MUTEK 2010

MUTEK 2010 FINALIZES CENTRAL PROGRAMME FOR 11TH EDITION!

April 21, 2010 - Montreal: – From June 2nd to June 6th of this year, MUTEK takes over Montreal’s Quartier des Spectacles to kick off Quebec’s summer cultural season with the 11th edition of the world-renowned festival that Time Out New York hails as “North America’s leading electronic-music event”. Today, MUTEK reveals its core programming of over 50 homegrown and international acts, including a special homecoming spotlight concert by Montreal’s own Guillaume Coutu Dumont. MUTEK 2010 also features many exclusive engagements with the cream of the global electronic-arts community, including 2 world premieres, 9 North American debuts, and 16 Canadian debuts.

With all this and more in the works for the 2010 edition, it’s no wonder that influential electronic-music journal XLR8R believes that “it is apparent that MUTEK is going to have its best year yet.” This foray into the festival’s second decade comes in light of last year’s landmark 10th anniversary edition. With overall attendance up by over 70% and a top-tier tourism record that attracts some 55% of the festival’s audiences from outside the province, this past March MUTEK was also named the winner of the 25th Grand Prix du Conseil des Arts de Montréal. The distinction has validated the tenure of the digital arts as an integral and vibrant contribution to the fabric of Montreal contemporary arts culture.

With MUTEK 2010 at the forefront of a new generation of cultural showcases in the province, festival founder and artistic director Alain Mongeau has said that his guiding principle in programming this year’s event was to raise the standards of the five-day showcase by striking an equilibrium among MUTEK’s many historical strengths. As a result, the 2010 line-up is about bringing back festival favourites to present new and ever-daring projects (Guillaume & the Coutu Dumonts, Matmos, Moritz von Oswald), showcasing for the first time those acts we’ve been pursuing for years (Pépé Bradock, Mouse on Mars, Theo Parrish, Minilogue), highlighting the most promising of new discoveries (Demdike Stare, Nicolas Jaar, Jon Hopkins), and spotlighting originality that defies easy categorization (Nurse With Wound, [The User], The Caretaker).

MUTEK 2010 will take place in 5 venues in downtown Montreal: the Monument-National, the Society for Arts and Technology (SAT), the Metropolis, Club Soda, and Parc Jean-Drapeau. Tickets and packages are available now at www.mutek.org.

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MUTEK 2010 ARTISTS

ACTRESS (UK) / ATTENTAT (US) / BEN FROST (AU) / BERNIER + MESSIER (CA) / BRANDT BRAUER FRICK (DE) / CARL MICHAEL VON HAUSSWOLFF (SE) / CHEAP & DEEP (US) / CHRIS HRENO (CA) / D NUMBERS (US) / DAVE AJU (US) / DEMDIKE STARE (UK) / DIEGORS (CL) / DIXON (DE) / DJ KOZE (DE) / FREIDA ABTAN (CA)/ GUILLAUME COUTU DUMONT & THE SIDE EFFECTS (CA) / HENRIK SCHWARZ (DE) / IKONIKA (UK) / JACEK SIENKIEWICZ (PL) / JON HOPKINS (UK) / KING MIDAS SOUND (UK) / KONQUE (US) / KRILL.MINIMA (DE) / LE GOLDEN (CA) / MARSEN JULES (DE) / MATIAS AGUAYO PRESENTS CÓMEME (CL) / MATMOS (US) / MINILOGUE (SE) / MORITZ VON OSWALD TRIO (DE) / MOSSA (CA) / MOUSE ON MARS (DE) / NATHAN FAKE (UK) / NICOLAS JAAR (CL) / NOSPECTACLE (CA) / NURSE WITH WOUND (UK) / ORPHX (CA) / OVERCAST SOUND (CA) / PAUL KALKBRENNER (DE) / PÉPÉ BRADOCK (FR) / PIMMON (AU) / REBOLLEDO (MX) / SAN PROPER (NL) / SHED (DE) / SMIRK (US) / [THE USER] (CA) / THE CARETAKER (UK) / THEO PARRISH (US) / THIERRY GAUTHIER (CA) / TIM HECKER (CA) / VLADISLAV DELAY (FI) / WoO+INCREDIBLE BOB (RS)

