Dossier

Classical / Contemporary

OM Composition Competition: Four aces (Pt. 2)

by Alain Brunet

The Orchestre métropolitain’s first composition competition is devoted to four creators, yours to discover at PAN M 360. Today, we talk to Cristina García Islas.

The Orchestre Métropolitain has chosen four laureates for its first Composition Competition, inspired by Beethoven’s work: Marie-Pierre Brasset, Cristina García Islas, Francis Battah, and Nicholas Ryan. Launched last March, the competition aims to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the famous German composer. Next year, the works of the winners will be premiered by the Orchestre Métropolitain under the direction of Yannick Nézet-Séguin. This dossier series aims to introduce you to these composers and their works.

Our dossier continues with Cristina García Islas, reached in Mexico City.

The Mexican-Canadian composer, lecturer and teacher has participated in international festivals and symposia. She has been a guest professor at IRCAM (Paris), Laval University, and at the Consulate General of Mexico in Montreal (Canada). García Islas holds a doctorate in composition from the University of Montreal and bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Conservatoire de musique et d’art dramatique du Québec (Montreal). She’s hosted Contemporary Musique at CISM 89.3 FM in Montreal, and has participated in panels and juries around the world. García Islas currently teaches at UNAM University and Anáhuac México University.

PAN M 360: Where did you grow up, and what led you to music?

Cristina García Islas: I grew up in Mexico City. As everyone knows, it’s one of the largest cities in the world, with a cosmopolitan atmosphere, known for its cultural exchanges. So I started playing the piano at the age of five. When I was three, I took a stick (pencil, etc.) and played conducting an orchestra in front of my pets in the living room. As far as I can remember, I always loved Beethoven and Mendelssohn. Thanks to the interest of my doctor parents, I started my musical journey. They wanted me to develop a strong sensitivity towards art. My first musical studies began at the Yamaha Academy, at a time when the Japanese travelled to Mexico City to stay for a few months and give us important exams. I spent my entire childhood studying in this context.

PAN M 360: What’s your academic background?

CGI: I went to primary school in Mexico City, while my secondary education was divided between Ottawa and Mexico City. My parents wanted me to learn English first and so I went there several times, and one day I stayed in Canada. I studied music at the Escuela Superior de Música (México) before moving to Montreal, where I did my degrees at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal. After a few years, I did my doctorate at the Université de Montréal, on an inter-university exchange with the Schulich School of Music at McGill University. In 2015, I went to Tel Aviv to work for ten days with musicians from the Meitar Ensemble and the Ensemble Intercontemporain at the Israel Music Conservatory. This exchange was not only academic, which is why I consider it a very important moment in my musical career.

PAN M 360: Do you identify with a compositional tradition? 

CGI: I’m not very sure that I belong to a tradition. My music has always been very melodic, I look for expressiveness before experimentation. Classical music touches me a lot, and romantic music even more, but singing – which goes beyond tonality and textures – is very important to me. So I wonder if noise and textures belong to the tradition in this century. If so, I’m totally traditional and if not, I’m probably a kind of musical hybrid.

PAN M 360: What aesthetic do you subscribe to? 

CGI: I don’t consider myself as belonging to a single aesthetic. However, French spectral music, the music of the Italian Fausto Romitelli, the Mexican Silvestre Revueltas, and the Dane Per Nørgård are important pillars in my creation.

PAN M 360: What are the main features of your work, in instrumental music and opera?

CGI: My music expresses this need for me to seek a balance between expression linked to singing (and the search for a melody) and textural exploration, which do not precisely have to do with the traditional classical heritage. I am motivated by sound exploration that goes beyond harmony and gradual, vertical musical discourse, linked to a relationship of harmonic tension and relaxation. I am looking for a more horizontal treatment, guided by sound echoes contained in chromatic melodies that sometimes result from free movement, inspired by colourist, imitative, or purely resonant explorations that seek to impose themselves in long and full sonorities. All kinds of emotions are reflected in the world of creators and this includes self-acceptance. I have integrated the fusion of different cultures throughout my development as a composer and human being, which in my case lies between Canadian and Mexican influences. I also like to seek a union between being and nature. 

PAN M 360: What do you see as the difference between a composer educated in higher education in 2020, compared to composers from previous generations?

CGI: I find that the education of previous generations has benefited from a great deal of research and development in musical acoustics. Composers were closer to scores on paper and handwriting was much more present than it is today. On the other hand, I find that the development of auditory training, the theoretical and practical skills required in composition were very different. Today, many composers focus on learning how to mix and process sound. Progress has been made in the study of the amplitude of artificial sound spectra and not only acoustic spectra. It is more necessary to amalgamate technology with acoustics and to generate mainly electro-acoustic or mixed mixtures. The creation of new generations is mainly reflected in the computer and in the exploration of new forms of expression, mixing the machine and the performer. Furthermore, it seems to me that the use of technology has opened up a wide range of possibilities for sheet-music publishers in this century.

PAN M 360: What are your musical tastes as a fan?

CGI: I love the orchestral music of Northern Europe (especially Jean Sibelius and Per Nørgård), also the music of Kurt Weill, and I have developed a particular taste for Italian electronic swing. When I’m very tired, I like to listen to Bach rather than Handel. I like medieval music to meditate and cleanse my thoughts, especially the music of the composer Hildegard von Bingen. But when I feel stressed or depressed, I prefer to listen to pop music from the ’80s. I also like French songs with accordion. 

PAN M 360: Do you believe you have a global composition project that sets you apart from your contemporaries as a composer?

CGI: I hope so! (laughs). I believe that the audience will be the most relevant to answer the question, and will be able to see that one day. At the moment, I’m thinking of creation as the integration of the great cycles, a bit like Stockhausen did with his operas. Recently, I’ve been working on a project that will take me three years, because it’s exactly a cycle for orchestral, vocal, and chamber music with a single subject. I want all the pieces that result from this cycle to be connected by a very similar sound, a similar character, and to feed off each other, regardless of the endowment.

PAN M 360: What’s the project for the Orchestre Métropolitain?

CGI: The writing of an orchestral piece inspired by Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony. This work made me think of the title Re-silience, considering the English word “silience”, which refers to the type of excellence or talent that has gone unnoticed and is almost unquestionably unknown. On the other hand, adding the prefix “re-” invites us to think that we are once again exposed to the passage of the unnoticed, unknown, or little understood. Also the word “resilience” refers to the ability to overcome critical moments and adapt after experiencing an unusual or unexpected situation. Personally, I think the Eighth Symphony is perhaps a kind of beautiful ghost that honourably takes up its sweet melodies from the back of the room. Finally, the main message, or objective, I would like to reflect in my work is to integrate more traditional and more textural elements, in the search for a language inspired by the expressive force of the great genius of Ludwig van Beethoven. 

