Every year Mutek somehow reinvents itself by managing to find artists at the center of a changing world. It reminds us that the only certainty is that there is none, even when considering the very definitions of music. Last night, in a barrage of sounds hardly close to anything I’ve ever heard, Gadi Sassoon and Portrait XO turned into Espace S.A.T. into Plato’s cave, reflecting back to the audience their very act of listening.
Closer to sound art than music, the majority of the crowd stood fixed in perplexity at the boldness of every new scenery, each as creatively unique as the last. Rhythms grew only to quickly be stormed by what sounded like the noise of a million machines; the loudness and speed breathed through the room like a steam engine. Finally, when all expectations of a normal set were dropped, form folded under meaning and unveiled the origami of meta-narratives. Something screamed in Italian—the message was immediately understood in all languages.
If the post-human aesthetic didn’t already make it clear enough, the AI videos of children dancing to music while tanks roamed the streets solidified the urgency of their statement. And while it may seem conceptually driven at first, the sounds and performance themselves were truly heartfelt. The expression was raw, untethered, channeling violence into a stream of clearly articulated gestures that looked at the issue from all material, aesthetic, and emotional dimensions. While the sounds verged into noise and were characterized by a powerful orchestration of metallic sounds, their set still held a close tie to breakbeats, creating a stark contrast to their long stretches of formless, ethereal soundscapes. In the end, they let loose and finished their set with densely populated drum loops, which they let play while dancing, greeting the crowd’s final cheers. The sounds settled along with a thick fog that had been following us up to this point. This set was a breath of fresh air and a reminder of what unruly experimentation stands for.
