Interviews – Page 43

Hailing from Berlin, Cinthie is a prominent figure in the house music scene. Her story is striking demonstration of her passion for music and her dedication to the craft. While she is a local favorite, having played at venues like Panorama Bar or Robert Johnson, Cinthie is no stranger to the international stage. As she graced the MUTEK festival twice (one live during Metropolis 2 and one DJ set at Experience 6), we sat down with her to discuss her musical journey, her approach to curation and her exciting venture into live performances.

Crédits photo : Nina Gibelin Souchon

PAN M 360: What can you tell us about the relationship you have with house music and electronic music in general?

Cinthie: I have a long history with house music or electronic music in general. I think I was into all kinds of music until I was 14 and then I got a tape from my cousin from a DJ who’s name was Sven (Väth). It totally blew my mind cause he played stuff I never heard before. I was obviously more into pop music or well at least that’s what the radio told me I was into. But honestly I didn’t even like it that much, it was too cheesy, too generic and too annoying for me. After receiving that tape from my cousin, I dug deeper into electronic music and discovered all kinds of stuff but US house music resonated the most with me. That must have been around 1995 when I just turned 15 and when it was the heydays of house music. One year later I got a job at a record store called Humpty Records and the rest is history.

PAN M 360 : And you became a DJ…

Cinthie: I just loved music and I collected the tracks I liked most and recorded tapes for my friend, not mixed though cause that was so far away from me. But when I worked in the record store and met other like minded people from the scene, I discovered the fun of blending two records together and it quickly turned into a fascinating hobby and passion. But I never ever planned to be a DJ. That all came naturally to me as well as the producing which I started around 1999 after I played in clubs for a few years and thought: “huh, would it be great if I had a record that goes like this or that”. Because this record did not exist yet, I tried to make it myself.

PAN M 360: What are the hot spots to listen to house music in Germany, where you come from?

Cinthie: We have a lot of good house music spots in Germany. The most famous is probably Panorama Bar, the upstairs floor of well known club Berghain. In Berlin I also love Heideglühen. That club is a vibe. Unfortunately I’m mostly out of town, so I haven’t been for ages. Other than that I can recommend Offenbach’s Robert Johnson, Darmstadt Galerie Kurzweil or Munich’s Blitz Club.

PAN M 360: You opened a record store a few years back in Berlin, what decided you to take this path?

Cinthie: Like everything in my life, it just came to me naturally. I worked in a record store in the 1990’s but never ever planned to open one myself. I just had the idea to combine forces with other friend’s labels when I had my Best Modus label. I wanted to create a big platform where we all support each other. When I looked for a storage room, I got offered to now well known rooms of Elevate.

PAN M 360: How do you envision the work of curation in the context of a record store?

Cinthie: Curating the store is easy. I simply order more of the records I also order for myself. That’s why it’s also called “Elevate Berlin – Selected Records“. It means we don’t have everything in and it’s very pre-selected. I always loved the personal taste of a record store owner when I bought records in other stores. Getting a good recommendation of a secret weapon is class.

PAN M 360: How is curation in the context of DJing different (or not)?

Cinthie: It’s pretty much the same as I would order records for the store. Everything that moves my hips goes straight into my bag.

PAN M 360: How big of a digger and collector are you? Which pieces from your records collections are the ones you cherish the most?

Cinthie: On a scale from 1 to 10, I would say I’m an 8. I love digging but I’m not desperate about it. For example, I don’t have lists of items I wanna get, but I love discovering record stores when I’m traveling and usually try to pay them a visit. It is always great to find new treasures. My most loved records are the ones I bought back in the 1990’s. Some good old Dance Mania, Nu Groove, Downtown to name a few.

PAN M 360: We know you well as a DJ and as a producer. You are now experimenting with live, was it a natural route to follow for you and how do you feel about taking this leap?

Cinthie: Yes, as I said before, everything came absolutely natural to me. Playing live is just like bringing my studio on tour with me. I’m there almost every day, jamming and making new tracks. I thought why not doing it live? To be honest, the first three shows were mostly about getting the sound right and getting familiar with the new situation in general but I love the journey so far ! From starting it a bit basic and more on the save side, I am now more confident and I am always trying to add more gear to be able to edit and tweak sounds more and make it more “live” and interesting. It’s still a long way to go but the journey is fun.

PAN M 360: Can you remember live music shows or artists that profoundly touched you as a listener? And maybe inspired you for the creation of your live?

Cinthie: Yes absolutely. I am a big fan of Octave One, Aux 88, Cosmic Baby, 3. Raum, Kink, Leo Pol, Orbital… there were so many. Everyone has his own approach of doing a live show but it is so interesting to see how they convert their studio work to the stage.

PAN M 360: For the ones who won’t be able to attend your live, can you describe how you approach it ?

Cinthie : It is a mixture of everything. Some new material, some remixes I recently did, some old classics. I’m adding more and more gear to the live and for MUTEK I bring a little bass synth to be able to tweak the bass sounds a bit more. A drum machine was my latest addition. Unfortunately I have to travel light in planes so I can’t bring too much. I think my next addition will be a midi keyboard. I’m taking piano lessons since the beginning of the year and I guess it would be nice to play a few “riffs” live.

Tiana McLaughlan has been immersed in Montreal’s musical ecosystem for several years now, and her Honeydrip project was selected for a dub/dancehall/jungle/drum’n’bass-influenced evening presented Saturday at the SAT as part of the Nocturne series. And since a Honeydrip album is due in October, PAN M 360 caught up with Tiana (for a second time since her emergence) to talk about her live set and the forthcoming recording, Psychotropical.

PAN M 360: How long has the Honeydrip project been in existence?

Tiana McLaughlan: About 8 years. It was originally my aka as a radio host at Concordia University. My show was called Waves of Honey, hence the Honeydrip moniker.

PAN M 360: What were your musical tastes then?

Tiana McLaughlan: I’ve always loved music. In high school, I listened to a lot of psychedelic rock – Warpaint, Tame Impala and so on. At university, I also listened to a lot of ’90s lo-fi hip-hop and chill electronic music, so I wanted to get myself an SP-404 sampler. I then thought that choosing this kind of music would be a wiser choice for making electronic music. And it was in this direction that I made my radio show.

PAN M 360: And then you became a producer. Obviously, it wasn’t a plan, but what were the steps?

Tiana McLaughlan: Before I became a producer, I used to DJ all kinds of music. I was very eclectic then, and I still consider myself so today. So that perspective remained: mixing and linking genres in a context of electroacoustic studies. Right from the start, I had a chill, ethereal music side in me, and that always stayed with me when I started producing. I’ve also always worked with percussion, and I love rhythmic sequences. Having danced as a teenager, I designed my music around movement and dance.

PAN M 360: You have Caribbean origins, hasn’t that also influenced your work?

Tiana McLaughlan: Yes, my father is from Barbados, so it’s somewhere in the sound of my work.

PAN M 360: That justifies the invitations you make in some of your sets, notably the one at MUTEK with King Shadrock, which also delves into dub and dancehall.

Tiana McLaughlan: Yes, this music is at the origin of so much of today’s electronic music. So King Shadrock, whom I knew when I worked at Blizzarts (now Barbossa), can sing dub and dancehall very well. While my beats and electronic music can also navigate dub and dancehall, but also other genres. It’s hard to put a label on it all!

PAN M 360: We don’t have to!

Tiana McLaughlan: Exactly. To create new sounds and push back musical boundaries, we don’t have to aim for just one style.

PAN M 360: The show is just as important to you.

Tiana McLaughlan: Yes of course, movement and stage clothing are linked to images and music. With visual artist Emma Forgues, we made sure that sound and projected images were connected in real time.

