Grooves Magazine - Mutek 2007 Festival Review

Mutek 2007 Festival Review (Continued)

Nocturne 2 proved to be a dub-tinged crowd pleaser. Shackleton and Kode9 + the Spaceape were on hand to represent the style commonly referred to as dubstep, whether or not they would use that term themselves. Having missed Shackleton in order to see Haushka, I can only report on the brilliance of the latter’s set. The Spaceape (pictured above) kept it feeling live, filling some of the gaps left open in this minimalist beat-centric musical form. But I think it was mainly Kode9’s track selection that kept people surprised and ready for more. SAT’s sound system was fully up to the task of reproducing the requisite stomach pummeling bass, which was quite impressive.

Rhythm & Sound and Paul St. Hilaire played at the end of the night, dusting off their formiddable collection of classic 7-inch reggae vinyl, and dragging tracks into their laptop-based DJ software. This set was a chill way to decelerate after the madness of Kode9, but the entire audience seemed to have one thing on its mind—hearing techno-influenced dub rather than reggae classics. Though these reggae sides have been both groundbreaking and influential to electronic music, the omission of the dub-techno side of Rhythm & Sound’s work was regrettable. Though it was well advertised as a 45rpm DJ set, not a live PA, that didn’t stop people from wanting to hear Rhythm & Sound’s unique style.

Day Three: 06/01/2007

A/Visions 3 was focused on atmospheric droning tones, with Jamie Drouin and Yann Novak (CA) beginning the evening with emotional waves of tone and texture that built up in parallel to the lighting in the room. While the program stated that the source material was the room itself, one would be hard pressed to find an aesthetic connection between the source and the end result. Nevertheless, it was still one of the most dramatic experimental pieces presented at Mutek, and quite beautiful.

After a stunned audience remembered to begin its thunderous applause, Robert Henke (a.k.a. Monolake) took the stage amid applause of his own. His “Layering Buddha” is a piece inspired by the Buddha Machine, a transistor-radio-size ambient-tone-generator box produced by artist collective FM-3. While Henke’s piece might have been slightly more satisfying to those intimately familiar with the Buddha Machine’s preset atmospheres, everyone in the room was content to soak up the beauty of his re-processed end result. Once the gorgeous tones receded and all the audio grains fell into silence, the crowd erupted with a standing ovation. Needless to say, A/Visions 3 was one of the highlights of the festival.

Nocturne 3, split between two spaces, featured a fractured combination of musician-performed pop-techno and consumer-electronics-inspired experimental audio visuals. In the main space, Kalabrese and his Rumpelorchestra got the crowd jumping right away with a dance-floor band including live drumming and trombone. Kalabrese both parodied and paid tribute to the past history of dance music in his own quirky style. Taking the stage after this light-hearted set was Matthew Dear’s Big Hands, which sounded great out of the gate, but wore surprisingly thin within another two tunes. Unlike Kalabrese, Dear seemed to take his own persona quite seriously. By the midpoint of the set, the bar was mobbed and conversation was rampant on the dance floor.

The Mole (pictured above) took the stage with a happily unpredictable set that seemed to be inspired by Dino DeLaurentiis’ 1981 film of Flash Gordon. Bits of Queen’s soundtrack for that film seemed to permeate the set, which turned out to be a blazing good time for both casual listeners and geeks trying to figure out what the huge blinky modular synthesizer was.

But the hit of the night in the main space was Cobblestone Jazz featuring Mathew Jonson. “Musicianly jazz techno” is a three-word phrase capable of striking primal fear into the hearts of the stoutest of music fans. Thankfully, Cobblestone Jazz never strayed from the path of satisfaction. The combo somehow managed to keep the entire audience screaming, even when the music began sounding suspiciously like jazz-flavored trance. Thankfully, it was good natured, well-executed jazz trance, with no arguments from anyone in the room.

In the smaller upstairs room, a crew of artists created experimental sets out of everyday objects and forgotten consumer items. A set of highly conceptual yet aesthetically uninteresting minimalism (O.Blaat) was followed by startlingly beautiful meditations on everyday sounds (Sawako). Sawako’s set—along with and Colleen’s—offered welcome contrast to the male-dominated experimental and club music of the rest of the festival.

After Sawako’s spellbinding set, the place exploded into 8-bit computer game mayhem. Bubblyfish and Glomag both use Nintendo Gameboys to produce gleefully brain-prodding slabs of Mario- noise. Of the two, Bubblyfish proved the chiptune champion, garnering a roomful of new fans. Video by Decrepticon and Chika kept things properly surreal with unique takes on VJing informed by hand-drawn artworks and, not surprisingly, videogame shapes.