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

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.

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.

A/Visions 2

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.

Every year at Movement is essentially an electronic music marathon starting and ending in Detroit requiring an analogous amount of of stamina, getting you just as sweaty, and insisting you employ a similar degree of pacing not to burn out too early. One aspect that does evolve from year to year is the particular incarnation of technology that performers rely upon to share their unique perspective of what’s exciting about contemporary electronic music. Early years featured performers who relied on analog methods of delivering digital music, namely turntables and records. As time progressed so did the tools, becoming increasingly digital with methods for controlling the signal evolving into forms with both a traditional appearance and ones that prominently rely on software and interfaces only marginal back in 2000.

On the traditional appearance front, digital djing with control vinyl was very much in play, although Traktor Scratch seemed to be moving in on what was previously the territory of Serato, as demonstrated by artists like Magda, Joel Mull, and Richie Hawtin. Hawtin also created a mega-mixer featuring an x:one 92 flanked by two x:one D1s—a traditional mixer and two MIDI controllers in mixer form. Overwhelmingly, when laptops were being used for DJ sets or live Pas, the software of choice was Ableton Live, more times than not accompanied by an M-Audio UC-33 (or in its earlier incarnation for early adopters—the Evolution UC-33). It’s easy to see why the UC-33 has remained popular. Presets are available for download from M-Audio for both Mac and PC with . There are two banks within the presets, the first one controlling volume and pan on the eight tracks and the second one controls this for the first 6 tracks and the first send, and then controls the cross fader, monitor level, master pan and the tempo on controllers 8, 16, 24 and 32.

However, an even slicker and more advanced MIDI controller solution for either Scratch or Live would be the new Nocturn by Novation that I raved about after this year’s winter NAMM. If you’re not dead set on faders and can get by with knobs, the Nocturn has quote a few features that make your life easier. For one, there’s no need to download templates—the Nocturn’s Automap feature detects what program you’re working with and assigns parameters to each knob automatically. And if you’re not happy with the preset values you can easily change them by touching the knob and adjusting it through an on-screen overlay display. It’s much faster and easier than navigating the UC-33’s menus.

In terms of portability for live dance music performance digitally, both the UC-33 and Nocturn provide lightweight solutions to easily share one’s vision with audiences across the globe. With technological solutions physically shrinking, drive space continually on the rise (and cheaply), innovation pushing forward new concepts for live performance, it will be interesting to see how live electronic music performance will take shape in the years to come.