Classical / Contemporary

OM Composition Competition: Four aces

by Alain Brunet

The Orchestre métropolitain’s first composition competition spotlights four creators – here’s your chance to discover them, at PAN M 360.

The Orchestre Métropolitain has chosen four laureates for its first Composition Competition, inspired by Beethoven’s work: Marie-Pierre Brasset, Cristina Garcias Islas, Francis Battah, and Nicholas Ryan. Launched last March, this competition aims to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the famous German composer. Next year, the works of the winners will be premiered by the Orchestre Métropolitain under the direction of Yannick Nézet-Séguin. This dossier series aims to introduce you to these composers and their works.

We begin with Marie-Pierre Brasset, a regular contributor to PAN M 360.

Our team is very proud to make her better known to you. Born in Quebec in 1981, she’s been working in the field of contemporary classical music for about 15 years. Her works have been performed by groups such as the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne (NEM), the Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal (ECM+), the Trio Fibonacci, and the Quatuor Bozzini. As her biographical profile indicates, “her music is characterized by a melodic and motivational abundance that develops in ample and organic forms.” Moreover, “the contemplative listening to nature has a profound effect on her creative work.” Marie-Pierre Brasset holds a doctorate in creative research related to contemporary opera, and also lectures at the Université de Montréal. She created the radio program Pulsar, devoted to creative music, which is still broadcast today on CISM in Montreal. She regularly writes articles on music for Circuit magazine, the website cettevilleetrange.org, and for PAN M 360.

PAN M 360: What’s your academic background?

Marie-Pierre Brasset: A long journey. Bachelor’s degree in musical composition at Université Laval, Master’s degree at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, doctorate at Université de Montréal, research internship in Paris 8. Before that, I had done a bachelor’s degree at UQAM in History, Culture and Society. Let’s just say that I did my time in school!

PAN M 360: How did you become a musician?

MPB: It’s hard to say… I’ve been making music for as long as I can remember.

PAN M 360: In which composition tradition do you belong?

MPB: I would say contemporary classical music. 

PAN M 360: Do you have an overall creative development project that defines you and sets you apart from your contemporaries?

MPB: These days, I’m passionate about theatrical and vocal music. The projects I work on shape my creative development, in a way. I can also say that my music is, most of the time, strictly acoustic. I don’t use new technologies, I don’t make mixed, electro, or acousmatic music, although I admire and love these practices. My path has led me to work with live and unplugged musicians!

PAN M 360: What do you see as the difference between an educated composer with a higher education degree in 2020, and composers from previous generations?

MPB: There is much greater openness to difference, to new perspectives on the practice of the profession, to inclusion. This comes from a great questioning of the dogmas of classical music established by white Western men over the last 400 years or so. There has been a lot of progress in this direction over the last ten years or so, and it is a blessing for the young composers of the new generation.

PAN M 360: What are your musical tastes as a music lover?

MPB: I’m open to everything. Really – thank you, PAN M 360, for all these discoveries!  On the other hand, I have a great need for silence, or rather to take a break from music, because that occupies 99 percent of my activities. I very often listen to music and ask myself too many questions, and it becomes an exhausting mental exercise rather than a nourishing aesthetic experience.

PAN M 360: What are your main works?

MPB: La Piñata, a chamber opera that was due to premiere in Quebec City last September, and was postponed until next year. It’s a big work lasting an hour and twenty minutes, with five singers and ten musicians. A beautiful project, carried by Erreur de type 27 and Ensemble Lunatik. I’m looking forward to the birth of this opera! Currently, I’m working on another major play, a 50-minute monodrama for baritone, wind quintet, and shadow theatre, with baritone Vincent Ranallo, the Choros Ensemble, and the Ombres folles theatre company. The premiere is scheduled for January 2022.

PAN M 360: What’s the project for the Orchestre Métropolitain?

MPB: A piece for orchestra! No kidding, the theme of this composition competition is Beethoven’s music. For me, amor fati, that great “yes” to life, is the most important legacy of this composer. There is no self-pity, no renunciation in this music: Beethoven stands upright and follows his impulses to their conclusion. This gives a formal discourse that leads to an impressive degree of perfection. There are no blurs, everything is cut with a knife, everything is placed in the right spot and seems to arrive at the right time. That, let’s say, is what will inspire me for this musical project. But I can’t say more than that. A piece being composed is so difficult to describe…

ADISQ Gala 2020: The Winners

by Rédaction PAN M 360

The 42nd edition of the ADISQ Gala took place this past Sunday evening (November 1) before a small audience composed mainly of the nominated artists.

The event, hosted by Louis-José Houde, provided an opportunity to look at the year’s highlights and artists in the music industry, despite the current context. Les Cowboys Fringants took home five trophies, and Louis-Jean Cormier left with two Félix awards. Les Cowboys Fringants also performed, and the night saw Quebec talent at work, with Flore Laurentienne, Marie-Pierre Arthur, Matt Holubowski, Anachnid, a duo composed of Eli Rose and Marc Dupré, as well as a medley performed by Naya Ali, Evelyne Brochu, KNLO, Bleu Jeans Bleu and 2Frères.

Click on the image to listen to the gala on ICI Radio-Canada’s website.

The complete list of winners:

FIRST GALA (Wednesday)

ALBUM OF THE YEAR – BEST SELLER
Les Antipodes, Les Cowboys Fringants 

ALBUM OF THE YEAR – ROCK
Les Antipodes, Les Cowboys Fringants  

ARTIST OF THE YEAR WITH THE MOST EXPOSURE OUTSIDE QUEBEC
Alexandra Stréliski 

ALBUM OF THE YEAR – ANGLOPHONE
Wave, Patrick Watson 

ALBUM OF THE YEAR – ALTERNATIVE
Des feux pour voir, Marie-Pierre Arthur 

VIDEO OF THE YEAR
“L’Amérique pIeure”, Les Cowboys Fringants

ADISQ GALA

ALBUM OF THE YEAR – ADULT CONTEMPORARY
Quand Ia nuit tombe, Louis-Jean Cormier

ALBUM OF THE YEAR – FOLK
L’étrange pays, Jean Leloup

ALBUM OF THE YEAR – POP
Rien ne se perd, Marc Dupré

ALBUM OF THE YEAR – RAP
Sainte-Foy, KNLO

INDIGENOUS ARTIST OF THE YEAR
Elisapie

REVELATION OF THE YEAR
Eli Rose

SHOW OF THE YEAR (WRITER – COMPOSER – PERFORMER)
Robert en CharIeboisScope, Robert Charlebois