PAN M 360: A permanent trio could emerge from this experiment!

Tiana McLaughlan: I hope so! I like the idea of not being alone in this project, and I’ve got some good allies right now. It’s heartwarming, and I hope to tour the world with a team.

PAN M 360: All this work is also leading up to a new recording scheduled for October. How did that go?

Tiana McLaughlan: We go into the studio, have a chat, record the vocals, mostly freestyle, after which I create an arrangement and come back with the singers to finalize the whole thing. In fact, we’ve been rehearsing several songs for some time now, in order to finish the album.

PAN M 360: Like you, more and more artists on the electronic scene are educated in electroacoustics. What do you learn from your upbringing?

Tiana McLaughlan: I really benefited from the program at Concordia. Not only for the training, but also for the contact with other student producers and access to electroacoustic equipment.

Torino composer and sound designer Sara Berts is using Buchla synthesizer to complement and process field recordings done in the natural landscape. After having studied sound engineering at SAE Institute in Milan, she has been involved in multiple artistic projects, organizations and festivals, Club2Club Festival, Primavera Sound and Elementi to name a few. Sara Berts combines field recordings and synthesis, looking for a sonic in-between space between naturally generated sounds and the famous Buchla semi-modular synthesizer.

PAN M 360 : Is it your first time at MUTEK?

Sara Berts : Yes, it’s my first time at MUTEK and my second in Montreal – I just came as a tourist to visit to visit friends.

PAN M 360 : Your creative process is quite interesting. It starts from electroacoustic studies and it leads to field recordings. Can you explain?

Sara Berts : My creative process is strongly influenced by nature. I spent time in isolation in nature, somehow it’s a practice to me, similar to meditation or yoga. This happened the first time when I was in Peru, in the Amazonian rainforest. And that experience led to the composition of my first EP, which was released in 2021, which is composition of field recordings coming from the Amazon and Buchla semi-modular synthesizer, which is the main instrument I use.

And the second EP, that was released last September 2022, was also influenced by a long period spent in isolation in the surrounding forest, next to my house in Torino, in northern Italy. It happened because it was during the pandemic when the city lost all its attractive power (no concerts, no theater, no cinema, no restaurants. So I spent a lot of time in the woods near my house in Torino. And every time that I spent time in, in nature, it’s like, the quality of my presence gets better. And I feel like plants, insects and birds are somehow inviting me to join in with my music. So it’s a kind of an invitation coming from the sound of nature but not only from the sound also from the animals but also the movements of the animals and vegetation. I love to transpose this into sound.

PAN M 360 : There are a few electronic producers or electroacoustic composers that are recording sounds in the nature. So do you feel being part of a community?

Sara Berts : Of course, there is a community of creative people embracing this same inspiration. So many musicians believe in that beauty and in its musicality. For example I heard this Korean artist called Kohui. So yes, there is definitely a huge movement for recording the natural soundscape.

PAN M 360 : Can you tell us why you use Buchla synthesizer?

Sara Berts : It’s a unique synthesizer and quite iconic because was designed by this physician Don Buchla who was the master of the West Coast sound synthesis. It’s a very unpredictable instrument, it has a range of random voltages. Somehow you need to spend time with the instrument and connect with it, I feel sometimes that it has its own will! So during the pandemic, I spent a lot of time on this instrument, it helped me very much coping the stress of isolation.

PAN M 360 : And what do you craft with your field recordings? What is the process after finding sounds in nature? How do you filter those sounds?

Sara Berts : I don’t really edit those sounds. I don’t filter very much those field recordings, I just equalize them, so I can take away the frequencies that are problematic or not aesthetically interesting. But mostly I leave the field recordings as they are. So I don’t modify it so much.

PAN M 360 : Those sounds are quotes from nature in a way.

Sara Berts : Yeah. When I hear a natural soundscape, I can already feel the musicality in the sound. Then I come back home, I start to listen to the field recordings, and I start to equalize it. Somehow it is an invitation from the soundscape and also after another invitation from the Buchla synthesizer. It’s like having a jam session with a natural soundscape !

PAN M 360 : And what do you add yourself with the synthesizer ?

Sara Berts : I can add the layers from the Buchla synth, I also can mix and play with with the volume or the field recordings. Sometimes it’s louder, sometimes the synth becomes the main character or the main voice. So it’s more of a mixing process than an editing process.

PAN M 360 : And then when you perform this music, is your live set a sort of reproduction of what you’ve recorded?

Sara Berts : There are some clips that I will launch with Ableton Live, and then I will play live some layers from the Buchla synth on those field recordings.

PAN M 360 : So what is the next soundscape you’re going to explore?

Sara Berts : For the next project, for sure there will be some natural elements in the next record, which I am working on right now. But I will experiment and this time I find it very interesting to work with voice and with my singing. I started to explore singing one year ago, this will be a new element that wasn’t present before in the previous EPS. And I will also be experimenting with some rhythmics. So it won’t be just melodic and downtempo, I will also have some drums and more rhythmic tracks.

PAN M 360 : Will you use human voice and new beats in the Montreal concert ?

Sara Berts : No, I will perform my previous projects.

PAN M 360 : And then you will come back with the now material !

Sara Berts : Yes I hope so!

SARA BERTS IS PEFORMING À MUTEK, SATURDAY, 5 PM, ESPLANADE TRANQUILLE

Rosina, a drag show blended with a high level electronic music beatmaking, was born out of our apocalyptic world, and looking for joy and kindness. « Rosina is about releasing our spirits into the universe and connecting to the divine » says the bio profile. The 3 members of Rosina are also seeking natural landscapes, through technology, « honoring the living and non living, human and non-human ancestors, and yet born out of the city. »

This is a collaboration between producer Murr, drag performer and multi-disciplinary artist Franny Galore-Wngz, and producer, vocalist, shit disturber, and poet Rosina. Basic Income is the first album from this collective emerging from marginalized communities.

« ROSINA is a celebration, where part drag and performance art meets dance music hype show. It’s sensuous, fun, ridiculous, tricksterish, punk and addresses important issues their communities face! »

That’s exactly why PAN M 360 wanted to meet those guys before their first MUTEK performance.

PAN M 360 : Rosina, you have a british accent.

Rosina : Yes. We pretend to be British because we figured Montreal doesn’t like Torontonians. So we might change our accent.

PAN M & Rosina : Hahaha !

PAN M 360 : What is your approach together?

Rosina : It’s kind of like performance art and we make fun of everything!

PAN M 360 : Is it a new setup for you?

Rosina : Yes. We performed it in Toronto, in small venues and small festivals. The album came out three years ago but we didn’t tell anybody. So who cares anymore?

PAN M 360 : Yes indeed. So many excellent productions happen all the time now, so it’s quite impossible to identify all of them.

Rosina : Exactly. We’re just we’re just taking our time. We’re launching an album, and then we have a website and a video coming out.

PAN M 360 : Did you guys met in Toronto?

Franny Galore-Wngz : Yeah, we’ve known each other for quite some time now. Rose was my mentor. She was my mentor years ago, when I was doing musical theater. But then during the pandemic is when we actually needed to find a way to cope. So we all kind of started just hanging around each other. And then the project was born.

Rosina : Yeah, we live in a warehouse in Toronto, Unit 2, and so during COVID We were lucky enough to be outside. It’s a great space but it’s disappearing because that whole area is being gentrified. But we’re still there. So, we still manage to have fun and we don’t get any sound complaints. So we’ve been there for a long time.

PAN M 360 : Please explain this setup.

