THE MUTEK 2008 ARTISTS

Tickets and packages on sale at www.mutek.org/mtl08.

ARTIFICIEL & MARTIN TÉTREAULT
BAREM
BEN FROST
BEN SHEMIE
CHIC MINIATURE
CHLOÉ
CHRISTIAN FENNESZ
CRISTIAN VOGEL
DAFLUKE
DANTON EEPROM
DAVE AJU
DEADBEAT
DJ OLIVE
ERNESTO FERREYRA
THE FIELD live band
FLYING LOTUS
FREIDA ABTAN
HALF HAWAII (SAMMY DEE & BRUNO PRONSATO)
HEART & SOUL
JEREMY P. CAULFIELD
KID KOALA
KNIFEHANDCHOP
KODE 9 & SPACE APE
KOMODO
MARTIN MESSIER & JACQUES POULIN-DENIS
MARTYN
MATHIAS KADEN
MEGASOID
METRIKA
MILLIMETRIK
MODESELEKTOR vs PFADFINDEREI
MORGAN PACKARD vs JOSHUE OTT
MOSSA
MURCOF
NÉMETH + HESS
NICOLAS BERNIER
NOAH PRED
NOKAMI & SANS SOLEIL
NÔZE
ONUR ÖZER
QUIET VILLAGE
RADIO SLAVE
RECHENZENTRUM
SETH TROXLER
SLEEPARCHIVE
TIM HECKER
UNDERGROUND RESISTANCE presents INTERSTELLAR FUGITIVES

* Carl Craig's performance at MUTEK 2008 has been canceled.


MUTEK 2008: THE PROGRAMMES

WEDNESDAY, MAY 28TH

A\VISIONS 1, the first showcase of this festival, is presented on May 28th at 8 pm. An evening dedicated to distillations of classical instrumentation for the 21st century, this showcase brings together three homegrown and international artists. New York’s Morgan Packard and Joshue Ott join forces to present Tremble, a multi-dimensional composition that is guaranteed to take audiences by surprise with its unexpected twists and turns.  Local electro-acoustic composer Nicolas Bernier presents Les Arbres, an adventurous composition that processes violin, violoncello, and vibraphone into a surround-sound, somnambulant stream of consciousness. Meanwhile, Murcof’s Fernando Corona, Mexico’s most high-profile electronic composers of this decade, brings a much-needed spark of innovation and freshness to classically influenced electronic composition. This will be Murcof’s North American premiere with the visual accompaniment by Italian duo xx+xy.

The NOCTURNE series debuts at the SAT on May 28th at 10:30 pm with a showcase best represented by the sheer weight of history of enviable achievement its participants bring to the stage.  NOCTURNE I brings together pioneering musicians who have come to emblemize electronic music’s longstanding tradition of mysterious and uncompromised quality.  The evening centers around the inimitable Detroit force known only as Underground Resistance, a deeply anonymous network of militant and politicized second-wave techno purveyors from the Motor City who took the bruised funk of their Michigan heritage and turned it into a fervent cult of personality within the international techno community.


THURSDAY, MAY 29TH

A\VISIONS 2, at 8 pm on May 29th, showcases an evening of experimentation in the merging worlds of film, nature, and narrative.  A multi-disciplinary artist and composer from Montreal, Freida Abtan composes extraordinary ethereal videoscapes built around successive layers of digitally transformed dancers that weave in and out of each other.  Meanwhile, Montreal duo Nokami & Sans Soleil present Semiosis.  This evening at the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde is headlined by Berlin-based audio-visual duo Rechenzentrum, who will be presenting the North American premiere of Silence, which recently appeared at the prestigious Volksbühne in Berlin.  Silence is a breathtaking live performance that acts as a further conduit to the still unexplored reaches of film and sound manipulation.

On May 29th at 10:30 pm at the SAT, NOCTURNE 2 highlights the current practitioners of the more abstract, cyclical side of minimal techno.  These are artists who break down minimalism to its barest components of loop, cycle, space and sound in order to create an unmitigated propulsive engine of technique and rhythm that likens itself to the digital tribalisms of future generations. Artificiel, featuring Julien Roy, presents the world-premiere performance of artificiel.process("Martin Tétreault"), a work that centers on live audio/video sampling of the great experimental turntablist Martin Tétreault and his custom-made green mutant turntable.  Berlin’s masterful sleeparchive, the rightful inheritor of the strict minimalism practiced by the likes of Pan Sonic, Monolake, and the Raster-Noton crew, arrives to the SAT stage for a Montreal debut of his stripped-down techno, while Chilean experimental techno veteran Cristian Vogel returns to the city after a prolonged absence to present the North American premiere of his most recent outing, The Never Engine.