SONGWRITER OR COMPOSER OF THE YEAR
Louis-Jean Cormier, Daniel Beaumont, Alan Côté, David Goudreault/Louis-Jean Cormier pour Quand Ia nuit tombe, Louis-Jean Cormier

GROUP OR DUO OF THE YEAR
Les Cowboys Fringants 

FEMALE PERFORMER OF THE YEAR
Alexandra Stréliski

MALE PERFORMER OF THE YEAR
Émile Bilodeau

SONG OF THE YEAR
“L’Amérique pIeure”, Les Cowboys Fringants (Jean-François Pauzé)

Smartsplit at the service of music – intelligent contracts ahead!

by Alain Brunet

Quebec company Smartsplit is working on “intelligent contracts”, the computerized sharing of revenues generated by musical works. Welcome to the blockchain universe!

Advances on the Internet are revolutionizing the sharing of rights for music creators and performers. Irreproachable and impartial in their application, i.e. perfectly in line with the provisions of the agreements concluded between the parties, these intelligent contracts are now possible in a digital environment. The advent of the web-based blockchain now makes it easier to distribute them in a complex manner.

Cue the advent of Smartsplit, a new service that a company founded by Guillaume Déziel developed. Thanks to this new service, creators and performers of intellectual works could significantly improve the efficiency of sharing the profits generated by their work.

The idea of the intelligent contract has its roots in an original agreement that was struck by the group Misteur Valaire, with whom Déziel had business ties, and the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal. In 2014, 59 musicians of the Orchestre Métropolitain under the direction of Yannick Nézet-Séguin, flanked by 200 young choristers from the École Joseph-François-Perrault, treated an audience to symphonic adaptations of 20 songs by Misteur Valaire, with the band’s participation and arrangements by Olivier Hébert. Presented at l’Église Saint-Jean-Baptiste, the concert was recorded by a team from Radio-Canada. Recently released, an album is now available.

At the end of the 2014 performance, the recording of the concert was sold to the Orchestre Métropolitain, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and Misteur Valaire, who chose to split the rights and revenues. Why such an arrangement, this time economic? Since the Valaire gang could not afford to pay recording fees and resale rights to the 66 musicians involved, it was proposed that the income from the co-production be shared collectively. With the endorsement of the Quebec Musicians Guild, the intelligent contract was born. 

More specifically, arranger and composer Olivier Hébert was entitled to a share of the copyright of his symphonic version of the work. The associated rights of the performers of the work during the sound recording were divided equally among all on stage. These same performers were designated co-producers of the sound recording, in equal shares. Finally, the choir of 200 young people accepted a symbolic percentage of the profits, this time for the Joseph-François-Perrault School Foundation. One can’t be sure whether all these fine people filled their piggy banks with the revenues from this recording, but the nature of the agreement heralded a small revolution in the distribution of rights.  

“The great particularity of Smartsplit,” explains Déziel, “lies in its user experience (UX). It’s not designed by and for rights administrators, but for artists. Right from the start, they have to ask themselves, who created what on a musical piece? Who played what on the sound recording? Who owns the sound recording, that is, who paid for it to happen? Once the creators, writers, composers, performers, and co-producers have agreed on the sharing of rights, two things are done: first, a beautiful PDF agreement is made available to them, ready to sign; second, the agreement is published on a blockchain to freeze it in time, so that the trace is indelible.”

Um… could we get a better picture of the mechanics of an intelligent contract?

“We use common centralised technologies, as any good web platform can do,” Déziel continues. “However, as soon as there is an agreement between the rights holders, we use decentralized technologies to make the automated application of the intelligent contract possible, i.e. to crystallize the agreement and proceed with the sharing of rights. We then use ERC-998-type tokens to write the agreement (in Solidity code) on Ethereum’s blockchain.”

Tokens? Blockchain? Ethereum? What does it eat in winter? 

Ethereum is a decentralised exchange protocol allowing the creation of intelligent contracts by its users. These contracts are based on a computer protocol allowing to verify or implement a mutual contract. They are deployed in a blockchain which allows their consultation. A blockchain, in fact, is a technology for the storage and transmission of information without a control body. The information provided by users and internal links are checked and grouped at regular time intervals into blocks, thus forming a chain. The Ethereum exchange protocol uses a unit of account, the purpose of which is to apply the provisions of the intelligent contract and to pay the entitled parties.

Guillaume Déziel

A player in the Quebec music industry, Guillaume Déziel saw in the advent of the blockchain a solid development model for the evolution of intellectual property in a digital environment. Needless to say, intellectual property has been in bad shape over the past 20 years or so; the overwhelming domination of the web giants has considerably weakened content creators, and alternatives are slow to emerge by which artists, who are overwhelmingly living with precarity in the digital era, can find their way back to prosperity.

“Only an open blockchain,” says Déziel, “can allow several players, regardless of their nature, political allegiance or commercial interests, to interact. We’ve seen enough turf wars in the music industry that we thought we’d go there to play above the fray.”

In this way, Smartsplit promotes the sharing of rights. The services offered by the company consist in making the agreements concluded between the right holders of works concrete: drafting, links with collective rights management societies, publication on legal deposit, publication of metadata on works (credits, etc.) to maximise their discoverability, protect the works, provide all the necessary information to right holders on the provisions of their agreements and the application of their intelligent contracts. The list goes on…

“One of our great strengths,” says Smartsplit’s spokesperson, “is to offer a user experience that respects the learning curve of artists and craftspeople. You don’t come into the world knowing what a distribution key or a public performance is. So we strive to use terms that are understandable to everyone, far beyond accountants, lawyers, and publishers.”

And who are Smartsplit’s customers?

“Before launching GarageBand,” recalls Déziel, “Steve Jobs was inspired by a market study revealing that half of households had at least one musician. Our clientele is there. According to data published by the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN), 6572 new members were welcomed in 2016 by the rights collective, with annual growth of 6.1%. Also in 2016, 124,472 new works were reported to SOCAN in Canada alone. These works are in addition to a worldwide catalogue of 27 million available compositions. In another type of market, CD Baby distributes more than 9 million tracks in digital format; its Pro Publishing division administers more than one million works and acquires more than 25,000 new works per month. Finally, Bandcamp, a B2B online sales service, currently has 13.9 million tracks available for download, with average annual revenue growth of 174.94%. This growth in creation inevitably feeds the reflection on the sharing of their rights.”