Rosina : So it’s a trio, Murr is an electronic music producer. He started off in hip hop. He runs everything live and then the two of us, it’s a sort of drag performance. I start off in a particular way. We’re very masculine and friendly, we start off like that and, as the show progresses, we switch genres. And then we just talk a lot shit and dance haha!

PAN M 360 : And your music is a blend of many styles. There’s hip hop, there’s house, there’s dub to name a few. What else?

Rosina : There’s a little bit techno. Live, it gets a little bit harder. But then we also use lots of international rhythms like Brazilian.

Franny Galore-Wngz : Yeah there’s like a lot of Latin inspiration in some of the songs you know, but like, it’s a beautiful thing coming from such diverse backgrounds were able to implement those stories and the album, which I feel like people have been experiencing. But yeah, I feel like that’s the big blend of like, it’s just a blend of all of us.

PAN M 360 : Can we be more specific about the production?

Rosina : So the production side was mainly Nick. But then I also arranged and I used Ableton, and I did my vocals. We were very lucky on this record to have access to House of Balloons studio in Toronto, which is handled by Doc McKinney, who did a lot for The Weeknd stuff. So he’s like family to us. And so during the pandemic, we spent three months just writing this with Nick, exchanging tracks, going back and forth. So Nick (Murr) would send me beats, and I would change things. And then I would do vocals, and we just did it very organically. And that’s kind of how we work and then live, Nick just runs the beats and we run around and dance.

Franny Galore-Wngz: It’s a very random show, a really random project too but there’s also a lot of information about life. Because everything in life right now is so random and so chaotic. And we’re trying to take a little bit of that and turn it into joy.

Rosina : And we are quite critical, the album is called Basic Income. So we are critical, I come myself from the activist scene in Toronto, and sometimes I feel we take ourselves too seriously. So we’re trying to also have fun because activism can be too over the head. So we just wanted to do some work with more fun. It is a way for us to survive spiritually.

PAN M 360 : Are you exporting your album and show?

Rosina : Yes, for example, one of our record labels is based in East Havana in Cuba. So we just want to make music to travel to places and meet people that we really want to meet. We’re not so concerned about fame and money, but about travel, relationships, discoveries. And see the natural world before it’s gone because we’re killing it. And do shows in the forest or by the beach. We would be so happy to do this.

PAN M 360 : So art is for you a way to escape.

Rosina : Yes. So we just try to create our own world. We don’t have time to dismantle the one we have, but I can make a new one. And we’re trying to also develop a community of queer and trans and, and more folks of color, brown and black people and other friendships. So we reach all kinds of people but with an emphasis to support marginalized communities. You know I don’t think we’re marginalized, but they keep telling us we are. So we’re trying to create that world and pull up our communities together, so we all can survive.

ROSINA SE PRODUIT À MUTEK MONTRÉAL 2023, CE SAMEDI, 20H, ESPLANADE TRANQUILLE

Atamone is an experienced Montréal-born Inuk music producer, multi-instrumentalist and multimedia artist involved in 3D animation, sound design and interactive media. He’s been crafting breezy, uplifting beats, incorporating elements of jazz, soul, hip hop, house and techno. His gear includes analog instruments and digital technologies but also instrumental music. He released music on labels Tour De Manege and Inner Ocean Records.

PAN M 360: After listening to your music, we observe that you are interested in boom-bap, instrumental hip-hop, jazz hip hop and other electronic influences.

Atamone: Yeah you can say that..And I’m also dabbling a little bit into house. More precisely, what I do is an exploration of underground culture and hip hop and dance music. Much of my influence comes from exploring different aspects of the underground culture as well as visual arts. When I was younger, I was really interested in graffiti street art, but I’ve fallen out of it. I mean, it’s still part of my background of course.

PAN M 360: So you were diving in the whole hip hop culture.

Atamone: Yeah. And collecting records as well, I’m also a jazz fan, it’s part of my identity.

PAN M 360: Do you create your own images for your live sets or DJ sets ?

Atamone: It could happen but I’m not performing a visual set this year.

PAN M 360: Is your live set performed with a VJ ?

Atamone: No It’s not. I’m not working with a VJ this year. I’m not sure if this stage where I play is set up for that.

PAN M 360: Okay, so it’s mainly music. That’s it?

Atamone: Yeah, it’s gonna be a live music performance with my gear.

PAN M 360: And then what is your gear?

Atamone: I’m using a hybrid between software and hardware, mainly using Ableton and my SP404 sampler drum machine.

PAN M 360: This your music fits very well with a live band too. We can also imagine instruments performing your music. So it would be possible.

Atamone: Yes, I’ve worked with bands before. And this time I will be accompanied by a bass player as well – his name is Jesse Manzini. Through my recordings, I can add instruments, guitar, bass, percussion. It’s driven humanistically and I also like to include it live.

Atamone: So will you perform on a digital pad at Mutek ?

Atamone: Yeah, exactly. I tap the pads to drums and pre-recorded rhythms. So it always gives a different result. It’s about interacting with the machine

PAN M 360: Your bio profile says that you were born and raised in Montreal and that you also have an Inuk background. Can you explain your family path ?

Atamone: For the most part of my life I lived in Montreal. But I also lived partly in Nunavut, in the Yellowknife area. But my community is actually from Northern Quebec, in Kuujjuaq.

PAN M 360: Maybe it’s not relevant but do you relate to your indigenous roots in your music craft ? Would it be important for you ?

Atamone: I mean, it’s not something I really thought about.

PAN M 360: It’s definitely not an obligation. Any human being can do artistically whatever he wants. An international artist doesn’t have to quote his traditional music in his original compositions.

Atamone: Yeah, exactly. I’m not I’m not bound to any style or tradition.

PAN M 360: Of course, we don’t expect you to bring some traditional songs into your electronic hip-hop. Where the artist comes from doesn’t mean what he does now.

Atamone: Yeah, exactly. What I do is mostly coming from an isolated place and struggling with finding other musicians to play with. So that’s how I got into composing with drum machines and samplers and software.

PAN M 360: You are among those producers that lead us to think that jazz hip hop is definitely back. You must enjoy the 90’s hip hop, from the late J Dilla to A Tribe Called Quest, Diggable Planets, Pharcyde and Jurassic Five.

Atamone: Yeah, absolutely. J Dilla is one of my biggest influences for sure. And I’ve been very fortunate to collaborate with my good friend Illa J, who is J Dilla brother.

PAN M 360: Wow ! So you’ve worked with him?

Atamone: Yeah I was fortunate to connect with him when he was living briefly in Montreal. Before he went back to Detroit, and now he’s in Las Vegas. But yeah, we’re still working together. I just recorded some instruments on his latest record.

PAN M 360: So you’re a producer and a multi instrumentalist aren’t you ?

Atamone: Yeah. What I do is pretty broad, it ranges from live beat making to DJing to multi instrumentalism to even doing acoustic performances. I’ve done some acoustic performances, accompanying singers as well. And even as far as ambient music, so like, musically, my musical interests are pretty wide. I’m pretty adaptable to the situation.

PAN M : When did you start to perform professionally ?

Atamone: I started my Atamone project in 2011, actually, so it’s gonna be 12 years in September. And that will be my second time at MUTEK; the first was 10 years ago.

PAN M 360: After all those years, do you make a living with your music ?

Atamone: It’s been really hard actually since the pandemic. But like before the pandemic I was, we’re playing events pretty regularly. Weekly. I was part of Tour de Manege crew in Montreal as well and played weekly in a pub, so it was manageable. And then, since the pandemic, it wasn’t happening so I decided to return back to school in visual arts and 3D animation. I’m looking forward to slowing down a little bit during the autumn and winter seasons to really focus on applying that practice into my performance. That’s my next project.

