CDM’s Liz Revision captured some thoughts by Modeselektor on visual collaboration at the Mutek press conference:
An interesting bit of trivia comes from the divulgence that Modeselektor was the result of a veritable German alt-tronica DIY endurance match, where the last men standing in a collective of audio and visual producers teamed up to form the current lineup.
At the recent Live Performers Meeting in Rome, each of the 4 days of began with a VJ Talk hosted by AVIT. LPM is designed as a space that enables VJs to engage with each other face-to-face, and the vjtalks were intended the catalyst for this. The talks started on the theme for the day (Digital Freedoms, 8Bit + Electropop, Breakbeat + Techno + Electro, and Visual Genders) and led into topics surrounding VJ practice and to the participant’s own practice. The variety of views and personal insight that came up made for some really engaging conversations, however by their nature they existed in the moment only. To try and capture some of the spirit of the talks, short interviews were filmed afterwards, and can be found on the AVIT site’s vjtalks page: http://avit.info/vjtalks.
As one of the organisers, I think this is a rich area to explore, but am unsure how best to document it. If you do watch the videos, drop a comment back here with any feedback or suggestions.
Jaromil interviewed by *spark
Bonnaroo’s Silent Disco setting up to rock out later in the evening.
What features a DJ, lights, hundreds of stomping fee but is totally quiet? Why, Bonnaroo’s Silent Disco, of course!
For the seventh straight year Bonnaroo descended on Manchester, Tennessee for a long weekend of music, art and comedy, and it’s a spectacle to be sure. The annual festival featured four days of acts running from 12-15 June 2008 in Coffee County, TN. More than a music festival, Bonnaroo also featured the comedy (with sets by comedians Chris Rock, Louis C.K. and Janeane Garofalo), lots of art installations and a movie theater that played such titles as Know Your Mushrooms, The Doorman, the Live Earth Film Series and the NBA Finals.
Anyway, back to the Silent Disco. It works like this, when you arrive you’re issued a pair of Koss JR170 wireless headphones which allow you to hear the sweet, sweet sounds of the DJ. The concept is that you can jam out into the wee hours without keeping the people – who are camping about 300 yards away – awake all night. The concept is kind of novel but it’s a good one.
When I got some time to visit the DJ was spinning an upbeat, hip hop, 80s, old school set and it was fun to dance around and check out everyone’s headphones. At first I found myself hypnotized by the glowing LEDs on the headphones, but after getting comfortable they just faded into the background. In fact it doesn’t take long until you forget that you’re wearing headphones at all. When you take them off things get weird.
A particularly funny memory is taking my headphones off during Billie Jean and not hearing any music but instead hearing everyone sing out the chorus (totally off key):
Billie jean is not my lover
She’s just a girl who claims that I am the one!
Good times, good times.
I posted seven pictures from Silent Disco 2008 and a 86 more from Bonnaroo 2008 in my Flickr Photostream. I also recommend that you check out some of funny videos from the Silent Disco to get a better feel.
After my initial talk with Christian Fennesz I hung around in the green room talking to him and video artist Lillevan about software, the music industry, and alternative revenue streams. Here’s what they had to say.
Peter Dines: Could you tell us about Modul8 for a second?
Lillevan: I don’t want to force anything on you, it’s just that before you think I’m just doing Jitter things…
Fennesz and Lillevan at Mutek 2008 from Create Digital Media on Vimeo.
Resident sonic maestro Peter Dines spent some quality time with Christian Fennesz and his video artist Lillevan at Mutek, and got so much geeky information on Christian’s techniques that we split it into two stories.
Fennesz shared some of his favorite patches from the modular patching environment Reaktor for our kore.noisepages.com site:
Mutek Interview: Exploring the Reaktor User Library with Fennesz
… and talks more about live performance, composition and sound, and collaboration for CDMusic:
Interview: Geeking Out with Fennesz on Sound and Performance
Barem At Experience 2 on Friday May 30 at Mutek pt 1 from Create Digital Media on Vimeo.
Barem, aka Mauricio Barembuem took the stage at the slightly foggy, humid SAT in Montreal on Friday and laid down thick, groovy, harmonic minimal tracks to an appreciative audience. Since 2003 he’s been DJing and performing live both in his home country Argentina and abroad and in 2005 met Richie Hawtin who encouraged him to submit a demo to Minus and his career promptly took off.