FRIDAY, MAY 30TH

On May 30th at 8 pm, A\VISIONS 3 will offer one of the most inspired showcases to grace this series in the festival’s history.  Three generations of experimental post-guitarists will come together on one stage for an evening this city will not soon forget. Ben Frost arrives by way of Iceland for his Canadian premiere, as one of the most notable new figures in guitar exploration.  The evening continues with Montreal’s own Tim Hecker, who is currently recognized on the international stage as one of the foremost talents of digital symphonics. Finally, the soirée leads us to Christian Fennesz, one of the most important names in serious music currently at work, a figure whose numerous seminal releases have defined an era of digital creativity with notations of warm dissonance and abstract melody.

For the occasion of the NOCTURNE 3 showcase on Friday, May 30th (at 9 pm), the Metropolis will host a massive two-room event to kick-start the weekend. In the main room, several of today’s best producers bring the spirit of fusion and sampling to the stage for an energetic showcase designed to celebrate the sampling potentials of electronic music.  Montreal turntablist Kid Koala brings his magical fingers and cartoonish imagination to the decks first, before ceding the stage to this city’s new generation of hip-hop manipulators, the hotly tipped synth crunk of Megasoid, featuring Sixtoo’s Robert Squire and Wolf Parade’s Hadji Bakara.  Modeselektor, the Berlin sensation that defies all categories except  “incomparably energetic”, will take the Metropolis to new heights, as they appear alongside their longtime video-jockies Pfadfinderei for what ought to be a thrilling visual treat. Toronto’s breakcore specialist Knifehandchop brings the audience to a boil for night’s end.  In the Savoy Lounge, a handful of techno’s hottest underground names from this year will present an international smorgasbord of the genre’s bounties: San Francisco’s Dave Aju, Mexico’s Metrika, the international super-duo of Perlon’s Sammy Dee and Bruno Pronsato working as Half Hawaii, and Toronto tech-veteran Jeremy P. Caulfield.


SATURDAY, MAY 31ST

The return of the incredibly popular MUTEK collaboration with Piknic Electronik! Here, the two organizations join forces for the first of two outdoor showcases, MUTEK//PIKNIC 1, a world-class line-up of dubstep and new bass on Saturday at 2 pm at Parc Jean Drapeau.   The afternoon begins with a live performance by Montreal’s Komodo, one of this city’s up-and-coming dubstep producers.  Dutch producer-of-the-moment Martyn drops in for a sun-drenched dubstep set, before handing the stage over to a set from the ambassadors of the genre, the white-hot duo of Kode 9 & Space Ape. The critically acclaimed Warp signee Flying Lotus, eager to take the bass friction even lower, will make the sun set to a throbbing low end.

The festival centerpiece, NOCTURNE 4 on Saturday, May 31st at 10 pm, is an all-night two-room event presented at Metropolis that features several of the most notable names in electronic music today. The line-up in the main room gets underway with Toronto tech-house producer Noah Pred, followed by Montreal’s own Mossa, before taking a turn toward the deep electro-fused techno of France’s Chloé. Longtime fans of Cologne’s Kompakt label will be treated to a Canadian premiere of highly coveted act The Field, appearing on the Metropolis stage with a live trio that is at once linear and sublime.  To top it all off, London’s man of the hour Radio Slave closes the night with what is already slated to be one of the finest hours of the 2008 program. In the Savoy Lounge, a night of eclectic leftfield producers will fill the room with strange and otherworldly sounds via a line-up that threatens to overshadow the main room!  Kode 9 appears in versatile experimental form for a brooding live set, followed by none of other than the surf fusion of Quiet Village, featuring Radio Slave’s Matt Edwards and Joel Martin.  New York’s DJ Olive displays the more experimental reaches of abstract beats, before Montreal’s own Deadbeat sets the room aflame with his 21st century dub.


SUNDAY, JUNE 1ST

For Sunday afternoon, starting at 2 pm, MUTEK//PIKNIC 2 lets loose a 9-hour music marathon that will run up until 11pm. The stage features a five-pack of international techno to rival the United Nations, a line-up that makes a strong case for the new shape of a globalized techno that incorporates the richness of indigenous rhythms and sounds into a tight percussive minimalism. Beginning with a Vakant imprint double-bill featuring Turkey’s up-and-coming Onur Özer and his lively brand of techno, the afternoon then veers toward the new school of German producers with the Mathias Kaden. Argentina’s Ernesto Ferreyra will then take to the stage for a high-quality live set of minimal techno.   French techno-pop duo Nôze returns to Montreal for a special encore performance of their crowdpleasing live set.  As the stars begin to shine in the night sky, Onur Özer and Mathias Kaden will return for a tag-team encore that will leave audiences wishing for one more summer night. 


In case of rain, events at Parc Jean-Drapeau will be held at the SAT on Saturday.

Details regarding the programming of DIGI_SECTION – the festival’s professional component – as well as other elements of the program will be announced on May 14th at the MUTEK media call, to be held at the SAT.  More information on the MUTEK media call will be released in the coming weeks.