MUTEK Montreal is a festival for true music lovers. MUTEK presents more conceptual artists in lieu of only the commercially popular acts – a unique look at a different side of electronic music. MUTEK Montreal is the kind of music festival where in all likelihood, you haven’t heard of a lot of the artists, but you trust in the project’s curation so much that you’ll go anyway. And trust me, you’ll have a great time. Vincent Lemieux has been curating MUTEK Montreal for over a decade, and needless to say, his selections are always perfectly on-point.
The MUTEK 2013 festivities kicked off with Experience 1 at the Windows Lounge at 2-22 Ste. Despite rather dreary weather, the crowd was out in full force to catch Augustine and Wrong, followed by a live set of unreleased tracks and demos from Montreal’s own Stefny Winter. Her staple deep house and thoughtful take on techno was a real crowd pleaser – everyone was buzzing, and she set the pace for the rest of the weekend. Next up, Toronto-natives Alicia Hush and ana+one took the stage as Yes Ma’am, delivering their infamous bouncy, ghetto-tinged techno. Slinking, sneaky samples melted perfectly into rolling, bassy beats that had everyone moving. A pretty incredible start to the festival.
Yes Ma’am
A couple days later, I took off to Piknic Electronik on Ile Ste Helene, where Montreal’s weekly outdoor music mini-fest had paired up with MUTEK for a special event that featured MUTEK artists. Swedish house DJ Axel Boman and Spanish DJ/producer John Talabot performed separately, and then closed out the day b2b for the last leg of the event. Surprisingly, the music was not what I was expecting. When I showed up, Boman was pumping Madonna’s “Vogue,” and it didn’t get altogether too much better from there. Don’t get me wrong, I love Madonna, but there’s a time and a place. I remained hopeful for Talabot’s set, and for their later back-to-back performance, and although the music wasn’t terrible – melodic, danceable house – it was nothing special either.
John Talabot