to unfold into what stands out as the peak of the festival. After having been hiding behind the visual camouflage of his impressing show, he ended the show in front of the audience to deliver a massive drum machine assault, that blew the audience away with an analog tinnitus not soon to be forgotten. Respect to Richie for not choosing the most obvious path. He could easily have pulled out some crowd-pleasing party techno. Instead he chose to drag people into a dark universe, where only a few but effective blow torches exist.

Traversable Wormhole aka Adam X was the last act of the day. It is never an easy job to fill out the vacuum after a really astonishing performance, but he did manage to establish his wormholes with his industrial smelling techno.

(Pole)

Saturday the festival moved out on the islands of Montreal, where different DJs performed on sunny day with chilling atmosphere. In the evening Deadbeat and Lillevan delivered some delicate sounding, but not really engaging, electronica, The following set by German Pole had much more depth and substance. Sublime dub techno with some noisy passages. Later Four Tet showed how good he is at incorporating different musical elements and styles into his music, without any of them taking over the focus.

(Elektro guzzi)

The winner of the day was Electro Guzzi. A guitarist with a lot of stompboxes, a bass player and a drummer gave an indescribable fresh performance. If they had played behind a canvas you might have thought that it was all performed on drum machines and samplers. It could maybe be described as Plastikman meeting Sonic Youth at a street party. What the group clearly demonstrated was that the essence of electronic music doesn’t lie in the gear you use, but in how you use it.

James Holden closed the evening with a very solid and professional DJ-set. No wonder he is one of the most sought-after DJ’s in the world.
The last day had a “final party” line-up consisting of Horror inc., Radiq, Danuel Tate and Wareika. This was definitely the weakest day of the festival (and no, it wasn’t just because it was Sunday.). We were in the better end of the house music spectrum, but in my opinion it lacked some edginess and raw power. Danuel Tate (from Cobblestone Jazz)brought some life to the evening with some live instrumentation and vocooder-vocal. Wareika tried to do the same, but with not as much luck. However that doesn’t change the overall impression of Mutek Festival as one of the flagships, when it comes to representing the state-of-art in sound and visuals. Definitely a recommended event.

Links:
Mutek Festival 2011