Over the next weeks, MUTEK will reveal the breadth of the many free showcases, panels, and workshops that will also take place over the course of the 11th edition’s five spectacular days. Included in these plans are our weekday happy hours (5 à 7 series) and Ectoplasmes, our late-night experimental explorations, which will combine to bring in yet another 40 performances.

FESTIVAL PASSPORTS, PACKAGES, AND TICKETS
Tickets and packages are available now at www.mutek.org, and through the Ticketpro network (www.ticketpro.ca and at all box offices), as well as at local ticket outlets as listed online.

The FESTIVAL PASSPORT, which includes all performances, is available for $210 (+ tax and service charges). Various weekend packages, which include variations of showcases running from Friday, June 4th to Sunday, June 6th, are available starting from $75 (+ tax and service charges). As of today, individual tickets for all showcases are available for purchase. Please go to www.mutek.org for more information on passes, packages, or individual tickets to MUTEK 2010.

MEDIA ACCREDITATION
As of April 20th, MUTEK is accepting media requests for the 2010 festival. Journalists and editors are invited to visit the ‘press’ section of the MUTEK 2010 festival site to download and send in their accreditation application forms.

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JUNE 2ND TO JUNE 6TH: THE DESIGN OF MUTEK’S FIVE DAYS

DAY 1 – WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2ND

A\VISIONS 1: PANDORA’S MUSIC BOX
Monument-National Theatre – $25 CDN // 8pm
This showcase of local and international acts brings together duos who are all to some degree engaging or reacting to the reflections and refractions of the world through the mirror of technological innovation. Demonstrating how creativity rises from the detritus of utility, Montreal’s [THE USER] presents a symphony of dot-matrix printers working in unison some two decades after their obsolescence to fashion a literal manifestation of machine music. Meanwhile, NICOLAS BERNIER and MARTIN MESSIER present LA CHAMBRE DES MACHINES, a performance piece inspired by the intonarumori, noise-intoning analogue boxes invented nearly a century ago by Italian futurist Luigi Russolo (1885-1947), who is widely credited as the first noise composer. Finally, Baltimore field-recording conceptualists MATMOS return to the MUTEK stage after a decade’s absence to co-opt the sonics from an array of early electronic sound-machines such as the Moog Voyager, the ARP 2600, the Stylophone, and the Korg MS 2000, in the process fashioning a pure, conceptual vision of music composed entirely from electrical tones.

NOCTURNE 1: ¡FIESTA ESPONTANEA!
Society for Arts and Technology – $25 CDN // 10pm
MUTEK hands over the keys to the SAT to Kompakt’s MATIAS AGUAYO for a fun-filled and fiery night of contemporary Latin American electronic music. Ostensibly a showcase for his new CÓMEME collective and label, which gathers Latin American DJ’s and producers who update the cornerstones of tropicalia by blending festive sounds with political undertones, Aguayo and the Cómeme crew challenge the establishment and exclusivity of the European electronic circuit by punching holes of kitsch and bold rhythm into the self-serious hyperbole of Teutonic techno. All of which is to say that audiences should be prepared for a no-holds-barred bumbumbox of deep sweat and acrobatic movement, loud music and even more vocal sloganeering. Aguayo holds centre court with his new live band featuring VICENTE SANFUENTES (aka Original Hamster) and DIEGO MORALES (aka Diegors). At the bookends, Chile’s DIEGORS gets the walls shaking early with fat Latin disco, while Mexico’s REBOLLEDO DJ’s us late into the night with a fierce set of nu-electro. With this showcase, MUTEK further nurtures its long relationship with Latin American artists, whom the organization has promoted vigorously through its many events in the region.

