Amon Tobin @ MUTEK 2011
For those of you not already in the know, MUTEK is synonymous with quality underground electronic music. For the past 12 years, MUTEK has been revealing new talent and showcasing top-notch homegrown Canadian Artists on big soundsystems accompanied by stunning visuals during its five-day-long festival run held in the first week of June.
For the 12th edition, MUTEK pulled out all the stops, creating an iPhone app to alert tech-saavy users as to the precise details regarding venues, scheduling, and artist descriptions. Forming partnerships with the City of Montreal and the STM (Societe de Transport de Montreal) enabled the festival to present live electronic music in a variety of public locations where it could easily be encountered by unsuspecting passers-by: in metro Berri-Uqam, on rue St-Laurent in front of SAT, and at Piknic Electronik.
Without farther ado, my MUTEK festival highlights, in no particular order:
1) Amon Tobin‘s world premiere of ISAM – an audio-visual collage of light, image and sound.
2) Murcof + AntiVJ‘s captivating rendition of inner space.
3) Plastikman‘s slamming 808 + drums with black + white visual chemistry, all controlled by Richie.
4) Mateo Murphy concocting deep techno chemistry with his modular synth >> Click here to listen to the liver recording he made !
5) Billy Dalessandro‘s killer techno set
6) FLABBERGAST >> Guillaume Coutu Dumont + Vincent Lemieux Rocking da Piknic with quirky beats and even quirkier bizarre facial expressionism
7) Horror, Inc.’s impeccable synergy of melody, emotion + rhythm
8) Danuel Tate‘s super funky sounds and captivating musicianship
9) Dancing til my legs hurt.
10) Being surrounded by thousands of like-minded techno-loving people
Plastikman