What about competition from Smartsplit?

Guillaume Déziel points out that, “in the field of intelligent contracts in music, there are currently only nice ideas with millions behind them – nothing has been launched yet. As such, we’re ahead of the game. According to Gartner, which publishes its annual Hype Cycle, the massive adoption of decentralized technologies such as blockchain is expected between 2022 and 2027. We will be there. We will be ready.”

Contemporary / Jazz Rock / Prog Rock

Markus Reuter: Prog-ilific!

by Réjean Beaucage

German’s Markus Reuter is an extremely prolific musician for whom quantity doesn’t preclude quality. Three albums at once? Calls for a dossier!

Photo: Kai R. Joachim

Here’s one who would find it hard to pretend he’s not a King Crimson fan. The German musician took Robert Fripp’s guitar-craft classes for several years, which led him to play the Chapman Stick (like bassist Tony Levin), then the Warr Guitar (like Trey Gunn), before designing his own model of “augmented” guitar, the Touch Guitar. He formed a duo with drummer Pat Mastelotto, which allowed him to join the STICK MEN (Mastelotto and Levin), then the double trio of the Crimson ProjeKct (the STICK MEN + the Adrian Belew Power Trio). Through all of this (and, to tell the truth, a whole bunch of other things), he also collaborated on the record This Fragile Moment, by singer Toyah Wilcox (wife of Robert Fripp).

Here’s a chance to take a serious look at his work, as he has just released three albums in one breath, on Moonjune Records: Reuter Motzer Grohowski’s Shapeshifters; Nothing Is Sacred by Markus Reuter Oculus; and under his own name, with Mannheimer Schlagwerk, Sun Trance.

Let us add to this preamble that on the first disc from his group Oculus is an appearance by violinist David Cross, who was with King Crimson in the glorious period of 1973-74. This record features a quartet recorded live in the studio: drummer Asaf Sirkis, bassist Fabio Trentini, Cross (also on keyboards), and Reuter. They were later joined by guitarist Mark Wingfield and Robert Rich’s soundscapes. In short, there’s substance here. The mastermind explains in the notes that he wanted to achieve something that could have been as radical as Bitches Brew at the time, and we’re certainly swimming in the murky waters of jazz-rock, but, for yours truly, it brought back memories of Brand X (the Phil Collins era), rather than the Miles Davis of 1970.

Shapeshifters is Reuter, sound texturist Tim Motzer (guitar), and drummer Kenny Grohowski. The trio also produces a variety of jazz-rock, but with a strong free-jazz vibe and a distinctly prog feel (there is a real reminiscence of the improvised flights of fancy of the quartet of David Cross, Bill Bruford, John Wetton, and Robert Fripp, and a piece like “Dark Sparks” recalls the joyous energy of “Fracture”). And of course, it’s normal if we still think of Brand X here, Grohowski having joined the English group since 2016. Very inspired improvisations, from a power trio who have some to spare.

Sun Trance is more akin to contemporary music. It was commissioned by Dennis Kuhn, the artistic director of the Mannheimer Schlagwerk, a percussion ensemble, as its name suggests. The work was premiered in concert on May 23, 2017, and it’s this recorded performance that is featured here. Eleven musicians surround the composer and guitarist: two vibraphones, two glockenspiels, two shakers, bass clarinet, synthesizer, drums, electric guitar, and bass. The 36-minute piece is a call to meditation that slowly develops into a crescendo that is nourished by a long guitar solo by Reuter (here, more than ever, in the shoes of Robert Fripp). Watch the performance here:

Note that the ensemble has commissioned a new work from Reuter to celebrate its 25th anniversary (in 2020… the premiere is postponed until May 2021). You can contribute financially to this adventure right here.

Basically, if I had to rate these three very different recordings, they would all come out with a good score. Composer and guitarist Markus Reuter produces a lot, but he doesn’t overdo it, and among the many musicians who have been influenced by Robert Fripp, he’s certainly one of those who deserve attention. These three albums were released in September on MoonJune Records, and you can see that more will follow soon.

To find out more about Reuter, visit his Bandcamp page. 

Rock

Eddie Van Halen (1955-2020): Teen genius, supervirtuosity, zero headaches

by Alain Brunet

The paradoxical legacy of the late Eddie Van Halen is both brilliant and superficial. Which to choose?

“I’ve already changed the way to play rock guitar, right? Well, I don’t see what else I could come up with? Of course, I can play as fast as I used to, there are new things that come up unconsciously here and there. As I play and play and play again, things happen. But when I’m asked if I’ve developed a new technique yet, I invariably answer in the negative.”

Taken from my interview with Eddie Van Halen, published in La Presse in 1995, this quote sums up the artist he was. His disconcerting skill enabled him to achieve extraordinary technical feats and innovations, but this self-taught player, not much inclined toward music theory, stuck for a lifetime to a post-pubescent vision of rock creation. This legendary life came to an end on October 6, 2020, 50 years and 18 days after the death of Jimi Hendrix, the ultimate guitar hero of the modern era. Cancer had already beset EVH previously, and it finally got the better of him. Rest in peace.

A gifted pianist when he was very young, Eddie Van Halen played mainly drums at the turn of adolescence, and his brother Alex, guitar. One day, they reversed roles, and the family band was deeply transformed. Alex became a great hard-rock drummer and… the third instrument Eddie chose would last his lifetime. 

It should be remembered that Van Halen perfected tapping, certainly his main contribution as an instrumentalist: this technique consists of amplifying the neck of the electric guitar to allow the left hand (for right-handed players), which performs the harmonic or melodic functions, to emit notes and chords by hammering or choking the frets of the neck while tapping the strings of the guitar with the right hand – or vice versa for left-handed guitarists. 

The technique comes from classical guitar; Van Halen isn’t the first to have popularised it on the electric guitar, but he is certainly the one who offered a virtuoso and simply spectacular blueprint for it. Tapping was then adopted by so many hard rock, metal, and jazz guitar champions, who took the matter further – one thinks first of Steve Vai, an associate of Frank Zappa before flying on his own – and put forward music that was both highly technical, and highly boring….

So EVH’s post-pubescent genius, his super-virtuosity and the technical revolutions in his playing made him the most outstanding rock guitarist since Jimi Hendrix. His famous solo on MJ’s “Beat It”, that absolute hit of the ’80s, confirmed his status as an absolute guitar hero. In addition, he developed a guitar model in his own image, the Frankenstrat, a composite instrument made up of different brands, including the mythical Stratocaster that Jimi loved to play – hence the evocation of Frankenstein, a fictional composite creature as we know it. 