PAN M 360: And musically, what is the next step ?
Atamone: There will be a 7 tracks album, that’s ready to go and I’ve just released a single, early August from that album, and I’ll be releasing another single. And then the album will come up pretty soon. Right now I try to expand my music catalog, sonically, exploring different genres and bpm, more into techno and house.

ATAMONE IS PERFORMING LIVE at Expérience 6 on Sunday, esplanade Tranquille

Hatis Noit, a multi-talented Japanese singer from a small island off of Hokkaido shocked the electronic and electro-acoustic world last year with the release of Aura, an experimental album with a focus on the voice that was released on Erased Tapes, the home of the ambient electronic wonderboy Nils Frahm. The result is a meditative, sometimes ambient affair that feels more like a listening of Buddhist or spiritual prayers than a full album.

There’s really nothing like it, and live, Hatis Noit is another kind of beast entirely. It’s moving and begs to be experienced in person. Luckily Hatis Noit is playing her debut Montreal performance at this year’s MUTEK. Of course, there is another aspect to look forward to, a real-time AI response, programmed by Yuma Kishi, to Hatis Noit’s looped vocals. We had a brief chat with Hatis Noit before her performance to learn a bit more.

PAN M 360: Did you grow up in a musical upbringing? Was singing encouraged during your childhood?

Hatis Noit: No. There was not a single musician in my family. Although I loved to sing since I was a child, according to my family, I was a quite bad singer. They told me that when I came home from school singing, they knew that I had come home just by the sound of my voice. I am glad I didn’t listen to my family’s complaints and kept singing (haha).

PAN M 360: The song “Himbrimi,” always makes me sombre and I can’t explain why because I don’t understand the language, but there is something that resides within your vocal style. What is that song about, and going off that, do you believe music to be a universal language?

Hatis Noit: Interestingly, you are not the first person to tell me that you feel ‘sad’ when you listen to “Himbrimi.” It’s actually a very playful and fun song for me. There are no lyrics to that song and there is actually no specific storyline. Music is for me a language that is so much more eloquent than words and contains all kinds of memories, sensations, and information that is too rich to be described in words. I think that when such symbolism of music is translated back into its meaning again, people somehow connect with their memories and sensations. It is very therapeutic and I like that aspect of music very much.

PAN M 360: The great William Basinski created a rework of your song “Inori” a few months back. Was that more of a collaboration and how did you get willed into existence?

Hatis Noit: I was really touched that William understood the song “Inori” so deeply and that he embraces its grief so gently by the sound. The sound of the piano, which means home to him, gently embraces the memories of the homes that the people of Fukushima lost by the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear power plant disaster. It has become a very special collaboration for me.

PAN M 360: You shocked the world with Aura, but have you already begun working on your next project?

Hatis Noit: Having done so many live shows since I released Aura paradoxically has motivated me to make another album. I feel like making myself vulnerable again on stage performing new songs.

PAN M 360: Since you use a looper for your voice, there must be a lot of spontaneity in your performances. More improvisation with yourself?

Hatis Noit: Yes, as you imagined, my songwriting process starts with improvisation, together with my only instrument other than my voice, the looper.

PAN M 360: Your music seems very meditative, not only to listen to but to make on the spot. So going off that, how important is the audience to your performance? Or do you view it more as a personal trance?

Hatis Noit: Audiences are very important in my performance. When I sing, I try to connect musically and energetically to the space and the people there. I get inspired so much from them, and in a way, my performances change every time. I think that the physical spaces in which I sing, and the people who are with me there, are the second and third members of my performance.

PAN M 360: For MUTEK, you will be performing with Yuma Kishi and he will be using AI to create some sort of multimedia experience. What can you tell us about this planned show and are you already aware of Yuma in the art world?

Hatis Noit: For the song, “Angelus Novus,” I will perform with visual art by Yuma. An AI programmed by Yuma will generate images in real-time in response to my singing voice on stage. Fed by my voice, the AI will show three moving Asian figures including myself, showing their individual identities, genetic similarities and differences, merging and moving apart again across the both physical and spiritual boundaries of us. By that, I want to show the certainty and ambiguity of “self,” and the potentiality of both.

HATIS NOIT PLAYS MUTEK A/VISIONS 2 ON AUG 26, 7 PM – TICKETS HERE

Airhaert is a multi-instrumentalist, DJ, producer and visual artist. Last February, she released I. I. (Intuitive Intelligence), an electro-ambient-techno album with granular textures that aims at grounding, meditation, and the discovery of things buried deep within oneself. The album is inspired by the new sciences of intuition, Taoist philosophy and various healing theories. PAN M 360 enjoyed a few moments of conversation after her performance at Experience 2 of the MUTEK festival.

Photo credits : Frédérique Ménard-Aubin

PAN M 360: First off, can you quickly take us through your musical journey? How did you become Airhaert?

Airhaert: In elementary school, my program was very focused on music, as an afterschool thing. I remember I didn’t like recess that much, I liked music more. So I participated in choir, concert band, jazz band. I would participate in almost anything music-related. Participating in all these things, and playing all these instruments, flute, alto saxophone, and using my voice, it really embedded that into my being as a child, and now, going back to music really makes me feel like home.

I stopped music when I went into high school. I wanted to do visual art. I went to university to get a bachelor’s degree in fine arts, and at the end of it all I still wasn’t sure of what I wanted to do, I dabbled in all of the mediums and professions, I worked as a videographer, photographer, graphic designer, even as a technician, and these are all things that I thought I wanted to pursue. But all of those things encompassed being an artist. In the last years of my undergrad, I started to incorporate sound into my installations. Once I discovered DJing, like 8 or 9 years ago, it really opened up my ear, and it propelled me into a deep understanding of electronic music and other different genres. I’ve also been trying to produce in tangent to DJing, but it’s only been for the last 3 or so years where I feel confident enough in the studio to produce solid tracks. Obviously, there’s always more to learn. And then, also, moving to Montreal around 8 years ago was inspiring, because there’s a huge community of artists that I can relate to, artists that pursue international passions like myself.

PAN M 360: You recently released an album titled I. I., which stands for Intuitive Intelligence. Can you tell us what this means for you?

Airhaert: I got really inspired by this book, Body of Health, by Francesca McCartney. She wrote her PhD thesis about this energetic intuitive intelligence. It means that you can heal yourself and use sound as well as your mind and auric energy to heal places within yourself and train your mental and physical space. It’s pretty complex, so I’m trying to summarize it.

PAN M 360: And how do these notions translate in your work?

Airhaert: I had a whole year to work on my album, because I got a grant through the Jeunes volontaires program from Emploi-Québec, which were inspired by the fact that I wanted to fuse healing music with electronic music, and enjoyed the idea of disseminating those ideas into the world. So, how I used these notions: I started with the chakras, because the author of the book talks about them, and how they each have different frequencies. When you tap into the sound and meditate on it, it changes things in your interior world. In my work, I was trying to use each song of the album as a different chakra point. So, for each song, I would fine tune all of the instruments to the corresponding key of the corresponding chakra point I was focusing on. Also, I used instruments from the sound healing realm, like a singing bowl. I didn’t bring it on stage and instead used the recordings of it, because it’s very fragile.

PAN M 360: What sounds do you like using the most? Are there any sounds you obsess over?

Airhaert: It’s hard to say, because it’s so easy to loop something, which then becomes so repetitive and obsessive. But I try to always use voice. I really love the voice as an element, whether it turns into a pad or an actual vocal.

PAN M 360: What does your music make you feel, when you make it?

