[well, I started posting here, so here's the rest .. Full multimedia
coverage, including video, is available at http://www.dustedmagazine.com ;
streaming sets at http://www.mutek.ca // otherwise greets to you all & one
more installation to go. best, tV ]



Mutek [4]. - Desire in the House
tobias c. van Veen

 

.. there are a few corrections to be made: any gonzo-report, direct from the
frontlines, speculations made amidst the thump of speakers and the driving
bassbins, or the extreme aural frequencies of a Mego showcase--which we are
getting to, slowly--all of this fucks you up, a little. So here's some more
on women & gender at Mutek: namely, that there was a woman panelist, none
other than Patti Schmidt, with Brave New Waves, the infamous CBC late-night
radio show which has maintained the alternative music scenes in Canada for
eons. Patti's deep voice is probably the most recognised in underground
radio up North .. and unfortunately I missed the panel. Had to sleep
sometime. Had to write this all up sometime, even though a good chunk of it
was actually written during various showcases, half passed-out on some stage
or basking in the cold clouds at some café between shows .. Mutek is a
marathon, and this year, now that all is said and done-- probably the best
marathon yet, rewarding all with superb endorphins culled from the aural
ectomorphs of the globe's experimental audio regions .. but enough: Mutek
this year also featured the highest number of women performers. These were:

 

[sic], Diane Labrosse, Myléna Bergeron from Montréal; Tina Frank from
Australia; Magda from Detroit; Marina Rosenfeld from NYC; Tujiko Noriko from
Japan and Robin Judge from Toronto [although she is, as of Monday, a
Vancouverite .. ] 

 

This is important to note, as the discussion of gender in electronic music
raised some response from various people at the festival who read the
coverage, posted to http://www.microsound.org, while the festival was
underway. Specifically questions of tactics; why we must, in the first
place, recognise women as anything different from men in this regard, and
how specializing women's contribution to electronic music could simply act
as a way of excluding women from an equal terrain. It comes down to managing
the politics of "community" and how the creation of a "community," at the
same time, is the creation of the outsider, the other, or even the enemy to
a specific coagulation-i.e., a clique, plain and simple. That women are not
on equal footing in the domain of electronic music, and that moreover, their
position has been used to exploit women in such positions--the numerous
female trance DJs letting records run out their grooves while handing out
autographed photos & swinging their booty .. mid-90s bad memoirs.. comes to
mind--has only served to make difficult a critical position or any kind of
critical action. Even in writing on Mutek, and offering critique of two
women performers (Magda and the critique I will write on Marina Rosenfeld),
it remains a difficult task, due to these considerations; however, it should
not affect one's critical appreciation or consideration of the art-work at
hand. It should, however, inform the context that one employs, even if it is
possibly negative ... For, on the other hand, those I talked to agreed
agreed that addressing the politics of gender on a panel, and not women
exclusively, would benefit the community as a whole. It would be a step or
an act to at least acknowledge the situation. I would say that Mutek's
programming this year in many ways is the best yet, in terms of overall
flow, tension and release, and yes, gender distribution. I think, however,
this needs to be reflected in the developing "professional" side of the
festival -- the panels. So here's an idea for next year, basically;
hopefully Mutek will embrace the dialogue.

 

While I am at it, I should note that when I quoted Ben Nevile and Colin the
Mole in the first report, it was in a casual matter and should not be taken
as their tried-opinions .. An "unnamed producer" threatened to "beat me with
a cane" if I did that again. And point taken -- because oft-hand comments
kill not lives (there was a British WWI motto to this effect), but label
contracts and international back-scratching.

 

All of which brings up the issue of "scene politics"--another big no-no to
discuss openly. Oh well. "Ooops" ...

 

But let's get onto the event .

 