At the end of the ’70s and beginning of the ’80s, Eddie Van Halen was without a doubt the dominant guitarist on the rock planet.  

Although … the artistic depth of this young Dutch immigrant transplanted to the Californian suburbs was not always equal to his extraordinary talents as an instrumentalist. He did more in spectacular entertainment than in research and refinement. The singers of his famous band, David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar, were hard-rock party entertainers, needless to say they sang banalities and celebrated the rock lifestyle in its most superficial form. Eddie’s anthems, “Jump” and its ilk, nevertheless conquered a large portion of his generation and more. American fighter pilots, for example, used VH hits to fuel their fighter jets while on mission during the Gulf War. Hmm…

A rock multi-millionaire, Eddie Van Halen preferred the life of the show to that of the concert, although he inevitably reserved for himself long parentheses of creative virtuosity. In front of arena audiences, the band’s superficial compositions allowed for inspired, very warm, very sensual playing, far beyond technical prowess. Eddie’s feel was at least as powerful as his giftedness.

When asked why he hadn’t collaborated with composers and virtuosos from more “serious” fields of music, he replied that no one had asked him. Too bad… but anything that looked like a headache was immediately rejected by EVH.

“For me,” he said in the same interview with La Presse, “music is a question of feeling. Fuck all the technique! And, as so many grunge bands reminded us at the beginning of this decade, let’s focus on creating good songs. Standards are higher than before, you say? I don’t think it’s that important. If music doesn’t come from the heart, it’s absolutely worthless. It doesn’t matter how you do it – if people like your art, you’ve achieved the main goal. When you’re able to reproduce the ideas you have in your head on your instrument, that’s what matters. You don’t have to be a great technician at all if you want to communicate strong feelings.”

Reggae

In memoriam: Bunny “Striker” Lee (1941-2020)

by Richard Lafrance

The legendary Jamaican producer Edward O’Sullivan Lee is no more.

The “Gorgon” died of kidney problems at the age of 79, on October 6. Born in 1941 in Kingston, he made his debut in the music industry in 1962, thanks to his brother-in-law, the singer Derrick Morgan, as a promotional agent for Duke Reid’s Treasure Isle label, then for Leslie Kong (Beverly’s). His first big hit, Roy Shirley’s “Musical Field” (1967), in the midst of the rocksteady explosion, led him to found his own label, Lee, with which he would become a major player in this golden age. Then, with the advent of the new early reggae sound, he put on the huge hits of Slim Smith (“Everybody Needs Love”), The Uniques (“My Conversation”), Max Romeo (“Wet Dream”), Delroy Wilson (“Better Must Come”), Eric Donaldson (“Cherry O Baby”), John Holt (“Stick By Me”), and many other titles by Stranger Cole, Derrick Morgan, Pat Kelly and others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIAQTD7U0DQ

At the dawn of the 1970s, he became one of the pioneers in the development of reggae in the U.K. by signing licences with the Palmer brothers (Pama) and Trojan Records. Between 1969 and 1977, he released over a thousand productions on his various labels –  Jackpot, Third World, Lee’s and Striker Lee! But it wasn’t until 1974 that Bunny Lee, with the help of Lee Perry, broke the monopoly held by Coxsone Dodd (Studio One) and Duke Reid (Treasure Isle) with productions such as “Rockers” by Johnny Clarke, Owen Grey and Cornell Campbell. That same year, at the suggestion of Bunny Lee, drummer Santa Davis developed the “flying cymbals” style, influenced by the drumming of the American band T.S.O.P., with the song “None Shall Escape the Judgment”, performed by Johnny Clarke. From the beginning of the ’70s, Lee experimented with dub with his friend King Tubby, a new style… born of a goof at the console. Moreover, in the studio, he keeps everything, even mistakes. In an interview, he explained that “every spoil a style, man!”, that the biggest hits, the new sounds, often come from technical mistakes. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjensgkVogw

On the other hand, since he never owned his own studio, with the advent of multitrack consoles, he quickly understood how to maximize his investments. In a day or two, he recorded a dozen rhythms with Sly & Robbie’s Aggrovators. On the third day, he brought in singers and DJs to record the vocals. On the fourth, he went on to mix, producing three albums – one of the singers’ versions, one of the DJs’ versions, and a dub version – all of which would be released the following Monday! After 1976, he turned to Tubby’s apprentices Prince Jammy and Phillip Smart to mix his albums. He then helped to put DJs on the charts with productions by U-Roy, I-Roy, U-Brown, Dennis Alcapone, Prince Jazzbo, Jah Stitch, Trinity, and Tappa Zukie, among others, for whom “Striker” had no qualms about picking up the classic rhythms of Studio One or Treasure Isle. Towards the end of the decade, his favourite artists would become Linval Thompson, Leroy Smart, and Barry Brown.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqXr-YmqJfw

In 2008, the Jamaican government awarded Lee the Order of Distinction in recognition of his immense contribution to the music industry. In 2013, a documentary, I Am the Gorgon – Bunny Striker Lee and The Roots of Reggae, directed by Diggory Kenrick, was released. It tells the story of his life through interviews with the artists he helped make popular, such as U-Roy, Alcapone and Lee Perry.

People were beginning to think he was immortal… A jovial man, a businessman above all, never lacking in superlatives about himself, but who was said to be very close to his artists, just like King Tubby, another legend who profited from the genius of the Striker. Lee is survived by a son, Errol, born in 1968, whom he had with the singer Marlene Webber.

Don’t miss our journalist Richard Lafrance’s Basses Fréquences special on Bunny Lee, Sunday, October 11th, from 4pm to 6pm on cism893.ca!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVWm6geSn0Y

Festivals, undeterred (Pt. 4 – Nuits d’Afrique)

by Alain Brunet

FME, MUTEK, Pop Montreal and now Nuits d’Afrique have moved forward with their respective programs despite the pandemic. PAN M 360 connected with them to explore the concerns, constraints, and many obstacles they have had to face.

Our ongoing dossier continues with the co-founder and general director of the Nuits d’Afrique festival, which has been presented in Montreal since the 1980s. Needless to say, Suzanne Rousseau was in shock over the Quebec government’s announcement on Monday of the suspension of live performances and concerts for a (minimum) 28-day period.

