MUTEK 2010, Day Four

If anyone needed convincing that MUTEK isn't a party for laptop geeks, then this was the day to see.

My day at the festival started near 3 PM with this:

and finished nearly fourteen hours later with this:

OK, we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves. Starting from the beginning:

There was steady rain up until about 3 PM, and then again after 5 PM. Inbetween those hours, the utterly fantastic Minilogue played to mostly sunshine at Piknic Electronik. Coincidence? You decide.

Near the back of SAT during Vladislav Delay's set. For forty five minutes, it's the sound of the year 2000 all over again. After yesterday's discussion panel about the use of performance space, and the emphasis on listening to a performance rather than being distracted by visual displays or what have you (everyone performed in near complete darkness), I decided to stand in the centre of the room for most of A/Visions 4, to maximize my listening.

Nearly nine years ago to the day, at the start of Saturday night's activities at MUTEK, I was lounging on a mat in SAT listening to Dettinger at around 10 PM with maybe fifty other people (Dettinger was awesome, but that's not the point I'm making). Today, this is the start of MUTEK's Saturday night:

If you were going to pick one guy to headline the biggest concert in MUTEK's history, to draw in curiosity seekers and make the broadest spectrum of people happy, then there was really no other choice. Who can resist Senor Coconut and his Orchestra? Their 10th anniversary concert, no less! Boring people might complain that they played a number of Kraftwerk covers even though they promised to retire those songs here at MUTEK seven years ago. Why hate on fun?

Warming up the house with Move D at Metropolis.

Why can't all jazzy house sound more like Guillaume Coutu Dumont and the Side Effects? These guys don't just lay down a track and throw on a sax loop, they play live dammit.

The view from the balcony, where my second wind kicked in thanks to Henrik Schwarz's storming set.

As Dixon took over on the decks (that's Henrik Schwarz relaxing in the background), I knew I was done. But on the way out of the venue, I peeked into the Savoy room ...

Konque are like dubstep on helium. As I watched people get freaky to this stuff in Metropolis' hot, sweaty side room, it almost felt like the real party had been in here all along ...