Airhaert: That’s really challenging to say! I made it, so I know all the details and hard work that went into it. And I’ve listened to it so many times, especially in the mixing and mastering stages, that I put it away for a long time. I stopped listening to it altogether. So, back then, it made me feel like « Oh my god, I’m happy it’s over! », and now, listening back to it, I feel like it’s more meditative for me.

PAN M 360: The themes that your music explores can be seen as both very academic and very instinctive. Which one are you most between the two?

Airhaert: I’m in more of a « feel things as they come » and intuitive way of doing things. I think this whole year of making the album really made me use that intuitive intelligence muscle. I’m more of an intuition-based person in my work, even if there are a lot of technicalities to it, which I do keep in mind. But the big point was using that intuitive muscle and training it throughout the year. And now I have it!

PAN M 360: Great! Thank you Airhaert!

Husa & Zeyada constitutes both an audiovisual project and an Egyptian-Canadian electronic group. They characterize their work as a fusion between Zeyada’s synth-soaked bedroom pop with electric guitars and the mystical deep house style of Montreal-based DJ and producer Adam Husa. Husa is also recognized for his music released on labels like Sol Selectas, Seven Villas, Magician On Duty, and his own entity, Husa Sounds. Collaboratively, Husa & Zeyada traverse a path of sensuous and enigmatic electronic indie-rock, enveloped in lyrics that blend both English and Arabic languages. The duo, whose partnership was formed shortly before the onset of the pandemic, has established themselves in Dahab, located in the southern Sinai region.

They have released multiple tracks and videos, each highlighting their artistic vision and impressive execution skills. Husa & Zeyada’s inventive approach to music production and their ability to seamlessly blend a diverse range of electronic sounds has led to numerous remixes by artists such as Hernan Cattaneo, Mustafa Ismaeel, Madmotormiquel, and Artphormque. In 2022, the duo unveiled their debut album, Long Way Home, crafted after just a week of jam sessions and exploration. This album encompasses a significant portion of their previously released singles.

On the eve of their first-ever appearance at MUTEK, Adam Husa and Rola Zeyada talked about how they met, their chemistry that unites them in art and love, the nuances and difficulties of singing in Arabic, their new project, and the explosion of electronic music in the Middle East and North Africa.

PAN M 360: Tell us a little bit about your individual backgrounds

Zeyada: I’m Egyptian. I was born and raised in Egypt. I went to college in New York for undergrad, and then for master’s and this is when I started doing music. I was more into indie and rock, and kind of had a band and then a duo in New York. And then I went solo, and went back to Egypt before the pandemic, and yeah, this is where we met a few months
after.

Husa: I left Montreal, maybe six months before Corona time, about three or four years ago. I was doing a lot of events here and I went to Egypt just to focus on music. And then when the pandemic hit, the airports closed. This is when I decided to go move to Dahab. And Dahab is where we build a studio and everything. And then we met over there, and this is where is our studio and home, this is where we got married and started our creation hub.

Zeyada: Dahab is a little town on the coast of Egypt, it’s like a Bedouin/hippie town, like a kite surfing community… A very small rural place. Just very, very raw, with just small bedroom houses. We built our studio there and we based ourselves there. This is our home.

Husa: We’re coming back to Canada. So we’re gonna start building a world on this side.

PAN M 360: What made you decide to work together?

Zeyada: Well I was visiting Dahab and a friend of mine connected me with Adam and his, at the time, roommates. They were both musicians and were sharing a studio. I actually went to record with this other person, we were gonna jam and make something but it actually didn’t flow very well with that person. I mean, we’re friends, but I left. And then Adam messaged me, I think he was sleeping in the other room and he heard what I was trying to do and I think he liked it. Our styles kind of matched. Maybe we were both influenced by each other, by being from Montreal and New York and also just like me being into rock and him being into dance music and bringing these two things together. I think we saw more similarities there than with other people we worked with who are more into the oriental sounds.

Husa: We just really connected on the sound. Even though she was more from the rock scene I felt it connected with where I wanted to go with electronic music. So this is where we saw a really cool space to build a bridge for these sounds a little.

PAN M 360: So is it the music that led to love or the love that led to music?

Zeyada: Music led to love … I mean, it almost all happened at the same time. I mean, for a good week there we were talking about how music is all that matters, and we got to make it, you know, and then everything kind of merged and happened quickly. And this is the core of everything, like this is why everything else can be great. But also we recognized that our sound together was really special.

Husa: And really in the beginning, we were together almost every day, and we finished the first album probably in the first week, so everything was happening so fast on the music side. And it was really a point where we didn’t want to focus on anything else but music.

Zeyada: For me, as someone who was working more with bands, the format of writing with a band, or even when I write alone with just a guitar or with a ukulele sometimes, it’s so different than electronic music production. And when we got together, I think I saw how fast I could be working when we have this flow, rather than just the slow flow of a band. Just kind of working, working, working, keep working until things come out not just wait for things to happen. And that, for me, was really exciting. That’s why we made so much in the first week together.

PAN M 360: Is the result mostly what we can hear on your first album Long Way Home?

Zeyada: Long Way Home was basically all made within the first two weeks we met. So it was very heavy. And also we were very influenced by the times we were living in. We were eight or 10 months into Corona. We couldn’t travel, we weren’t seeing too many people, we were in this in-between place, surrounded by the desert and the sea, and you kind of have all the fears of society but at the same time, you kind of forget about it…

Husa: So basically after this last year, we started touring and then we also started seeing which position we wanted to put ourselves in a club format. So everything you hear on Spotify is technically older things but what you hear live is stuff that we’ve made right before leaving the studio, which is a lot different but a lot more…

Zeyada: Groovy?

Husa: A lot more rock and roll in an electronic way.

PAN M 360: Were you inspired by other artists? I hear a bit of Gudrun Gut and Seelenluft in your music.

Zeyada: We don’t know any of those artists! Honestly, I have to say I’ve been loving the different things that we remind people of. It’s like things from the ’70s, or some punk bands, or alternative stuff from the ’90s … It makes me happy that you’re just telling us about these artists. I’m very curious to hear them. I’d say some of our biggest inspiration has been Darkside for sure. I also like Dope Lemon, like a bit more on the indie side. Personally, I like rock things like The Strokes and Timber Timbre, I’m a little bit more on the rock and punk side.

Husa: I mean, I’ve always really liked what Darkside was doing. And I felt there’s a whole world of sound in this type of realm of just electric guitars with electronic music. I guess this was kind of an influence that’s been in my head for a long time.

PAN M 360: On your first album you only sing in English but I read that you were also sometimes singing in Arabic.

Zeyada: Actually, we’re a little bit behind on releases. Like most of the things we play at our live sets are not even released. We play a little of Long Way Home, especially the songs we connect with the most. But again, that album was produced very early in our life together. So we are also a bit about just making things in the studio and then performing them. We like this aspect of always having new stuff. So there are a lot of tracks that made it in and then out and so on. So usually at least 30% of the set is sung in Arabic. But I think we only have one released Arabic track, which we don’t even play live … I’m trying to write in Arabic the way I do in English and not go for this oriental sound, which I personally don’t connect with.

Husa: In Arabic, there’s so much more you could say within the same timeframe because there are more vowels you can put, so you can go a lot deeper in a way, even if you don’t understand the language, you can understand the meaning of it, which for me is really interesting. I’m also starting to record her in Arabic because I am still learning the language. So I’m still a bit slow on picking up conversation and stuff like this. But sometimes I understand before she even tells me what the lyrics actually mean. I just feel it. So this is why singing in Arabic really became super interesting for us, because it just goes a lot deeper if you do it properly, which she does.

