'Tek savvy

CHORDS OF CANADA Montreal's Guillaume & the Coutu Dumonts, a veteran of Mutek, spins his electronic-house sounds at the festival's NYC preview.

Photograph: Miguel Legault

For those still reeling from Miami's recent Winter Music Conference, which is largely an open-bar-chasing drunken revelry dedicated to the almighty boom-boom-boom, the mission statement of Montreal's Mutek festival might read like a screed from an alien civilization. "Mutek," it reads in part, "is dedicated to the dissemination and development of digital creativity in sound, music and audio-visual art. Its mandate is to provide a platform for the most original and visionary artists currently working in their fields, with the intent of providing an outlet of initiation and discovery for the audiences we seek to develop." It's an objective that's positioned Mutek, which holds its tenth edition from May 27 through May 31, as North America's leading electronic-music event. For those looking for a bit of a teaser, Studio B is hosting a preview party on Saturday 11 featuring one of the festival's more club-friendly artists, Guillaume & the Coutu Dumonts.

Even with its lofty, near-academic goals, the festival encountered plenty of resistance prior to its 2000 beginnings. "When we first proposed this event, there were a lot of misperceptions around the kind of electronic music that was associated with clubs and raves," recalls Alain Mongeau, Mutek's founder and director. "We had to battle against a lot of prejudices about it, and there was a lot of combat involved in fighting the ideas, the easy associations, that people had concerning it."

Things have certainly changed: As of press time, Mutek was up for a Montreal tourism award in the category of "festivals and events with a budget under a million dollars." The premier attracted 2,000 participants, last year's attendance reached 12,000, and the festival is expecting 20,000 for the upcoming edition. It's easy to see why, according to Brian Kasenic (the Bunker party's DJ Spinoza), a frequent Mutek attendee whose Beyond Booking organization is producing the NYC party. "I just really love how eclectic—and how good—the lineup is. I mean, Gas [techno visionary Wolfgang Voigt's revered ambient project] is the opening artist! Obviously, they're starting with him so they can get everybody there on the first day, but that kind of shows you how Mutek hasn't sold out—if Gas is the big opening-day draw, that's still extremely cool."

"We've always focused on the artists who have a mission to push those boundaries," Mongeau explains. "An artist like Monolake [techno producer and sound artist Robert Henke, who's creating a sound installation for the upcoming program] is a perfect example. For instance, he's always wanted to make the kind of music that he was imagining, but there was no way to make it happen. So he actually pushed and pushed and pushed and finally created the tools to make that music, which ended up being Ableton Live software, something that's obviously had a tremendous impact on this whole field in the last ten years. That's the kind of artist we are always looking for."

This year's lineup is as strong and varied as ever; besides Gas and Monolake, the roster includes minimal-techno maven Ricardo Villalobos, Detroit veteran Carl Craig and dubstep artist Mala. "When we first had dubstep a few years ago…I don't want to say that was a bold move, because I'm not sure if we do bold moves," Mongeau says with a laugh, "but a lot of people were surprised by it since we had never done it before. People were saying, ‘Oh, Mutek is changing,' but I would disagree—it's just that we're as curious about things as we were when we began."

It's that kind of exploratory attitude that helps to ensure Mutek's future, but it's only now that Mongeau feels any degree of confidence. "Doing something like Mutek is the same as having a child," he says. "You don't really think about the child being 20; you just think about the child being a child. And really, for around the first seven years, we were never sure there was going to be another one. It's like laying bricks, and you don't know if the foundation is going to hold. But maybe three years ago, we finally stopped saying that the next one was going to be the last one."

Mutek_10: Brooklyn Preview is at Studio B Sat 11.

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