 
STUDIO ANTICS
If Friday was somewhat of a grab-bag, Saturday's Studio event was a concise
elaboration of a singular concept: the exploration of sound with
experimental turntablism. Philip Jeck, Marina Rosenfeld, Martin Tétreault
and Martin Ng played an improvisational *group set* that worked along with
jazz parameters; basically, one of them would begin a section, and the rest
would follow in. Often Tétreault would cue the others.. the result was a
treat for lovers of phonography, hearing this quartet improvise live. Each
had their own unique approach; while Martin Ng works with stock Technics SL
1200s, focusing on line noise, needle noise, and processing it through
effects and a Kaos pad, Martin Tétreault utilises home-made & altered, older
turntables, one with two tone arms, and a number of built-in knobs,
pick-ups, and other innovative rewirings and routings of the basic turntable
concept. Philip Jeck is along the same lines, although his focus is
carefully selected cuts and loops, often via tape on the vinyl hip-hop
style, carefully mixed and timed [he had a score sheet of maneouvres, much
like Janek Schaefer]. Jeck also works with older turntables. Rosenfeld,
however, utilised stock SL 1200s and basic vinyl... and to be honest she was
probably the least impressive out of the four. While I've read of her sound
installations and all-women guitar orchestra [plucking with nail polish
bottles] & her soundscape work, her turntable work was basic; it was basic
because it relied upon her turntable skills only, lacking as it did any
effects or focus on surfaces / line noise like Martin Ng, or any home-built
apparatus like Jeck and Tétreault, or any programmed series of cuts and
loops. In fact, it seemed she was utilising the same records for most of the
session; and unfortunately her basic beat-juggling and general mixer skills
simply weren't up to par. I'd like to see Rosenfeld push herself much
farther in this respect, as I feel she has much more to offer than what she
pulled out at Mutek. Altogether, it was a beautiful excursion into weird and
wonderful spaces of loops, delineations, and vinyl vats, with Jeck often
providing the harmonies necessary to give the collective aural atmosphere
some direction, and Tétreault pulling it all apart with random, non-linear,
and often frantic tone-arm mashing and spates of pocked sounds, while Ng
provided counterpoint noise and tonal disturbances. The crowd was
enthusiastic, and a friend of mine from Vancouver, who had never heard this
type of thing before, was "stoked" after hearing this needled quartet ...

 

Then, ladies and germs, came Colin the Mole. I was expecting the infamous,
ex-Vancouverite and now-Montréaler Mole, who holds down a Saturday residency
at Läika, to bring out his dub-atmospheric loop project which he demo'ed at
the Micro_Mutek featuring Basic Channel & Tikiman. At the Micro, the Mole
layed out 5 decks replete with loops culled from a strange array of
source--Muppets records, the laugh from a Monty Python sketch--all cut to
skip at the right moment, run through delays and echoes and all intricately
layered with delicate beatjuggling, cutting, and scratching .. Well, the
Mole was not to disappoint, but this was no dub: Colin the Molar Mole pulled
out the techno crates, juggling five decks of loops through two DJ mixers
and a master mixer, all run through various effects. At one point, he traded
off contrapuntal (offbeat) rhythms across all 5 decks, the concentration
straining his slight frame. Impressive to say the least, the Mole
demonstrated an analogue reconstruction of techno, basically recreating
techno records by grabbing jazz loops, beat loops, percussion, all the
elements of tracks, and (de)constructing it live... While some speak of
Hawtin's innovative use of Final Scratch, this was, in difficulty, an
immensely innovative techno set that went far beyond a DE9 set. Certainly
the Mole should have been given the pleasure of playing on the Metropolis
soundsystem [I'd like to say "he should have opened for Richie & not
Magda.." -- but as I know this was out of the control of the Mutek
organisers, I can only say this with hindsight, which is never all that
forceful]--maybe next year.

 

[Colin the Mole video

http://www.quadrantcrossing.org/mutek.2003/ColinMole-Mutek03.tV.AVI

]

 

CASA METROPOLIS

& on to Metropolis, to a night dedicated predominantly to house. If Friday
was the technohead coven, then Friday brought out the househeads and.. the
Yuppies? Fifty-year old couples? Yes indeed: Senor Coconut, the entire
full-piece band, was to play. We'll get to that conceptual fuck-over from
Uwe Schmidt in a minute. Because before that were a few acts that threw down
the house.. or brought it down.. even if not all house: these were, to begin
with, Toronto's Jeff Milligan, aka Algorithm, who played a live set,
manipulating, to the best of his turntablist skills, a live set of his own
material on a laptop and knobby box. While one would wish he had been able
to DJ his own material with Final Scratch--as his techno-turntablist skills
are second-to-none, a DJ's DJ, so to speak, a real cutter and one of the
fastest mixers I've ever seen--his impressive tweaking and mastery of his
set-up enabled an invigorating journey through his more abstract
compositions, full of miniscule pings and pauses, through to his 4/4 minimal
techno compositions, layered with precise sounds and precision mastering.
Next was Cobblestone Jazz. Let me say that again, for it's a name you'll be
hearing again: Cobblestone Jazz.

 

Cobblestone Jazz rocked the shit out of us. The Victoria, BC based trio,
composed of minimal techno composer Mat Jonson, DJ Tyger Dhula, and jazz
keyboardist Danuel, got on stage in front of a _full set-up of live gear_.
No laptops here: just a few selection of synths, drum machines, a 303, an
808 and 909--and proceeded to lay down the deepest, hardest-hitting yet
minimalistic jazz-house to ever grace North America, nevermind Metropolis ..
Danuel, once he began playing those keyboards with his long and lanky
arms--he's thin like a rake and quite tall--smiling away, this obscene
smile, eyes closed, head-back, just grinning, loving every moment, throwing
down *excelled* jazz keyboard work-- then we knew we weren't watching
producers, but composers, real composers, a jazz keyboardist who, instead of
playing in a jazz band (which he easily could), chose techno--chose the
difficult path, for a jazz musician. And in every bone in our bodies we
followed their path, through two house jams, and finally a pause.. and a
bout of screaming from the crowd .. Next was an entirely different
beat--uptempo, it was techno-time, and Cobblestone Jazz entered a track that
could only be described as akin to early Rob Hood, with stripped synthlines
playing offkey rhythms over live, sung vocoder from Danuel, while chords
echoed in and out every few bars, and the thud of the techno rhythms took
over.. when it finally ended, the house was brought down: these local boys,
working at this for years, "Did It;" some "play Mutek," others *play* Mutek
for everything it is, could be, and was: such was Cobblestone Jazz's
performance.

