mutek reflections

I'm back home and the proud owner of a good nights sleep... something the mutek festival and montreal couldnt really afford me with all that was going on for the past week.

It has been a long time since I have been really amazed by live electronic acts but that time is over and I am absolutely impressed. Cobblestone Jazz, The Mole, Jicheal Mackson, Gui Borratto, Heartthrob... They all blew me away and had me dancing like the ohio players were dropping by. The thing that suprised me was how little I knew of the "now sound". I have been stuck in some sonic subgenres and ways of thinking that this festival helped to blow out of the back of my head in all the right ways. Stephon Beaupre was the only artist I purchased music from during the weekend and I must say. WOW. this guy is amazing, I would love to see him live someday. Reminded me of a a more fucked up and funkier Akufen.

I arrived at around 5PM on Thursday, checked into my hotel on Rue Ontario (right near the corner of St. Dennis and Ontario) in the latin quarter. Afterwards it was on to the hotel Godin to pick up my ticket to the rest of the weeks festivities. I immediately noticed the "mutekkers" gathered around outside the hotel on St Laurent so I didn't need to ask for directions despite not knowing which street the hotel was on. Mutekkers are easy to pick out of a crowd btw, super angular eyeglass frames, hip german techno record label t shirts, or straight up geometric patterned outerwear were a dead giveaway.

Maggie Schier was coming along for the ride with me and despite her dislike for my brands of techno I did get her to come to one of the A/Visions shows on Thursday night. The first act was barely watchable and we ducked out to get some mediocre sushi... a bowl of miso, seaweed salad, some tuna... the food was ok but the service was very iffy. Maggie and I went back to the Ex Centris theatre and enjoyed the last set by a very talented Haushka. Haushka was playing a modified piano wherein he had taped various surfaces to the piano wires where normally a hammer would bang them and produce a typical sounding A or G or what have you. In this case you may have heard a cymbal or a crunchy ball of tinfoil being squished. I would say a 1/3 of the keys were modified so he still had lots of keys to work normally with but those randomly spaced surprises were just amazing. They introduced so much chance and circumstance into the performance and more of a drum solo aspect one is not normally associating with a piano solo. There were some moderately well done visuals accompanying the piano performance by a group called semi-conductor.

The picnik location was my favorite... Accessible by Metro train. Park Jean de Drapeau offered many memorable moments. The view of the biosphere from beneath the metal sculpture we were dancing below was breathtaking... as a big fan of buckminster fullers it made me feel so connected to technologies positivity for a while. I was there with some friends and we spent a good portion of the time rolling joints and making drinks by the riverbanks just talking while we listened to the music in the background still quite loud. It was idyllic. I caught most of heartthrob and the first 30 minutes of wighnomy brothers... I wish I had stayed for the rest of the w. brothers though.