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DAY 2 – THURSDAY, JUNE 3RD

A\VISIONS 2: THE CULT OF LONGER MEMORIES
Monument-National Theatre – $25 CDN // 8pm
In collaboration with influential music monthly The Wire, this showcase brings together two of the most elusive acts from the British post-industrial underground. Weaving together themes of haunting ethereality and the sounds of generational divides, this double bill presents a portrait of contemporary experimental artists negotiating with their culture’s long list of half-buried treasures. Former copyright terrorist (his work as V/Vm is both under-recognized and highly pertinent) and current hauntology figurehead James Leyland Kirby brings his alias THE CARETAKER to Montreal for a rare live performance that sees him manipulating old British ballroom 78’s from the 20’s and 30’s into a mesmerizing elegy of whispering melodies and ghostly dust and scratches. Afterward, Steven Stapleton finally brings dark-ambient legends NURSE WITH WOUND to North America for an exclusive Canadian engagement, spotlighting the monumental breadth of their vast and often rare discography, which spans the range between drone-folk experiments, surreal poetics, and noir-jazz improvisations.

NOCTURNE 2: RADICAL CONNECTORS
Metropolis – $30 CDN // 10pm
Radically connecting disparate points of musical discourse into uncontainable arrangements of technicolored sound, the acts brought together for this Thursday night showcase all share a passion for throwing out the rulebooks. Opening up the night in a seductively moody manner, the UK’s JON HOPKINS breathes fresh life into the framework of IDM by blending in dense and dramatic textures. Next, veteran Cologne post-everything duo MOUSE ON MARS charge back into Montreal after a conspicuous hiatus, fully revitalized and ready to lock grooves into pointillist tech-funk. The beats only surge stronger after that, as Norfolk’s NATHAN FAKE surfs the crowd across choppy melodic waves of intelligent technicoloured maximalism.
The Savoy room will be twitching and turning with performances by a contingent of home grown, tech and house producers: MOSSA, CHRIS HRENO, and more TBA.

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DAY 3 -  FRIDAY, JUNE 4TH

A\VISIONS 3: SUBLIME DISTORTIONS
Monument-National Theatre – $25 CDN // 8pm
The MUTEK weekend begins with a showcase that brings together the most lush and most bristling aspects of contemporary ambient experimentation, with a goal to caapture the distorted sublimity engrained within the two ends of the genre. Following in the footsteps of the electronic classical evolutions as shaped by the likes of Eno, Arvo Pärt, and Gas, Dortmund’s Martin Juhls brings the warm, overflowing tones of his most popular alias, MARSEN JULES, to the MUTEK stage, shaping affected strings and piano into glacially paced, transcendental lullabies. For this performance, Juhls will be accompanied by an audio-visual trio featuring VJ NICOLAI KONSTATINOVIC. Representing the industrial glitch-drone championed by the likes of Severed Heads, Pan Sonic, and Oval, Australia’s PIMMON chops up glitches and organic sound debris into a thorny yet deeply contemplative bed of sound.