 

Cobblestone Jazz could only be followed, it seems, by Senor Coconut himself,
and his Orchestra. Now let's get this straight from the top: this entire
thing is a conceptual project brain-childed by Uwe Schmidt, aka Atom?, aka
Atom Heart, etc.. I remember the original album fooling many an indie-rawk
DJ at my old radio station, CiTR; it took a bit before everyone realised it
was an electronic project by Atom?, and it took some a while to even
understand that "Coconut" were covering Kraftwerk tracks. Well, it seems
that some still haven't figured this out, and that the Coconut guise was so
successful--perhaps even in spite of this layer of conceptualism--that they
invented the band, taught them the tracks, and brought them up to Mutek,
replete with cheese-light show, all yellow and red, all-in-white suits, the
whole deal... A big, Latin dance party to slow, slow rhythms, all that
electro transmogrified into cha-cha's and marambas... Is it a "faithful"
replication of Latin American music run through Germany? A cheese
faux-spectacle from the start? Kraftwerk on downers? Whatever it was, it was
sincere: the lead singer of Coconut is none other than Venezuelan Argenis
Brito, one half of techno act Mambotur (the other half is Chilean Pier
Bucci). And away they went, taking us all into some fucked-up land where
South America uproots its continental plates and collides with the heart of
Europe... All very strange indeed. What was even more strange was the 100 or
so 50+ Golden Age couples who came out to see this "Latin Band".. I was up
in the stands talking to a few, and they couldn't understand why it was
proceeded by this "horrid bang-bang music," as one elderly lady put it. They
had, afterall, come to see the Real Music. I didn't say much, of course,
nothing about the layers to the project, the German connections [or the
ex-pat German community in Chile and vice-versa], all this piling up,
rolling into a big, stinking onion, or even about how most of the musicians
were not even Chilean. Hell I think some were not even from South America
whatsoever. Regardless, then, the entirety is a success: a conceptual-art
success, a financial success [it seems], and a showcase success: they played
two encores, the crowd digging every moment, cheering and stomping for more,
Metropolis rammed to its gills, rafters, and balconies, everyone
horrendously drunk, so very, very drunk. I needed a drink too, although I
couldn't tear myself away from an excellent rendition of "We are the
Robots."

 

[Senor Coconut Video 1-3

http://www.quadrantcrossing.org/mutek.2003/SenorCoconut-Mutek03.tV.AVI

http://www.quadrantcrossing.org/mutek.2003/SenorCoconut2-Mutek03.tV.AVI

http://www.quadrantcrossing.org/mutek.2003/SenorCoconut3-Mutek03.tV.AVI

]

 

Well, after this, it was time to boogie to something a little more upbeat,
and Chilean-Swiss Luciano, who is my age--makes me feel like I'm not moving
fast enough, sometimes--got up and let loose with a minimalist exfoliation
of what was essentially South American percussion over a stripped and
minimal trance recombinated through a techno aesthetic.. kind of like an
uplifting Ozy .. and it was beautiful, although somewhat predictable: but
what we needed then was exactly what Luciano delivered. And as a whole it
provided an uplifting end to the night--almost every act that night was
reinventing a genre; Algorithm deconstructing techno and house and the
limits of performativity, Cobblestone Jazz showing the real limits, talents
and energies of live, analogue, jazzed-out performance; Senor Coconut
remixing an entire tradition through two, if not three continents, and
Luciano doing what I've been waiting to hear for many years: reworking
trance from the inside out, bringing out what is good about it, and leaving
the rest to rot [unlike "deep trance," which just slavishly samples techno
rhythms into the same, boring structure with the same-old stock percussion,
piano notes, and synth sounds]. The beautiful thing about the Chileans is
that they hold few of the preconceptions and techno-bitterness so prevalent
in us technoheads--I am speaking of myself here--who have been at this for
so many years, and become somewhat embittered through the general
downtrodding of techno throughout rave's short history. It took techno's
reinvention, far from its Detroit centre, to bring it back to life. On the
peripheries--that's where Mutek is taking us, a journey that, if it will
remain on the edge, will be ceaseless in its discoveries through its
perpetual motion.

 

 

..gathered from notes, 9:48am Monday & 4:12am Tuesday

 

tobias c. van Veen

 

 



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