Zeyada: It’s a lot harder to write in Arabic, especially in this context. At some point, we were going to stop trying to write in Arabic because we were so fast at making music in English. We can do a whole song in just one day in English whereas it can take three or four days to do something in Arabic. I think this is the third most popular language in the world and yet it is so limited musically. It is mostly stuck in this commercial oriental place. Within Egypt itself, the pop scene sucks. Rock came so late here that now we’re doing it in the way that it was done 30 years ago. So if we’re gonna keep catching up to genres, 20-something years later, we’re never really gonna make anything new. But at the same time, electronic music is rising in the Middle East. So I feel we are finally closing the gap a little bit over here.

PAN M 360: I see a lot of electro stuff coming out of Tunisia, Morocco, Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt… I feel it’s starting to really blow up in a lot of Arabic countries.

Zeyada: It’s so so big. It’s happening now. Like in just the past couple of years, the scene has grown so much, there are so many events taking place, and more artists also. And the more electronic events you have, the more likely you’ll get people interested in it and wanting to create music themselves.

Husa: In the past three, or four years I’ve been there. I’ve seen things accelerate so fast. There are so many new opportunities, there are so many new sounds, it’s massive.

PAN M 360: Anything new coming up? Like another record maybe?

Husa: We’re working on this concept album and it is a little complex. We have this fictional story that kind of merges with reality. There are so many ideas.

Zeyada: We have the music for the album ready and now we’re building the visual for the story. The music is already kind of developed with the idea of this visual concept in mind. So it’s the first time we’re actually fully able to make a project 100% audio and visual.

Husa: The idea is that these characters are from another timeline and keep crossing over to this reality. So that’s kind of how we want to position our next album, which is a full-out audio-visual merge between reality and fiction concepts.

Zeyada: So we’re actually performing this music at MUTEK.

Husa: I’m excited. I think we’ve been picking up on a lot of things that are working and orchestrating something unique for this one. But this project is still developing; the core concept of it is we’re really trying to bring this idea of just bringing more rock and roll into electronic music sideways. So I think this one will show a little bit more of that than the past album.

PAN M 360: And on stage, is it only both of you?

Husa: Rola plays guitar and sings and I have Ableton with controllers and the MS 20 semi-modular synth. It’s cool because all the sets are kind of freestyling, so it’s always different.

HUSA & ZEYDAYA PLAY MUTEK EXPERIENCE 3, AUG 24 – TICKETS HERE

You may know the name Rich Aucoin more so in the alternative indie pop world, known for his explosive, high-energy shows where he crowd surfs (on a literal surfboard) and his hilarious multimedia meme antics, but lately, he’s been focusing on a more synthesized sound.

He’s released two parts of his Synthetic album series, where he plays more than 37 synths, probably the most on an album in the history of music, using some historic synths like Supertramp-owned Elka Rhapsody 610 String Machine. Now he’s taking a live performance of this electronic ‘Air meets Daft Punk’ show to MUTEK and he had some time with PAN M 360 to chat about it.

PAN M 360: You launched Synthetic Seasons 1 and 2, Is the vibe of three going to be much different and how do you plan on playing parts of these releases live? You must have a ton of synths you’re touring with.

Rich Aucoin: I plan to play these tracks very similarly to the album; mostly making adjustments for timing. While I’d love to tour with a bunch of synths, it’s very logistically difficult so I’ll be making the best I can on just a Moog and Juno and samples. Many of the synths on the album are giant and/or one-of-a-kind, like TONTO, and/or very expensive to own.

PAN M 360: I suppose you could play it as a DJ too?

Rich Aucoin: Yeah, I’m not DJing but I am performing with Ableton and samples from the album.

PAN M 360: Is there going to be as much energy at these MUTEK shows as say when you toured United States? – Running around, surfing in the crowd…

Rich Aucoin: I hope there’ll be some high-energy moments. While I am normally known to have shows like that, I thought this show might be better, a little more cerebral and less directed as my normal shows are led, so, I’ll just stay on stage and no crowd surfing on surfboards for this one.

PAN M 360: And what about the multimedia memes? Are we going to get a bit of that with the Synthetic performance?

Rich Aucoin: Yeah, I thought the MUTEK crowd might just want to stay in music and not be distracted by the normal multimedia memes I pepper throughout the show so I’ll be more relying on the lighting and vibes of the show than the normal projections I use.

PAN M 360: I got a huge Air influence on Season 1 and more of a Tangerine Dream and Daft Punk vibe on two. Do you think about the general musical themes for each season or is it more organic than that?

Rich Aucoin: Yeah, there isn’t an exact plan of genres on the 4 seasons, I just made a list of all the songs I wanted to make and have them written on some cardboard and pinned to my wall and I just look at how they can each all fit together. Definitely, some more Air and Daft Punk to come along with Gobin and Vangelis.

PAN M 360: Are you a guy who listens to a lot of electronic music? I have to admit I was kind of shocked by how hard you went into the synth world with these Synthetic seasons.

Rich Aucoin: Yes, I’ve loved synth music since I was a kid and have been wanting to make this record since the beginning of my music career. I visited the Cantos Museum in 2008 while recording my first album across Canada and decided I’d try to come back and make a record with all their keyboards one day. It has since turned into the National Music Centre and is where I did an Artist In Residence program and started recording this album in March 2020. I grew up listening to Air, Daft Punk, Justice, Cornelius, Aphex Twin, Brian Eno, Wendy Carlos and was a big fan of synth soundtracks like Vangelis’ Blade Runner. I studied Electro Acoustic Experimental Recording at Dal too and got into early synthesis pioneers like Pierre Schaeffer and Eliane Radigue and then since then have gotten into all sorts of synth music from Oneohtrix Point Never to Dan Deacon, Caribou, Todd Terje and Jon Hopkins.

PAN M 360: Would you say that when you were crafting these songs, it was more of an improvisation or play than “songwriting?” Like finding a loop or setting you love and exploring that?

Rich Aucoin: Yeah, I’d say the power of the sounds synths creates really makes you alter your writing to it in a way that you’re surprised by something and pivot to accept that new turn in a way that you wouldn’t be as surprised by a chord on a piano for instance (though sometimes you still can be so it’s not completely different). So yes, there’s some songs that have a chord progression or a rhythm or a melody as a starting point and there are some that just start as the soundscape and timbres. For the tracks on historic synthesizers on the album, like TONTO, I just recorded myself playing it for about 3 hours and then, later in the studio, I went back over all the recordings and picked out my favourite moments and then began stacking and arranging them into a piece of music of about 5min in length down for 3hrs. Some songs have a great 4 bar riff or loop from a synth and that was all the time I had with that synth to create the basic structure of the song with.

PAN M 360: Do you already have plans for your next project after Synthetic? I feel a guy with your kind of creative mind is always three steps ahead.

Rich Aucoin: Yes, I am also looking at a piece of cardboard with my next 6 albums all planned on it. Lots more new directions to explore after this but I’d like to continue my synth writing on soundtracks hopefully.

PAN M 360: Are you going to be able to check out MUTEK at all? Any artists you’re excited to see?

Rich Aucoin: I have been so busy this summer that I’ve barely had the time to look ahead. I’m coming for the whole festival though and plan to go to shows every night. Hoping to find some good synth music and some progressive house DJs.

RICH AUCOIN Plays MUTEK Metropolis 2 on Saturday, August 26, 2023, 11:00 pm_6:00 am
TICKETS HERE

In a style truly their own, x/o seemlessly exploits both power and vulnerability to create electronic pieces that are intricate, heavy and soothing. In particular, the vocals lead to many contrasting territories, some vaguely familiar and some new. Based in Vancouver, x/o is about to perform at Mutek’s Nocturne 2, Thursday 24th. Let yourself dive ahead of time in their world.