NOCTURNE 3: SHEDDING THE PAST, DUBBING THE FUTURE
Society for Arts and Technology & Club Soda – $35 CDN // 10pm
Friday night at MUTEK gets underway in high style with two showcases presented in collaboration with British magazine FACT, highlighting the latest in dub offshoots and international techno, two venues just steps away from each other, and one ticket to experience it all!
At the Society for Arts & Technology, Canada’s own OVERCAST SOUND gets the night underway with a deep, moody take on dub-techno. Next comes the North American debut of the Modern Love label’s massively heralded newcomers, DEMDIKE STARE, who blend disparate ethnic music into one masterful dub-driven journey. The second North American debut of the night comes from The Bug’s Kevin Martin, who arrives to these shores primed to premiere his latest venture, the hypnotic, airless KING MIDAS SOUND, featuring vocals by Hitomi and dub poet Roger Robinson. The North American debuts keep pouring in when Hyperdub’s IKONIKA takes over on the decks for a set of bulging, Casio-toned bass music, showcasing just how far and quickly dubstep has evolved into new territory.
Meanwhile, up the street at Club Soda a gathering of hotly tipped up-and-coming techno producers showcases the many regional undercurrents of today’s globalized, internet-driven electronic music culture. Canada’s ORPHX gets the ball rolling in starkly industrial fashion with a set of pummeling EBM. Next up, Montreal is privy to the Canadian debut of the UK’s Darren Cunningham, whose ACTRESS alias mingles dubstep aesthetics with rave breaks and micro-house attitude to conjure up a gleefully indefinable journey. American producer CHEAP AND DEEP rolls into town for another Canadian debut, bringing in tow a taste of techno that is raw, humid, dubby, and mysterious. Eastern European techno has been gaining a lot of attention in recent years, and Polish veteran JACEK SIENKIEWICZ – yet another Canadian debut – takes to the stage next, pulling the internationally flexible genre toward a more minimal design. The night culminates with one of Berlin’s most revered new talents, SHED, who brings his massively acclaimed and deeply informed brand of techno to a stage already brimming over with a wealth of talent.

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DAY 4 – SATURDAY, JUNE 5TH

MUTEK//PIKNIC 1: RESPECT IS BURNING
Jean Drapeau Park – $10 CDN // 2pm
The affluence of minimal techno over the course of the past decade has cultivated a certain class of producer who is able to navigate ably between the sought-after respect of the ever-advancing underground and the adulation of more commercial audiences. MUTEK’s first Piknic of the 11th edition highlights such figures, all of who have become beloved by international droves but still maintain a quality and curiousity within their productions to earn their places at the forefronts of their respective scenes. The afternoon begins languidly with a largely ambient wash from Marsen Jules’ alter ego KRILL.MINIMA, before the Dortmund native hands over the reigns to Sweden’s most dynamic techno duo, MINILOGUE, who have admirably handled the risky task of blending trance signatures into the mnml framework. This North American live debut should rank highly on the must-see list of anyone with even a passing interest in taking a euphoric journey. Up next is Teutonic juggernaut DJ KOZE, whose hip-hop background, eccentric persona, and eclectic tastes have set expectations high for what should be a wide-ranging DJ set. As the evening comes alive, audiences fall into the hands of Bpitch Control’s PAUL KALKBRENNER, whose live performance has no qualms mixing grand emotional statements with sleek, propulsive rhythms, making this one sunset you don’t want to miss.

A\VISIONS 4: LIVE WIRES
Society for Arts & Technology – $25 CDN // 8pm
The final A\VISIONS showcase of the week is nothing less than a quartet of the most notable figures from the experimental scene, all of whom are working their avant-garde tendencies through hybrid forms to produce riveting panoramas of aural texture. A classic participant from the very first MUTEK in 2000, Finland’s VLADISLAV DELAY returns to the festival stage after a prolonged absence to reignite the open-source echo chambers that have made his ultra-loose take on dub so tangential, deep and hypnotic. Meanwhile, Austria’s CARL MICHAEL VON HAUSSWOLFF uses tape machines and electrical tones to produce a wall of drone accentuated by industrial-sized hammers and swirls. Finally, we welcome back two of MUTEK 2008’s finest performers, Australia’s BEN FROST and Montreal’s TIM HECKER, for showcases that pursue the sleeplessness of ambient drones with a distinctly guitar-oriented visceralism that has made both producers cross-genre favourites with fans of experimental rock and noise music.

