MUTEK2008: Thursday, May 29th

Well, at least the indoor events were a guaranteed good time!

Certainly the worst weather for a MUTEK in recent memory, this year’s fest was still up to the same standards as previous years in other ways.

Panel 1: When Promotion Becomes Distribution

Starting halfway through the first panel, entitled When Promotion Becomes Distribution, there were a few nuggets, mainly courtesy of Kompakt distribution’s Jon Berry, who assured us, after a particularly vinyl-is-dead comment from the audience, that while it’s not like it was a decade ago, it is definitely not dead, with 10 000-selling records still very much an occurrence where he works.

The question of the environmental impact of vinyl was brought up, with Berry jumping in to say that 90% of vinyl records are recycled, though the question of shipping was still an issue.

There was also some insight into the apparently simplistic mentality of club bookers when it comes to live electronic acts, that being “new album = I book you!” Albums - instead of just singles - have become a priority for many of the labels Kompact distributes for this very reason.

Panel 2: The Ecology of Festivals: Beyond Filling Venues

This next panel was more about the culture that festivals come out of rather than the environmental considerations that the title implied. The most interesting part was hearing Leo de Boisgisson, a promoter based in Beijing, talk about putting on electronic events in a country where the red tape is particularly Red.

She started with a story about how, in the 80s, a huge shipment of cassette tapes bound for Chinese recycling plants had gone missing and ended up on the black market. A whole generation of Chinese music-lovers learned about Western pop music - rock, hiphop, you name it - from this one “lost” shipment.

With the internet, access to Western culture is now much easier, but putting on live shows is still a challenge, starting with the idea that the authorities are afraid of both large public gatherings and modern music. One event, intended to be free, was made to have a charge (about $12 for 2 days and a club night) because the authorities were worried about the uncontrolled flow of people in a free event. Then, as is often the case with Chinese events, the army was stationed as security in front of the stage. Coming as it did after weeks of trying to convince the powers-that-be that this would not be necessary, the promoters successfully suggested a compromise that, instead of army fatigues, the soldiers wear festival t-shirts.

A/Visions 2: Cinematic Visions

A very strong visual component is what’s on the menu for the A/Visions series, this one featuring Németh and Hess‘ Film project, consisting of a drummer on the left side of the stage and some sort of manned techno telephone switchboard on the right side. Sonically it was quite good, cinematic and hypnotic, but there were several points where very loud high frequencies came flying out of the mix, prompting a few people - myself included - to plug their ears until it passed.

Following this was German laptop + visuals duo Rechenzentrum presenting their Silence project. Musically it ran a disjointed gamut from soothing ambient sounds to noise to straight-up dancefloor thumping, competently done but taking a back seat to the visuals, which were, simply put, absolutely stunning. Consisting of very simple tricks: monochrome nature and urban stills faded and moved around, it was nonetheless perfect eye-candy.