Here’s a few video clips of his performance, with the last one showing both what the crowd was like and the extent of the visual display at the SAT.
I had a super, super time talking to Christian Fennesz on Friday, and as a bonus Lillevan from Rechenzentrum was there and talked about his upcoming performance with Fennesz, video software etc.
Though he uses Max-based “lloopp” onstage, Fennesz is a user of Reaktor (and anything / everything else) in the studio and says he browses the user library for new stuff once a month. We namechecked a couple of the great Reaktor builders who make stuff he uses – Martin Brinkmann and Dieter Zobel, among others.
Later I had a great interview with Tim Hecker about software, sampling, source material, composition – he also uses Reaktor – I’m going to email him some followup questions to get more specifics. Tim had a run in with a door earlier that day that left an egg sized bruise swelling up on his cheekbone. As a result I don’t think we were connecting as well as we could have. The poor guy was trying to eat a late lunch and recuperate while a lineup of media people waited to interview him. I think he’s okay – his performance later that night was terrific. Tim performed in near-blackout conditions with nothing to distract from the massive blimps of sound he inflates and releases – that’s his analogy for what he does. More on that when I get the interview transcribed.
Ben Frost kicked off the A/Visions 3 show with processed guitar, stacks of amps, feedback and a command of the stage – the guy knows how to present his music in a visually arresting way. Two old-school cassette recorders sat miked at each end of his performance rig, matched by two stacks of amps and speakers off in back and two the sides. Ben attacks his material physically, working the rig with his whole body. Expect to hear a whole lot more from Ben.
Thursday’s second panel discussion at Mutek involved a group of international curators and festival programmers invited to discuss the festival’s main function as a source of cultural recommendation vs. the pressure to book the most popular acts, as well as what it takes to navigate the private and public sectors of funding, as well as what it means to be part of an international touring community where artists increasingly travel between festivals.
read more
One of the strange highlights of Mutek for me was Artificiel.process at Nocturne 2. Audio and video of bizarre turntable abuse was captured live and sequenced into… music? We’re talking multiple tonearms, records made of artificial wood, sproingy plastic bars instead of turntable needles, hammering and bashing, sampling the sound of the electric motors, all performed with a nonchalant attitude and a high volume. The crowd loved it and so did I. I have video, no time to edit right now, but here’s a picture of the aftermath:
Up next, Cristian Vogel and his Capybara!
Sorry, Cristian, we’re geeks here and the gear gets top billing!
Cristian’s set was fantastic. He’s a master at creating grooves that turn themselves inside out and upside down by dropping the beat and reintroducing it, those sorts of tricks.
Sleeparchive blew minds and shook bodies using a minimal setup. From his releases I had expected racks of analog hardware… there’s a richness to the white noise and static in some of his music that sounds vintage. I’m not 100% sure but I think one of his techniques might be running audio from an empty channel on his mixer back into the laptop and amplifying it until the hiss is audible, then gating and processing.
The second A/Visions featured, among others, headliners Rechenzentrum and Thrill Jockey artist Németh.
You may know Stefan Németh from his work with Radian. At Mutek, he was joined by drummer Steven Hess of Pan American for a live performance of music from Németh’s first solo release, Film. Ironically, there was no visual presentation other than the musicians themselves. Németh performed with a modular synth that was maddeningly turned away from me so I can’t say what it was… he also looked to be triggering things with an MPC. I love seeing electronic musicians performing live with drummers or acoustic instrumentalists – when it’s well coordinated, it’s magic. This was no “here’s a click track, stick to it” sort of deal. One got the feeling that the performers were keeping a keen eye on each other and balancing the tempo on a knife edge. Great stuff.
Rechenzentrum presented the North American debut of their work, Silence. It was visually and sonically lush. The next day I got a chance to talk to video manipulator Lillevan who was also presenting his work in conjunction with the music of Fennesz at A/Visions 3 on Friday. Lillevan is a user of Cycling 74’s Jitter, and his constantly mutating visuals were a brilliant counterpoint to Marc Weiser’s audio half of Rechenzentrum. The audio spanned everything from the sound of steam engines to what I can only describe as dub by way of Esquivel.
Too much music, too little time! I’ll have something to say about performers Freida Abtan and Nokami + Sans Soleil later.
This is turning out to be an awesome edition of Mutek.