“It doesn’t seem very logical to me to have cancelled everything, but they’re the ones who know, right? I’m trying to be diplomatic, but… All this preparation, all the efforts made to hold safe public events in this context… I wonder to what extent government decision-makers are aware of this. We had already gone through this in March, everything came to an abrupt halt. Afterwards there was hope of reopening, and we couldn’t do so until mid-July.”

Last March, the programming of Nuits d’Afrique was just about complete, when…

“We hadn’t launched our advertising campaign – we had made all our agreements with the international artists, but we were careful not to announce anything. In April, we decided that we would present a different festival in the fall. We thought we were on the right track when we announced it in August, because the capacity had been increased to 250 spectators. 

“In addition, in August we presented Les Visages de Nuits d’Afrique, an interactive multimedia work projected on the facades of the Quartier des spectacles, featuring artists Djely Tapa, Mateo, Naxx Bitota and the Benkadi troupe. The multimedia concept was imagined by the artist Jérôme Delapierre. In addition, photos and digital projections from Les Visages de Nuits d’Afrique are still being presented in October at Complexe Desjardins.”

Suzanne Rousseau (Photo: Marie-Joëlle Corneau)

At the Nuits d’Afrique festival, they really wanted to present events in front of audiences, and deploy a digital strategy.

“We signed an agreement with Livetoune, a company that does quality recordings. We also invested in the club, Balattou, which is now transformed; we have a new lighting system, show curtains, new stage floor, the whole kit! This summer, we presented an acoustic cabaret, with two groups every night from Thursday to Sunday. Our audience followed the instructions very well, we were encouraged.” 

Thus, 25 concerts were programmed, including several webcasts. Obviously, this is no longer the case: only Wesli and Mateo’s performances have been held in front of an audience, those not scheduled for webcasting have all been cancelled, the others will take place as planned but without an audience.

“We were very proud to showcase the scene here, but we still chose local artists of international calibre. Many of them are already touring, and many others have the potential to do so. Our media partners were ready to get on board, our advertising campaign was off to a good start and it all stopped suddenly. It’s very hard to live through,” Rousseau laments.

Like so many organizations dedicated to the performing arts, Nuits d’Afrique are seeing several initiatives shot down in the red zone.

“We wanted to show that it was possible to present a festival to the public in complete safety. When scheduling our indoor concerts, we took great care to keep people at a distance and within the prescribed rules. It was really well organised, it’s a pity that this was not taken into consideration. I don’t have the time to analyze what’s going on… in fact, I don’t want to. I have to stop thinking about it… it’s too much emotion! Instead, I try to focus on our webcasts, making sure they are well edited and widely seen. So I’m saving my energy for those who can play and be seen, and to make sure it goes well. Afterwards, when it’s over, I’ll be able to analyze it, but for now…”

Fortunately, the management of Nuits d’Afrique had foreseen the financial viability of the event without an audience. “Our set-up involved a very low gauge on the ticketing side, so we did not expect significant autonomous revenue. This is why we are going to maintain all the performances in the theatres planned for audiovisual recordings.  We’re confident of achieving real success with the webcasts. What worries me is what comes next.”

NUITS D’AFRIQUE

Saving Music with Politics (Saving Politics with Music?)

by Ian F. Martin

A global perspective on music’s relevance as 2020 shakes up lives around the world

A British expat based in Tokyo, Ian Martin is the head of the indie record label Call and Response, a music columnist for The Japan Times, and author of the book Quit Your Band! Musical Notes from the Japanese Underground. This essay was originally written for and published by Japanese music magazine Ele-king, and appears here at PAN M 360 with their gracious permission.

“Music is just music. Leave politics out of it.”

If you’re reading a platform like PAN M 360, there’s a strong chance you already disagree with this statement. But as this disastrous year of 2020 continues shaking up lives around the world in ever more ways, it’s perhaps worth pushing this idea further and asking, “Is music even relevant if it’s not political?”

Firstly, we should think a little about what we mean by “political”. Politics is often understood as synonymous with “issues” and “activism’, words that suggest (often with negative connotations) some direct engagement with matters of government and society. And some music, whether Billy Bragg, Rage Against the Machine, or Run the Jewels, is certainly political in that sense. But music is also already political in the sense that it talks about human lives and experiences – relationships between people, their daily struggles, navigating work, friends, family: all these things are invisibly influenced by political decisions that affect working hours, gender roles, salaries. The fact of being mainstream or underground is political simply by virtue of occupying one place or another in relation to culture’s dominant aesthetics and values. When people say they don’t want something to be political, what they usually mean is simply that they don’t want to think about its political implications.

But many people do think about how politics touches their lives. They are enraged by the shameless lack of justice they see around them and the total lack of consequences for the powerful purveyors of those injustices. The flood of anger that erupted this spring at Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s attempts to stack the legal system with his allies was interesting, as was the speed at which the singer Kyary Pamyu Pamyu was pushed to erase her Twitter criticism of Abe over the issue. This was a specific issue with big political implications, attracting wide engagement across Japan, but the entertainment industry is institutionally incapable of reflecting those sorts of feelings.

The COVID-19 crisis has pushed politics right up to our front doors and pressed it against our faces. The act of walking to a convenience store, the assessments we make over fellow pedestrians’ mask usage, the negotiations we make over space as we pass on the sidewalk, the decision over whether to go out to a venue and support the music we love – that’s all politics intervening in our lives. The crisis has also accentuated inequalities and injustices around the world, with an important thread of the Black Lives Matter narrative coming from the pandemic’s disproportionate effect on racial minorities and the inequalities that push them into vulnerable service jobs.

Whether through the music itself or an artist’s public statements, engaging with those feelings is part of music’s role though. It is part of the landscape of how we think and feel as a society; it’s a mirror that lets us see not just ourselves individually but also collectively – it shows us that we aren’t alone. And when the mainstream is incapable, that role falls to the independent or alternative scenes (because if not, what are they even independent from, an alternative to?) The U.K. chart success of acts like Stormzy and the subversive rise of indie bands like Sleaford Mods shows the power music can carry when it connects to the politics of people’s daily lives.

Something like Black Lives Matter may seem like an American problem and not really a Japanese issue. This is debatable, but even if we take it as true, the issues it raises about society and how we include or exclude people based on their race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, or social background exist here and deserve to be untangled. Whether in big issues or personal interactions, the social conventions we follow without thinking about are the ones most in need of exploration by the arts. It’s not just that music has a social responsibility to consider these matters: it’s that music, regardless of what it’s about on the surface, can be richer and less prone to cliché, when it doesn’t take “the way things are” for granted.