Photograph credit : SKIBICKI

PAN M 360 : To the reader unaquainted with your music, how would you describe your sound and overall artistic approach?

x/o : My sound is a wide combination of different genres put together in a soundtrack like form. It’s like a film score to a movie that doesn’t exist. Some of the genres you might find include electronic, breakbeat, trip hop with elements of classical, metal and music box melodies. I’m also influenced by a lot of anime and video game media. Some of my favorites include Kaiba, Claymore, Nier Automata and the Final Fantasy series.

PAN M 360 : What is your musical or artistic background prior to starting x/o?

x/o : I’m a self-taught creative. Prior to doing electronic music, I did a lot of graphic design and I played in a band where I wrote songs with friends, sang and played around with guitar and keyboard.

PAN M 360 : Your music is both soothing and heavy and could spark a discussion about musical genres. Rather, I’d like to ask how you begin to create a piece from scratch. Does it stem from an electronic sound, a vocal idea, or a non-musical concept?

x/o : For me, it’s very intuitive. It’s very explorative. A lot of times, I will start to just play with the keyboard and see what comes out. I like to be inspired by sounds that I hear. When I hear a sound that I like, it influences me to write music in a certain way or mood. And then when I start to build on that, then I start to think about what sounds excite me, what kind of feelings I want to feel in a song that sounds like this. A lot of times, you’ll hear two very different styles put into one. I love to hear very opposing sounds come together, I find it quite satisfying, in a way. As a music listener, I listen to all sorts of different genres and I like these different genres for different reasons. But I find it especially interesting when they come together in different ways.

PAN M 360 : What can audiences expect from your appearance at Mutek? What will you be presenting?

x/o : I’m presenting in audiovisual performance of my album Chaos Butterfly. Overall, the audiovisual performance uses fantasy narratives as an allegory to transcending societal norms in regards to gender. And the illustrations are also Fantasy-influenced and drawn by this incredible artist and collaborator NicoSaba. You can expect a full evolution from cocoon egg to Chaos Butterfly.

PAN M 360 : Having heard your album and read the liner notes, I know that there is complex symbolism underlining your music. In your own words, what non-musical ideas push you to create?

x/o : In my music I like to explore duality through a non binary lens. When it comes to either sound, or visuals, I like to take hyper-feminine and hyper-masculine tropes and combine them together to create something unique that encompasses many versions of itself. When you have these two very different things come together… I think it’s both the wholeness and the moments in between that are really beautiful.

PAN M 360 : Thank you very much!

x/o is playing on Thursday 24th at Mutek. Make sure to catch their set at Nocturne 2 (12:40AM) at SAT.

BILLETTERIE

Erin Gee is a multidisciplinary artist based in Tio’tia :ké/Montréal who specializes in creating complex technological systems that implicate the human body, whether hers and/or her audience’s. She has a busy schedule of artistic performances and academic research. Nonetheless, she took some time to answer our questions about her current work and upcoming performance at Mutek 2023, Thursday August 24th.

Photograph copyright : Mark Mushet

PAN M 360 : In your own words, how would you summarize your practice for the reader unaquainted with your art?

Erin Gee : I am currently very inspired by emotion, that is, the materiality of emotion : how emotions change our body physically. I’m not interested in a naturalist approach to emotion. So, it’s not like there’s a resource all over the world called emotion and I’m just going to take that with my technologies and take a nice picture with that. Rather, I manipulate emotions in real time together with my audience.

We experience music as something that manipulates our emotions and is completely subconscious. I ask the question : is it possible to consciously manipulate our emotions to have a different relationship with music?

PAN M 360 : You have a background as a vocalist, which influences all of your work. Can you elaborate on exactly what this background is?

Erin Gee : When I was younger, I was trained as a soprano in classical music. There’s a little bit of that in what I will present at Mutek, but I think my bodily and even social experiences as a singer influence me more than classical music itself. I am not doing opera at my shows.

We could talk about the dominance and outsized importance that we give to Western music, but at the same time, this is music that has lasted for centuries. Somebody bothered to preserve this music. There’s something very precious in it. And most of the music we listen to… who knows whether it will be lasting hundreds of years or not?

I really had this sense romance for classical music that went beyond my social context and I think it gave me a different relationship to music, one that was a bit more profound. I think that any music that is hundreds of years old could have this effect on someone. It’s just that this was the music that I encountered.

PAN M 360 : At Mutek 2023, you will present Affect flow (2022), a longform ASMR performance. What can you say about the work without spoiling too much?

Erin Gee : I think I’m working with really different codes of ambient and electronic music. My style is something that’s kind of a cross between your typical, electroacoustic music and something that’s a bit more like a theatrical experience. I use my body, such as doing very precise hand gestures, facial expressions and using my voice in very musical ways to induce trance-like experiences.

I think that this is very unique for electroacoustic music composers because a lot of electroacoustic music composers tend to be incognito, but I’m right there having an experience with you, inviting you into my voice, into my experience… and there’s a lot of humor in it as well. So don’t worry. We don’t need to take it too seriously.

PAN M 360 : In what ways do you invite listeners to rethink preconceived notions of sound and music?

Erin Gee : Normally, you hear music and it emotionally influences you, but I’m really interested in you having the power to emotionally influence your own emotions.

And I give you the tools to do that. I’m using ASMR, which is this internet phenomenon. I like calling it folk hypnotism because it’s hyptonic, but nothing too serious or official. It’s definitely like a folk practice. It was developed by the people for the people.

ASMR is actually like a bunch of emotional hacks that don’t work on everyone, but do on people susceptible to pleasure in touch or who enjoy social touch. I mine all of the codes of ASMR and I apply them towards my performances. I’m interested in people during these biofeedback segments, inviting them to participate in emotional hacking exercises, and then observing how the music changes. Sometimes it « works » and sometimes it doesn’t. I’m not trying to create some impressive algorithm or to trick anyone.

PAN M 360 : Will you keep creating in this general direction in the near furure?

Erin Gee : Oh, absolutely! I’m working on a new ASMR roleplay about decomposition. I’m speaking on behalf of a mushroom that is going to be decomposing your body after death, and this is a bit of a surprising work for me because I take a really open attitude to my work and I really privilege and trust in my creativity to take me to this next step where I need to be creatively, but sometimes I’m not sure what that means until after the work is out in the world.

Pan M 360 : It seems to me that your art often explores the intricate ways in which technology and human emotions affect eachother. Is there a social commentary or criticism that motivates your work?

Erin Gee : My biggest critique is the faith we have in technology. Don’t be wowed by the tech that I got, the tech that’s inside you is actually pretty rad. There is an idea that technology is culture and that emotions are nature. But no : everything is culture – emotions or technology – and it’s all man-made. Facebook recently proved that they could manipulate their user’s emotions : these are social hacks. If the companies are aware of social hacks, why can’t we be aware of it too and have fun with it? Why can’t this be the art of our time? I think we are surrounded by emotional manipulation. To villify the women that are actually making artistic commentary on this (ASMR) is a mistake.

PAN M 360 : Thank you very much!

Erin Gee will be performing Affect Flow at Mutek on Thursday, August 24 at Les 7 doigts de la main (Play 1).

BILLETTERIE

In early August, rapper Neimo unveiled the excellent BOÎTE DE PANDORE, a nine-track mixtape showcasing the Quebecer’s versatility and skills. To coincide with the release, PAN M 360 caught up with the 18-year-old artist at his studio to discuss his story, his influences, his new project and even Hubert Lenoir.

