Underlining the artistry of live electronic music and real-time audiovisual presentations, the festival is pleased to unleash another outstanding offering of exceptional creations:
Acid Pauli (DE) / Algobabez (UK) / Anabasine (CA/QC) / Analog Tara (US) / Anthony Linell (Abdulla Rashim) (SE) / Canhota (CA/QC) / Charlotte Bendiks (NO) / Christian Carrière (CA/QC) / CMD (CA/QC) / CNDSD & Iván Abreu (MX) / Data Slum (CA/QC) / Debit (MX) / DeepChord (US) / DJ Lag (ZA) / DJ Voilà (CA/QC) / dull (FR/CA/QC) / Echo Beach (CA) / Ewa Justka (UK) / Fake Electronics & Line Katcho (CA/QC) / Falaises (CA/QC) / Felicia Lush & Ionsea — Homing Identities (CA/QC) / Félix-Antoine Morin (CA/QC) / Herman Kolgen — ISOTOPP (CA/QC) / Highbloom & Rémillard (CA/QC) / Honey Dijon (US) / Interspecifics — Speculative Communications (MX) / Jaclyn Kendall (CA/QC) / Kenny Larkin (US) / Line Katcho — Immortelle (CA/QC) / Marija Bozinovska Jones (UK) / Metaritmos (CA/QC) / Myriam Boucher — Phases (CA/QC) / punctï — Potentiometer (CA/QC) / Rêves Sonores & Lilith — Crépuscule (FR/CA/QC) / Sabrina Ratté — Machine for Living (CA/QC) / Shorelights (US/CA) / Solitary Dancer (CA/QC) / Tundra — Nomad (RU) / Venus Ex Machina (UK) / Vigliensoni (CL/CA/QC) / x/o (CA)
These names join the already announced first wave :
Aleksi Perälä (FI/UK) / Akiko Kiyama (JP) / Caterina Barbieri (IT) / Chagall (UK) / Chloé (FR) / Clap! Clap! (IT) / Cora Novoa (ES) / dj. flugvél og geimskip (IS) / DJ Python (US) / Edna King (CA) / Errorsmith (DE) / Equiknoxx (JM) / JASSS (ES) / Kirke Karja (EE) / LADA (Dasha Rush & Lars Hemmerling) (RU+DE) / Lanark Artefax (UK) / Lawrence English (AU) / Machine Woman (UK/DE) / Messier & YRO (CA+FR) / Moomin (DE) / Push 1 stop & Wiklow (CA) / Pye Corner Audio (UK) / RAMZi (CA) / Robin Fox (AU) / Steevio & Suzybee (UK) / TMRW (SE) / Tolouse Low Trax (DE) / Yagya (IS)
Individual tickets are now on sale!
Programs and Venues
The Society For Art and Technology (SAT) hosts this edition’s Nocturne series from Wednesday to Sunday. Designed to showcase a panorama of styles and singular works, each night pulls a particular thread through each program.
Nocturne 1
Opening night August 22 kicks off a sonic travelogue of global rhythm sciences with South Africa’s DJ Lag, a leading force in the dissemination of gqom, a sound developed in the Townships that taps a dark viscerality in service of its minimal, raw house music. Chilean Montréaler Vigliensoni opens the room with his infectious, latinized, almost-pop—joining the already announced Clap! Clap! and Equiknoxx for a trip around the world.
Nocturne 2 presented in collaboration with Resident Advisor
Thursday evening turns into a showcase for contemporary experimentation and the timbral complexities and musical possibilities of electronic composition. Capping an evening of immersive and moving sets, from Caterina Barbieri, Lawrence English, a looping, no-input mixer, 4-corner sound piece from Christian Carrière—it’s the long form dub excursions of DeepChord that wrap the proceedings in enveloping washes.
Nocturne 3
Things start to go sideways on Friday with live sets that tease trippy rhythmic inclinations and strange-inducing sensations. Local artist Canhota adds her layer of weirdness to a lineup of that runs a gamut from RAMZi to Tolouse Low Trax, Machine Woman and Errorsmith.
Nocturne 4
Hints of industrial, synthetic cinematics and emotive hauntings characterize the eclectic journey on Saturday. Montréal fixture Jesse Morrison adds the kaleidoscopic visual environments of Line Katcho to his crackling modular experiments as Fake Electronics, and Solitary Dancer bring their mysterious techno-inflected dramatics to a bill already bursting with unique personalities, JASSS, Pye Corner Audio and Lanark Artefax.