The relationship between the arts and politics is important in another way too. There are numerous institutional barriers that limit radical thought and alternative culture’s ability to communicate their creativity or visions for the future simply because media landscapes have grown up around the same interests that those independent voices seek to challenge. Their power instead lies in the ability to gather together and amplify their voice – whether in concerts, meetings, social events, or rallies – but COVID-19 disrupts that ability. China took advantage of the lockdown in Hong Kong to strike a savage blow against the protest movement there, while Donald Trump is openly using the postal service to restrict people’s ability to vote safely in the upcoming U.S. election.

While the stakes are lower and far less violent, alternative music culture too, in its own way, is affected by these forces. The pandemic has closed down people’s ability to gather, the word-of-mouth networks and physical meeting spots that keep the culture alive when it is already locked out of wider discourse by media ownership, talent-agency influence, Spotify algorithms. The matter of how to organize, disseminate information, and amplify voices under the restrictions brought on by the pandemic should be a matter of mutual urgency to both artistic and political spheres.

On the most intimate level, an underlying political awareness can enrich something as personal as a love song, helping it slip free of clichés and touch listeners in fresh ways. On a broader social level, artists feeling a greater freedom to directly address the politics of our daily lives can help music connect to the anxieties, anger, and concerns people already have, as well as help articulate more optimistic possibilities for the future. On a purely practical level, political activism and creative culture face many of the same obstacles and could well look to each other for help building the tools to help overcome them. In that sense, perhaps asking if music can retain its relevance without politics is not strong enough. Perhaps instead, we now need to be asking, “Can music even exist if it is not political?”

Festivals, Undeterred (Pt. 3 – Pop Montreal)

by Patrick Baillargeon

FME, MUTEK, Pop Montreal and other Quebec festivals are moving forward with their respective programs despite the pandemic. PAN M 360 connected with them to explore the concerns, constraints, and many obstacles they have had to face.

Our ongoing dossier continues with Pop Montreal’s co-founder and programming director, Dan Seligman. The 19th edition of the multiplatform festival begins on September 23 and runs until the 27th. Code orange or not, there are films, workshops, conferences, and of course several shows on the bill, in the flesh or streamed.

PAN M 360: What were the constraints you had to face for this edition of Pop Montreal?

Dan Seligman: About a month or so after COVID started, we realized pretty quickly that we wouldn’t be able to do the festival we usually do. So we canceled all the artists from abroad, and we were waiting for the summer to see what would happen, but knew that if we were able to do anything, it would be much smaller, more contained. We were kind of in a waiting game or holding pattern because of not knowing exactly what we could or couldn’t do, with all the municipal and provincial rules and whatnots. We knew that it would be more difficult to produce a streaming event. It’s more expensive, it’s different production concerns, and we would still have to deal with all the regulations… So we knew that if we were going to do Pop Montreal this year, it would have to be much smaller in order to do it safely and effectively, obviously with all local artists… So mostly all the shows we’re producing will be in front of a small audience, and some of them will be stream only, with a small percentage of artists who are not from Montréal and who will be streamed from their hometowns, but all are from Canada.

Dan Seligman

The only artist that’s coming in from outside Montreal is Lido Pimienta (Toronto) whom we had already confirmed to play at the festival before covid started. She’s going to perform at the Rialto but all the others playing in front of an audience will be local artists. Mostly all of the shows will be at Rialto and a at a few pop ups. We’re just trying to keep it as manageable as possible so we can do things safely. Its one of the first festivals in these covid times and we want to do it well, we don’t want to fuck-up. So we’re being very careful, all the tickets must be bought in advance, we’re gonna be controling everything, we’re gonna make sure anyone who enters the room will have to give is contact information. 

PAN M 360: As for the outdoor concerts, how is that going to work?

DS: We’re gonna do a few smaller outdoor shows, but the rules with outdoor right now is that everything has to be very contained, and they don’t want you promoting the events outside. So we’re gonna do a few ticketed shows outside and we’re not going to announce the locations. But we’re doing a Rialto rooftop with only 40 tickets. And then we’re having three or four different pop-up locations where we’ll have shows. The city bylaws were saying that you can do shows, but you have to maintain social distancing, and if it’s in any kind of public space you can’t announce the location at all. We were told we couldn’t do anything in any kind of public park, like we usually do for the Marché des possibles, because it’s hard to control those crowds; you saw what happened on the mountain with the Occupy the Hood event… So we got a call from the city making sure we would be very very careful and not let something like this happen. So we’re going forward, but obviously very slowly and carefully, and trying to produce an event and bring people music, but make everything as safe as possible. 

PAN M 360: Are you expecting check-ups?

DS: We know people from the city or the government will show up to make sure we do things properly. So we’ll be ready, there’ll be hand-sanitizing stations, masks everywhere, security everywhere. We’re gonna be extra extra careful. We’re gonna be 110% by the book. We’re going above and beyond, to make sure that everybody will be safe.

PAN M 360: Have you considered cancelling?

DS: We never really wanted to cancel. The worst case for us is that we would have done a virtual event, and we did everything to avoid that, but if there would have been no other choice, we would have done a streaming-only event. If we were like one of those big American festivals that rely on sponsors and ticket sales, we wouldn’t be able to hold the festival this year, but because we have all this funding from different government bodies with the mandate to showcase artists from here, it helps to keep us alive. 

PAN M 360: How do you see the future given the current situation, knowing that it could last another year or two?

DS: We’ll take it one day at a time. We’ll first go through this festival and see how it goes. I think we need to adapt and just accept the fact that this is the new way to do things for the time being, and if people really want to see shows, there will be some. And we know people want to see shows because we’re selling a lot of tickets. And we’re also trying to keep it very cheap, you know. It’s almost like we have to rebuild from the beginning with $5 or $10 shows, with local artists… It’s like rebuilding the equation of how to put on an event. Rebuild your audience, give them an incentive to come out with 30-minute shows for $5… support us, support the artists.

POP MONTREAL OFFICIAL WEBSITE

Reggae

In memoriam: Frederick Nathaniel “Toots” Hibbert, O.D. (1942 – 2020)

by Richard Lafrance

A giant of Jamaican music has left us

On Friday, September 11, Chris Blackwell tweeted, “Toots has been a giant of Jamaican music for almost 60 years”. Blackwell has signed Hibbert to his Island Records label in 1971, shortly after Bob Marley & The Wailers, predicting an international career for both. DJ and radio host David Rodigan described Hibbert as “one of the great iconic figures in Jamaican music, [whose] unrivalled, soulful, passionate voice touched the world”.  Frederick Nathaniel “Toots” Hibbert died at the age of 77 after being hospitalized last month with symptoms related to COVID-19.

