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.