Proof of Concept

Greetings everyone, well I haven’t updated my blog in a while; I’ve been quite busy with personal issues that have appeared and that needed my attention. Some of them will be ongoing, but that’s how life is, it can bite you in the ass every so often and force you to make decisions that you would sometimes rather not do, but hopefully when you close one door, you have others that are opened to you.

Anyway, as this is a professional blog, I won’t write more about it here and instead review one of the recent festivals which I’ve attended in Montreal. I am talking about the electronic festival known as MUTEK. This was my first year, but I have been following the scene for a while now (and know a few DJs). I managed to grab a weekend pass and a one of the A/Vision on Thursday night and let me say, I was not disappointed.

Event presentations and the experience there of are one of my personal interest. I look at them first for their immersive quality and then their overall entertainment. My first experience with MUTEK was their Café Electronika which showcased a few new talents. The setup was simple and open, making it more background music for most people there. For most performances, I didn’t find that there was much interaction between the crowd and the artists, but in certain case that wasn’t really a problem as you could just chill and listen while doing other things. I did not catch all the acts, but I have to say that the one that impressed me the most here was Dianes in Danger since it was quite different from the other sets and forced you to listen and pay attention.

From the A/Vision series, I really only caught the second. Mark Templeton and Aaron Munson and well the others that I didn’t catch were pretty experimental. This duo was playing with zoomed in pictures of a tree and an old video projector creating squiggly lines on the screen while having minimal music in the background. While this might sound very dull, the interesting aspect of this was that starting at the lines would blur your vision either dimming it or losing focus on everything else. An interesting effect on our vision to say the least.

The next act was probably my discovery from Mutek. Watching Colleen play was like seeing a child who discovered a musical box. The décor was very intimate, it was simply her with blue lights, her instruments and a few peddles to mix her music right in front of us. Even if we could hear the ex-centris’ kitchen every so often, her music was incredibly moving and powerful. Her act was followed by a very funky piano, its player Hauschka and the visual duo Semiconductor. I had other appointments that evening, so I only caught part of the act, but from what I heard it was quite amusing at times, but I left when he was starting a more melancholic song.

I did catch the VJ panel on Friday that talked about this new form of presentation. While there were many abstract presentations and explanations, Skolz_Kolgen is one artist to follow who works not only with the Visual/Audio elements, but works in the complete sensorial experience. If you have a chance to catch some of their work, it is highly recommended.
The metropolis is a wonderful venue when it comes to dancing and visual presentation. After having lost my voice to a motorcycle simulator that was powered by the intensity of your screams, I lost myself in both rooms listening to the various presentations. From the first night, I have to give a big thumb up to Matthew Dear’s Big Hands and the following presentations. Matthew Dear mixed in more dark sounding music and vocal for their songs which reminded me of some of my younger days at the Bistro for industrial night.

For the follow-up night, I was totally captivated by both Gui Boratto and Michael Mayer. I unfortunately missed out on Pantha du Prince who came highly recommended by a friend, but Mayer’s really made my night. He was very much present during his entire set, interacting with the crowd and responding to everyone’s intensity. At the end of his 3 hours set, the crowd wanted more and while he wanted to play one more song, the event needed to be brought to an end as I believe we had already went over the original closing time.

Finally we have the Picniks which are always wonderful events fun for the whole family. Lying in the sun listening to good electro music while enjoying a cold beer is enjoyable, but adding lots of people dancing with a Montreal downtown backdrop really completes this picture. I don’t have much to add to these performances, as they are already one of my favorite parts of summer already. If you live in Montreal and enjoy electronic music, then I highly recommend attending one of these. If you can only make one though, I suggest waiting for September 9th for James Holden who played at the Metropolis back in February.

Well with that, I have covered pretty much all of Mutek. The only thing I can really add is that the staff was wonderful, many familiar faces from countless other events, but they really are a part of the vibrant scene in Montreal. I know that if I’m in Montreal next year, I will again partake in this event to discover all these incredible talents the world has to offer.

Now I really need to get back to writing about collaboration issues in game studios…