Montreal festival

ArtsMusic

The past weeks have been pretty intense for me. I was lost in a techno world the last weeks of May and beginning of June. First at Movement in Detroit then at MUTEK (well, EM15 but who really calls it that anyway?!). I prepared you a list of this year’s hits and misses and I wish I could have shared it with you earlier but my body literally shut down when the music stopped. It was a lot of fun but for the next little while I’ll stick to tea and kale.

HITS

Space Dimension Controller

He played a free party outside Place des Arts and it was the best way to spend your Saturday afternoon. He already impressed me on Thursday night when I had the brilliant idea to escape Hawtin’s set. I’m going to lose the music nerds here but anybody dropping “Oh Yeah” by Yello and “Africa” by Toto automatically wins my heart.

Ricardo Villalobos

You never know what to expect from Villalobos. Will he be sober enough to play? Will he even be able to cross the border? Luckily for us, he did show up at Metropolis and was in good enough shape to make his fans dance until 6 a.m. He even opened the small stage a Piknic Electronik the next day. Such a trooper!

Metropolis’ Le Savoy 

The smaller room at Metropolis was the best kept secret. It was a place you could go when you needed a break from the crowd and it was a chance to discover a lesser-known artist. Matthew Hawtin delivered a nice ambient set on Thursday night. During Metropolis 3, Ben Nevile, Stephen Beaupré and Mossa (who used fruits for percussion during his set) made many new fans with their groovy sounds.

The crowd

What makes MUTEK special is definitely the crowd attending. Throughout the years, I made friends from all over the world I now call my techno family. We’re lucky enough to have an open-minded crowd that really cares about the music and not just the party. It’s not your typical techno festival.

MISSES

Richie Hawtin presents ENTER.

Thursday night was lacking in the vision MUTEK got us used to. Unlike his Plastikman performance, which really brought some fresh air while reviving memories, his set last Thursday was predictable and didn’t quite fit with the MUTEK motto. Not everything was bad about this party and I must say, it was the only night the sound was good at Metropolis.

Musée d’art contemporain [MAC]

Presenting some showcases at the MAC seemed a good idea on paper but many people were not able to buy the full pass this year or attend the last showcase with Nicolas Jaar because the venue didn’t have enough capacity. In the past years, S.A.T. and Metropolis were close enough to make the venue-hopping more convenient which wasn’t the case with the museum. It’s something to think about for next year.

ArtsMusic

Sunday June 3rd (well, Monday afternoon for me) marked the end of another edition of one of the most important electronic music festival in North America. I’ve been attending Mutek for four years now and I can say without hesitating that this year edition was my favorite so far. I mean, every year has had its highlights but this time it was different. Every single night, I’ve found myself discovering or re-discovering incredible musicians! Which was priceless. Here’s a list of my favorite performances day by day.

Wednesday:

Probably my top discovery of this year’s festival is the American duo Blondes. Having heard of them without knowing what they would sound like, I was expecting some minimal intellectual electronic music. How wrong was I! These guys can teach you a thing or two about how to do a proper live techno set just like any other Detroit dude. Apparat live right after was a little bit too Sigur Ros infused to keep the party going.

Thursday:

Having the chance of seeing a legend like Jeff Mills is a once in a lifetime experience… getting to see him twice in less than a week is the best thing I could dreamed of. After catching his Wizard set on Monday in Detroit it was now time to catch the more experimental and sci-fi side of Mills. A Roland 909 up front, five cdj’s in the back and the moon pumping to the beat in the background, the set-up was out of this world; and so was the performance…

Friday:

To kick-off the week-end, Mutek crew provided us with the most “mainstream” line-up of the festival. Everybody in Montreal was waiting to hear how Nicolas Jaar would sound live. I got to see him last March in Toronto and was very disappointed. Although he didn’t deliver the best performance of this year’s festival; let’s just say that it was decent enough to patch things up between the two of us. Jimmy Edgar closed the night and sounded so good that I had to go to this small sweaty after-party where we danced to his mixes until 6am.

Saturday:

I’m magically out of bed early enough to catch my favorite performance of this year’s festival. It’s a rainy day, so Piknik Electronic has been moved to S.A.T. It’s dark and definitely not what one needs to cure a hangover. It doesn’t matter because nothing will stop the talented KiNK! He delivered an energy-driven set expressing how excited he was to be there. He interacted with the crowd, giving them the opportunity to mess with his sequencer and join ion the music making. Some people say he puts on the best live electronic music around and I tend to agree.

Sunday:

For the last day of the festival, despite the possibility of rain, the weather was on our side and we got to go out to Piknik Electronik . The special guest at Piknik Electronik was none other than Nicolas Jaar followed by Benoit & Sergio live and finally Wolf & Lamb. It was the perfect line-up to listen to while spending the afternoon dancing outside. The bravest among us crawled to S.A.T to catch the last Nocturne, which feature a live set by Dave Aju. I won’t lie; at this point I was so beaten up I can’t really say how good it was…

The Mutek crew, this year more than any other, proved that Montreal is an important player in the electronic music scene. Now, we just have to surf the wave and use this inspiring week-end as a model for more electronic music events in our city.

Also for all our original photography from the fest check out ForgetTheBox on FB