Toots Hibbert, Raleigh Gordon, and Jerry Matthias formed the Maytals in 1962, and recorded a number of ska titles, including “Six And Seven Books of Moses”, at the famous Studio One. They would later work with Prince Buster at the height of this musical movement, but also with Leslie Kong and Byron Lee. In 1966, the trio won the first edition of the Festival Song Contest, a singing competition developed following independence to promote the island, with “Bam Bam” – one of the most sampled Jamaican songs to date – and then two more times, with “Sweet & Dandy” in ’69, then “Pomps & Pride” in ’72.

In 1966, as his star was rising, he claimed that jealous industry people arranged for him to be arrested for possession of ganja. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison, following which he composed one of his greatest hits, “54-46 Was My Number”, in reference to his prison identification. His most famous achievement was certainly his invention of the term “reggae” for the song “Do the Reggay” (1968). The song marks the musical turning point at the end of the short rocksteady period from 1966 to 1968, and fuses local mento, calypso, ska, and rocksteady influences with those of American blues, R&B and rock ‘n’ roll.

Hibbert, born in rural Clarendon County, grew up singing gospel music in a Baptist church choir, and was first influenced vocally by Ray Charles and then Otis Redding, whom Jimmy Cliff introduced him to early in his career. With the Maytals, he had more than 30 number ones in Jamaica from 1963 onwards, often influenced by biblical and rasta passages and references, far more than anyone else in the last century. He has inveterate fans in all musical spheres, including the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, UB40, and Amy Winehouse, to name but a few.

Toots Hibbert was featured in the 2011 BBC documentary Reggae Got Soul: The Story of Toots and the Maytals, which is described as “the untold story of one of the most influential artists to ever emerge from Jamaica”. It features testimonials from Marcia Griffiths, Jimmy Cliff, Bonnie Raitt, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Willie Nelson, Ziggy Marley, and Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare. His album True Love (V2 Records) revisited his great classics in the company of contemporary artists, most of whom are listed above, in addition to Jeff Beck, Ben Harper, No Doubt, The Roots, Trey Anastasio, Ryan Adams, and The Skatalites. True Love won the Grammy for Best Reggae Album in 2004. This probably makes him the Jamaican artist with the most collaborations with international stars.

https://youtu.be/m1QDdPxlqjU

Last month, the artist nicknamed Fyah Ball! released his first album in 10 years, Got To Be Tough, recorded at his studio, the Reggae Center, and on which he plays all the instruments, a concept borrowed from Prince that had been on Hibbert’s mind for a long time. Tragically, it will be his final musical testament.

Toots Hibbert is survived by his wife of 39 years, “Miss D”, and seven children.

Listen to the playlist created by PAN M 360

Electronic

Festivals, undeterred (Pt. 2 – MUTEK)

by Alain Brunet

FME, MUTEK, Pop Montreal and other Quebec festivals are moving forward with their respective programs despite the pandemic. PAN M 360 connected with them to explore the concerns, constraints, and many obstacles they have had to face.

Our ongoing dossier on the topic continues with the artistic director and CEO of MUTEK, a renowned festival dedicated to digital creativity, taking place from Tuesday, September 8 to Sunday, September 13.

PAN M 360: When the pandemic hit last March, how did you react?

ALAIN MONGEAU: We were getting ready to present our international component, as we do every year at this time. We then put everything on hold and started to think about what was going to happen, how to position ourselves, to understand what event we could present with the economic implications in context.

PAN M 360: So you decided to hold an event, no matter what. What would the framework be? 

AM: Instead of skipping a year, an option we had considered, we decided to change our presentation dates to avoid the ban on summer festivals, and set up an event that could take place no matter what, with or without an audience. We came up with the idea of a hybrid event, both virtual and in front of a limited audience, which would be presented on real stages. In this way, we think we can generate a larger outreach by imagining the transposition of these real performances in a virtual space.

Alain Mongeau (Photo: Petronille Gontaud-Leclair)

PAN M 360: You made an initial screening of 300 local submissions, resulting in 30 bookings. Among the guests are Martin Messier, Line Katcho, Guillaume Cliche, Alexis Langevin-Tétrault, Tati au Miel, Pelada, Vigliensoni, Patrick Watson with modular synths, Guillaume Coutu-Dumont, Ouri, Wasafiri, Priori, Samito/Boogieman… How does it all come together?

AM: We wanted to preserve the essence of the festival and thus cover a rather vast range of styles by grouping them into three series: PLAY, EXPÉRIENCE, and NOCTURNE. The PLAY series is the most experimental, presented in the 5e Salle at Place des Arts, and encourages exploration in audiovisual creation and digital arts. Normally, the EXPÉRIENCE series is presented on our outdoor stage, this year it is at the 5e Salle at PdA and at the Satosphère. Our NOCTURNE series is more clubby, more rhythmic, and takes place over the three evenings of the weekend at the SAT. 

PAN M 360: It was obvious that local programming was necessary given the travel constraints for foreign artists. So how are your 27 international programs coming along?

AM: Our CONNECT series is reminiscent of INTERCONNECT two years ago. This time, the 27 exclusive programs come from our foreign partners – the MUTEK festivals in Barcelona, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, San Francisco, and Tokyo, not to mention three partner organizations from France, Italy, and South Korea.

Highlights of 2019

PAN M 360: Since the capacity of the audience is extremely limited, how did you imagine the virtual presentation of MUTEK Montreal would be?

AM: We have developed a platform specifically for the festival, which is free to sign up for, and people are also invited to support MUTEK’s mission. The platform consists of three virtual stages, a gallery featuring some 20 interactive works, an auditorium where some of the content from the MUTEK Forum (our daytime segment) is presented, and an archive room that offers a selection of archives recorded over the past 20 years. More precisely, everything that is broadcast from the Satosphère is broadcast in real time, everything that is presented in the 5e Salle is broadcast on a delayed basis, the day after each performance. 

PAN M 360: Virtual concert presentations have been proliferating since the beginning of the crisis. How do you avoid redundancy?

AM: Our platform aims to create a community for sharing experiences. For example, each stage will have a “discussion room” managed by a moderator. The user will also be able to choose the angles from which to observe the performance he or she is attending. So we want this MUTEK to be more than a streaming experience, we want to take the idea of an online festival one step further.

MUTEK OFFICIAL WEBSITE

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