Born in Quebec to two French parents, Neimo grew up in the town of Saint-Eustache. Over the past two years, the young man has released a number of tracks and caught the attention of the Montreal scene, notably with the release of his Né pour briller and Rien n’a changé EPs. His Franco-Quebec accent, his musical universe, his pen and his diversified flows make him an artist to watch in the coming years.

With BOÎTE DE PANDORE, we meet an authentic, transparent and creative Neimo. The artist explores new avenues in the excellent productions he has worked on. We sense that his music is in flux, resulting in moments that are both musically flawed and interestingly different.

Passing through boom bap, trap, more sung tracks and even jazz, the protagonist is accompanied by men on CENDRES and Franky Fade on AROUND THE WORLD, one of the project’s best tracks. This diverse yet coherent offering tells the story of Neimo’s psychological journey during the album’s creation. Lasting around twenty minutes, BOÎTE DE PANDORE is highly accessible and well worth discovering.

Neimo will perform at the Ministère on September 7 during québécois rap artist DVinyle’s album launch.

PAN M 360: Pleased to meet you! Where are you from and how did your passion for music come about?

NEIMO: I was born in Quebec to two French parents, which explains my half-French, half-Quebec accent. I grew up in Saint-Eustache and only moved to Montreal last July. At the age of three, I was introduced to music at the Conservatoire. Later, I took violin in elementary school, for at least an hour every day. By the time I was twelve, I couldn’t stand the violin anymore and decided to sell it. Shortly afterwards, I set up a mini-studio in my bedroom with my laptop, a microphone, a speaker and a sound card. That’s all it took for me to start recording tracks on YouTube-type beats, and here I am today.

PAN M 360: What kind of music did you listen to when you were younger? What do you listen to now?

NEIMO: I listened to a lot of French rap, and still do. The first projects by Caballero & JeanJass and Nekfeu were very important to me. Today, I listen to everything. These days, I’m really into 70s rock and current rap.

PAN M 360: And these artists you’ve just named, is that what you’d like to be like?

NEIMO: This is going to sound surprising, but I’d say they’re not my biggest influences. My favorite artist is Hubert Lenoir. I definitely want to rhyme and impress an artist like Caballero, but I’d like to follow in Hubert’s footsteps more.

PAN M 360: That’s definitely not the answer I was expecting, but it’s true that you can feel Hubert Lenoir’s influence in BOÎTE DE PANDORE. What’s your favourite of his projects?

NEIMO: It’s definitely his most recent, PICTURA DE IPSE: Musique directe. I really like Darlène and the two opuses from his former project The Seasons, but it’s really his latest album that “slapped me in the face”. At first, her album is almost repulsive, because you don’t really understand what you’re listening to. After 3-4 listens, you understand the coherence within the incoherence of his art. His music becomes crystal clear and you can’t stop listening. It got me hooked and even touched me at times. There are phrases that are unusual in popular music. It’s a sincere project and I find it very interesting.

PAN M 360: How would you say this project influenced your new mixtape?

NEIMO: The concept of direct music and simply expressing what’s going on in our lives has inspired me a lot. The track UN AUTRE GARS is a great example of that. Otherwise, his influence can be felt in the visuals, insofar as I let myself go and am not afraid to accept extravagance.

PAN M 360: Let’s talk more about BOÎTE DE PANDORE, your latest project, released on August 4. What was the creative process like?

NEIMO: It’s been a very long creative process. I started working on this mixtape before Né pour briller, my EP released in November 2022. During the creation of BOÎTE DE PANDORE, I went through several questioning phases. On several occasions, the project was almost aborted. It all started a little over a year ago when I was with a friend and we recorded the introduction. At the time, we thought the creative process was going to go like clockwork, but that wasn’t the case. We had to do over 50 tracks to get to the nine that are on the mixtape. The process was very interesting, and it allowed me to ask myself a lot of questions. The first version of the project had more interludes and there was more narrative. After listening to the sounds, we decided to cut some of them to make them more digestible, which forced us to remove some interludes so as not to have too many versus the number of songs. But we still managed to tell the story I wanted to, and I’m really happy with the result.

PAN M 360: What did these interludes allow us to learn about the history of the project? What was the message you wanted to convey?

NEIMO: There was an interlude of a voice recording of a discussion I’d had with a friend where I said I was overwhelmed by my problems, but that I had to deal with them one by one. This piece set the mood for a string of several songs about different problems, but we put it aside. We had also planned to do an interlude to “close” Pandora’s box in the middle of the project to indicate the start of the second half of the mixtape. We also decided to remove it because it was too long. Despite the absence of these interludes, it’s easy to understand my project. BOÎTE DE PANDORE is a very personal project. In a way, it’s about my quest for happiness. It’s about accepting one’s emotions and wanting to achieve a certain inner serenity. The project begins darkly by talking about break-ups, and this is also reflected in the track UN AUTRE GARS. As the project progresses, the vibe becomes softer and we understand that I have a girlfriend. The project follows my mental path and my positive direction. If you listen to the lyrics, you’re following my psychological progress.

PAN M 360: The soundtracks of the various tracks on the project are really interesting. Did you take charge of the project’s production?

NEIMO: In part, yes. Some of the tracks I produced myself, while others required the input of several people. At the very beginning, the project was supposed to be produced by one person, but that didn’t work out. Two producers from France took it over and the mixtape project came back to life. During the process, I would create mock-ups and send them to other colleagues who would add to them. In fact, I worked with Quebec producer Kodakludo on several occasions. It was very enriching to work with different people, and the result was very complete.

PAN M 360: One of my favourite songs is unequivocally AROUND THE WORLD with Franky Fade. What is this song about?

NEIMO: It’s not all joy and celebration yet, but it’s starting to get a bit better. Basically, it’s about making do with what you’ve got to be happy. It’s also about playing shows with friends and “touring the world” with our music. It’s really a song about spending time with friends and being the strongest. It’s very egocentric and raw as a title.

There’s an anecdote I have to tell about AROUND THE WORLD. In the beginning, I received a prod and the sample drove me crazy. At that point, I wrote a first verse and sent it to Franky Fade, who in turn sent it back to me with his part. Franky wanted to rework the drums in the song, but I’d lost the file with the various sound tracks. It was total panic. One day, we finally managed to find the sample and I had to redo the drums and rewrite my verse to finish my track. It’s both the first track I started for the project and the last one I finalized. The second version is much better than the first, so maybe it was a good thing I lost the files!

PAN M 360: With its jazz opening and more sung second half, Différemment stands out from all the other tracks on BOÎTE DE PANDORE. What’s the idea behind this two-step title?

NEIMO: Listen, the opening of the song was recorded at Maison Kekpart, the youth center in Longueuil. I was at a talent show there and simply recorded the jazz band playing on my phone. I figured I’d do something with that sound bite one day, and it became the intro to différemment. As for the second half of the track, I was in my bedroom and it didn’t really feel right. I found three piano chords, put down my phone and started playing and singing. I expressed what I was feeling in the song, and I loved the result. I thought it fitted in well with the jazz soundtrack and it’s one of my favorite tracks on the mixtape.

PAN M 360: After a project like BOÎTE DE PANDORE, what can we expect from you next?

NEIMO: I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, but I think I’ve managed to find myself as an artist through the creation of this project. I feel I’ve come to a more complete and precise project than I’ve done before. I’m more true to myself, and I’ll always try to be more and more sincere in my lyrics. As time goes by, I’m growing up, experiencing new things and having more to say. I want to continue in the direction I’ve taken and see where it all leads. We can expect more collaborations in the future, that’s for sure.

Photo credit: Ludovic Rolland-Marcotte