The (r)evolution of digital music
MUTEK: Music, Sound and New Technologies
May 30 - June 3 at Ex-Centris and SAT
If "experimental" or "electroacoustic" music still conjures images of skinny tie wearing, hair slicked back performers named Dieter, or "Techno" makes one think only of raves and glow sticks, it's perhaps time to think again. For its second year MUTEK: Music, Sound and New Technologies continues to explore the possibilities inherent in what these days is encompassingly called digital music.
"The digitization of sound and the free access to the equipment has changed the rules of game and given life to new sounds," state MUTEK organizers. It's a music which span genres and labels - and the five-day event aims as much to introduce digital music to the public as it does to allow artists from around the world to meet and create.
For the two remaining days, further interesting tonal collaborations are planned:
Saturday, June 2 - 9 p.m. Society for Arts and Technology (SAT): Musicians from the Cologne-based KOMPAKT label take over the SAT space (these digital music types seem fond of their upper case letters). "The most evolutionary clique of contemporary music" features performers Dettinger, Jonas Bering, and Closer Music in an evening weaving through ambient, dub, and other dream-like forms of the genre.
Sunday, June 3 - 9 p.m. (SAT): Improvisational U.K. musician Herbert expands on his "Manifesto of Mistakes" theory in composing and performing: found objects and random elements are incorporated into the music as it is created.
Also on the bill, German composer Dimbiman (or Zip, if you prefer) performs "...what we like to call 'minimal', 'playful' or 'self-willed' house." Hmmmm.
In the same evening, minimalist funk-meister Thomas Brinkmann (Cologne) incorporates unusual scratch and treated vinyl techniques into his turntable-based compositions.
Once again there are free "5 à 7" afternoon shows - Saturday has Montreal label Substractif, and Sunday, Toronto-based Dumb-Unit showcasing performers in their rosters (at SAT).
MUTEK on the Web
MUTEK Web designers have jumped on the Macromedia Flash train, and use it quite tastefully throughout the 2001 edition of the site, where live streams of the evening performances can be heard.
The site's a veritable ant farm of graphical activity in cools blues and techno fonts. Links pulse, mouseovers produce little blips and beeps, and colored squares drift around the screen while a quasi-ambient tune loops in the background. Stimulating and pretty to see - still, not for the band-width challenged...
(For a further Flash fix, have a look at what the doyen of this medium, Joshua Davis, has done at Once Upon a Forest. An online sketchbook for Davis' ideas, the site is a good example of what can be done within the constraints of the Web given a little imagination.)
MUTEK: Music, Sound and New Technologies continues to Sunday, June 3.
Ex-Centris, 3536 St-Laurent
Society for Arts and Technology (SAT), 305 Ste-Catherine W.
See Web site for schedule. Info: 514 847-1242
[Photos courtesy MUTEK: upper right - Jonas Bering, lower left - Dimbiman]
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