NOCTURNE 4: BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE
Metropolis – $35 CDN // 12am
MUTEK 2010’s marquee Saturday all-nighter! As always, for NOCTURNE 4 we’ve pulled out all the stops to present a thematically driven evening of compulsive tempos and head-snapping grooves, geared to take wide-eyed audiences from midnight to the crack of dawn. This year, we focus on a group of producers who marry the richness of twentieth century’s musical canon with the contemporary electronics and signatures of the house music scene. The voracity of jazz, afro-beat, space-rock, soul, and numerous other musical enclaves will form the orbit around which this night revolves. At the center of this enviable company is Montreal’s own GUILLAUME & THE COUTU DUMONTS, who returns to his native city to deliver a worldwide exclusive, the premiere of his live band – The Side Effects – that worked on his exceptional new album “Breaking The Fourth Wall.” Following Dumont is one of Germany’s leading proponents on the contemporary house scene of blending old and new, HENRIK SCHWARZ. Finally, we follow the musical notations to their logical conclusion with none other than the Innervisions label boss himself, DIXON, who will take us on a world-class DJ journey brimming with his exclusive edits and inimitable mixing style.
Meanwhile, the Savoy Room brims with artists affiliated with both Boulder’s Communikey and Belgrade’s Dis-Patch Festivals. Part of the International Cities for Advanced Sound network, the two organizations showcase some of the most promising names from the respective communities: Serbia’s WOO+INCREDIBLE BOB, and the US’s D NUMBERS, SMIRK, KONQUE, and ATTENTAT.

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DAY 5 – SUNDAY, JUNE 6TH

MUTEK//PIKNIC 2: BE LIKE THE SUN
Jean Drapeau Park – $10 CDN // 2pm
The second of MUTEK’s two PIKNICS behaves as though Saturday night never ended, picking up the high-end house sounds of the Metropolis and transferring the up-tempo snares, hi-hats, and kick-drums to the scenic outdoors of Jean Drapeau Park. The program comprises a strong mix of critically acclaimed producers, both veterans and newcomers alike, showcasing the uplifting powers of house music by threading in aspects of its funk, disco, jazz, and soul predecessors. Hotly tipped young American producer NICOLAS JAAR gets the afternoon underway with a calmly orchestrated, percussively complex version of the genre that references jazz drummers like Art Blakey as much as it does Ricardo Villalobos’ sunnier side. San Francisco’s DAVE AJU, fresh from vocalizing the music of Guillaume & Coutu Dumonts the night before, takes the stage next for his own funk-inflected deepness, working off samples culled from Sun Ra, John Coltrane and his own elastic mouth. As the afternoon stretches toward evening, the sun begins to set to a techno-fried, bass-laden live set from the Netherlands’ SAN PROPER. Finally, we cross the Atlantic for a class dose of French house courtesy of elusive beatsmith PÉPÉ BRADOCK, who arrives on North American shores for this rare engagement.

NOCTURNE 5: SOUL CONTROL
Society for Arts & Technology – $25 CDN // 10pm
NOCTURNE 5 is otherwise known as MUTEK’s victory lap, a closing night event designed to suit the moods and reward the faithful who have blazed through five all-consuming days of some of the best the electronic-music and digital-arts worlds have to offer. And for this edition, we’ve saved some of our finest talents for last! A night dedicated to the slow-burning and thick molasses of live electronics, the evening begins with Canada’s own NOSPECTACLE, an audio-visual trio headed by former Thinkbox Collective member Chris McNamara. As the evening builds thick with momentum, the inimitable MORITZ VON OSWALD TRIO – featuring Chain Reaction/Basic Channel’s Moritz Von Oswald alongside Sasu Ripatti (Vladislav Delay, Luomo) and Max Loderbauer (nsi, Sun Electric) – brews a strange, improvisational concoction of armchair techno designed to redefine the word “deep”. Germany’s up-and-coming BRANDT BRAUER FRICK take the stage next, refining the thickness of their predecessor’s set with a robust boost of rhythm and theatricality. The evening and the festival draw to a close on an exceedingly high note with a rare Montreal appearance by one of North America’s most captivating and elusive producers, THEO PARRISH. The third-generation Detroit house icon will grace the decks with suave sultriness and spiritual candor, leaving us all waiting with bated breath for MUTEK 2011.

source: presse release, Morgan Steiker, msteiker@mutek.org