Nocturne 5
The festival comes in for a landing on Sunday in both the main room and dome of the SAT operating in parallel. Closing night always aims to provide warmth and joy in equal measure, helping to wind up an epic 5-day journey of over-stimulations. Downstairs commences with the ambient landscaping of Shorelights, a trio featuring members of Windsor’s nospectacle and Deepchord’s Rod Modell in an audiovisual homage to The Great Lakes while Yagya, Moomin and Steevio & Suzybee take the relay.
The Satosphère houses a lineup that opens with an atmospheric, heady set from Acid Pauli, moves into a kinetic and swinging performance from Cómeme Records-associated, Norwegian producer, Charlotte Bendiks, an unexpectedly groovy electroacoustics, meets house music outing, from Simon Choini as DJ Voilà, and concludes with a jubilant final set from Acid Pauli in DJ mode.
Métropolis Series at MTELUS
The Métropolis series taking place in the newly re-christened MTELUS theatre Friday and Saturday, maintains its focus on big room sonics, current trends in techno and house music, and big names.
Métropolis 1
As with last editions, Friday is reserved for rarified and body-inciting strains of techno. Anthony Linell, the artist also known as Abdullah Rashim trades in ominous dronologies that unfurl into widescreen beatscapes, and joins a lineup already bursting with corporeally affecting technoid styles with Edna King, Aleksi Perälä, and Dasha Rush and Lars Hemmerling as LADA.
The festival also re-inaugurates the Savoy Room, an intimate side venue that generates its own space-time continuum, and features contrasts with the mammoth activity going on just outside in the big room. Delicate mumble-house from dull, an A/V adventure with Felicia Lush (Alicia Hush) and visual partner Ionsea, the discombobulated, off-grid beats, experimental Aalko, a new alias for Akiko Kiyama, and the sometimes acidy, always googly grooves of Anabasine take up residence here.
Métropolis 2
The crescendo of the festival, running from Saturday until 6am on Sunday, sees proceedings aimed squarely at the groove. Jean-Patrice Remillard, aka Pheek, debuts his jazz-leaning minimal tech collaboration with sax player Bryan Highbloom, setting the stage for Chloé, DJ Python, the second wave Detroit-coloured, futuristic house of Kenny Larkin and the undeniably ecstatic selections of Honey Dijon, DJing til dawn.
The Savoy bears witness to the hard-edged beat work of Jaclyn Kendall, the dub techno of CMD and the dark post-trap and bass stylings of NAAFI’s Debit, with more to come.
A/Visions Series at Ludger-Duvernay Theatre of the Monument-National
The festival’s signature series of dramatic, ingenious and cutting-edge audiovisual performances will once again inhabit Canada’s oldest theatre, the enchantingly vintage Ludger-Duvernay—where contemporary art and tech meets 19th century ambiance in a beguiling collision.
A/Visions 1
On Friday night it’s a world premiere from Russian A/V and installation wizards Tundra, presenting Nomad, a brand new work that fuses their exceptional sense of scenography and projections, with their prowess with preternatural lighting techniques, and lasers. Martin Messier and French creator YRO appear with the North American premiere of ASHES a theatrical enactment featuring microscopes, large-scale projection and themes of fire. Line Katcho an up-and-coming local A/V artist makes her MUTEK debut with Immortelle, a piece that explores mutability and transformation.
A/Visions 2
On Saturday, multimedia master and mad scientist Herman Kolgen delivers the North American premiere of ISOTOPP—the result of his residency at the Heavy Ion Accelerator
in France (GANIL), he’s devised a black and white dramaturgy based on molecular abstraction and energy transfer. Also representing the rich scene of A/V creation in Québec, Falaises—a trio who deal in hallucinatory meldings of light and sound bring their brash creation to MUTEK for the first time. The Australian virtuoso of synesthetic laser works, Robin Fox presents Single Origin for the first time in North America, his latest study of light pattern and its inextricable relationship with sound.
Free Play Programs at Studio Hydro-Québec of the Monument-National
Running parallel to the Nocturnes at the SAT from Wednesday through Saturday, in the immaculate black box setting of the Studio Hydro-Québec, the Play series highlights avant-gardist and emergent creations, spanning audiovisual ingenuity, live coding, noise, drone, cheeky situationist presentations, quirky pop and unexpected rhythmic excursions. This series is FREE.
MUTEK LIVE 353 - Steffi
MUTEK LIVE 352 - Technologies of Consciousness
MUTEK LIVE 351 - Andrea
MUTEK LIVE 350 - CUERPOS
