I wandered a few blocks down St. Catherine St. and made it to the Monument National in time to catch the XLR8R interview with Martyn. This was my first experience with the interview events at Mutek, which I've since come to realize embody the core excellence of this festival: accessibility. The room was tiny and not overful, and Martyn hung out chatting with a few people in the group before the formal interview began. I was a big fan of his early D'nB tunes but haven't heard much of his work since, so it was interesting to hear about what he's working on these days, and how his motivations have shifted.
A brief coffee and journaling break later, I returned to SAT for the Dromo event I'd tried and failed to attend the day before. This installation/performance was housed in a large half-sphere shaped space with the audience lying on mostly-reclined beanbag couch-things. The interior of the space was configured such that every surface could be projected upon, and the visual component of the performance most involved generative imagery filling the viewers visual field. In addition, bright white LEDs arranged around the circumference of the space at floor-level were used to cast moving shadows of the audience and performers onto the walls. I found the piece interesting and engaging, if not totally mind-blowing. The most effective technique for me was the projection of false perspective to make the size and shape of the space appear to shift. Given the fairly uniform shape of the interior and the excellent calibration of the projectors (I couldn't see any overlap brightening anywhere), I really was given the impression that the room was suddenly twenty stories tall, or that the ceiling had suddenly dropped to a few feet from my face.
During the waiting period before and after the performance began, I struck up a conversation with a small group sitting across from me about where the best late-night Chinese food could be found. In the course of that conversation I discovered that one of the group, Emma, was from San Francisco. Further inquiry revealed that we'd talked before, albeit virtually: Emma was involved with the Syzygryd sculture/interactive music installation that debuted at Burning Man 2010, to which I contributed a 30-minute musical "preset." It is truly a small world (of digital arts). Pre-existing connection in hand, we teamed up for the journey all the way across the street for the second A/Visions performance.
A/Visions 2 was my the first time I had my mind blown at Mutek. Nils Frahm, a pianist from Berlin, performed an utterly phenomenal 90 minute solo set on an upright piano (front panel open, stereo mics), a grand piano, a Rhodes electric piano, a synth that looked an awful lot like the Prophet 12, an assortment of Moog effects pedals, and what I'm pretty sure was an original Roland Space Echo. His performance brought together technical virtuosity with moment after magical moment of utter melodic beauty. I am buying all of his albums as soon as I get home- enough said.
The second performance of the evening was as "maximal" a production as Nils was minimal: Herman Kolgen and a group of percussionists performed an intensely cinematic piece called "Train Fragments", stroking huge sheets of metal, bowing glockenspiels, and breathing through what must have been 30 feet of mic'd tubing to create the sounds and soundtrack to accompany a beautiful (and intense) largely computer generated film revolving around a train crash. At the end of the event I had the distinct experience of feeling artistically "nourished", like I'd just eaten a 3-star creative meal. Amazing.
After A/V 2 I ran uptown to meet my weekend Couchsurfing host Eloi and his roommates for a couple of beers. Had a great time connecting with them, and ended up staying far later than I'd initially planned talking politics and liberal frustrations.
After leaving the bar, I ran back downtown in time to catch the last 45 minutes of Martyn's 2:15-3:15am timeslot at SAT. He played a techno-heavy set, and I found myself opening to the nuances of a genre I haven't had a strong interest in historically. Midway through he bumped the tempo up a bit and started dropping early-breakbeat sounds that ultimately led to some nice amen jungle rollers before calling it quits.
Had a great time eating cheese and drinking tea with Emma for a couple hours after the show at her Air BnB'd "chick magnet" loft before stumbling home around 6am. Four hours of sleep later, I was up for Day 3.
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