Fete inflators

>> Montreal’s genre-jumbling graphic geeks
Nu Ravers on the Block celebrate their first year of musical finds and shaking behinds

BIRTHDAY BOUNCE: Patrice Mathieu (L) and Edouard Lê

by JACK OATMON

Hanging your hat on a flashflood subculture spawned from a disowned inside joke gone catastrophically wrong may seem like pretty risky business. Especially when the butt of the joke is a phenomenon buried by a decade’s worth of dust. I’m talking about the self-deprecating jumble of laptop producers, synth rock bands and lo-fi disco acts that comprise what is often called “new rave.”

But whether it’s semantic revisionism or a bona fide musical genre, the new rave style is something that has gained a very stable following in Montreal in an exceptionally short period of time, and Edouard Lê (aka Mr. Ed) and Patrice Mathieu (aka Mr. P), the core duo of party production squad Nu Ravers on the Block, are the sound’s prime proponents in the city.

In just one year, they’ve managed to collaborate with local institutions such as Piknic Électronik, Neon, Peer Pressure and Turbo Recordings, as well as numerous other crews from around town. These established cosignatories stand as evidence of both Montreal’s notoriously intertwined club scene and the mounting success of NROTB events.

“We’re friends with those people,” declares Mathieu over the din of a packed supper crowd at Cagibi. “We like doing collaborations. There’s no point in having two big parties going on at the same time, so we just discuss it and set something up together. That way, everybody’s happy.”

Originally from Quebec City, the duo have been partying around town for a decade, but only decided to start DJing and throwing parties last year, for Mr. Ed’s 30th birthday.

“We wanted to do a birthday bash at Vinyl,” says Lê. “We made up the flyers, picked the name and threw the party.”

They say the name popped up because they wanted to start something fresh in the city. “That was the new style at that time because of bands like the Klaxons, and it was the type of music we were listening to a lot. It wasn’t very well known then either, so it was a good opportunity to throw parties and do something new.”

The filth and the flashy

Curiously enough, however, behind the ramshackle clip art and trashy aesthetic of the parties hide two very serious graphic designers. At their day jobs at Fly Studio, where Mr. Ed and Mr. P have worked together for six years, they have a noteworthy gamut of clients ranging from Cirque du Soleil to Bette Midler.

“At work, it’s really serious graphic design that we do, so it’s very different,” explains Lê. “In the beginning, we just wanted to chuck the flyers together. We found textures on the Internet and stuck them together. Collage, lo-fi, 8-bit.”

The cryptic aggregations of grim symbolism, day-glo kitsch and wild animals on their posters and t-shirt line certainly contrast with the clean, refined images they produce at Fly Studio.

“It’s totally different than at work,” chimes in Mathieu. “Our style evolves and we go with what we like. It’s fun because we still do graphic design, but with this, we can do more of what interests us.”

Eye candy

Of course, the focus on design and fashion begs the question as to whether the flair is as important to the events as the music itself.

“Well, it’s a part of it,” responds Lê. “When people see that, they associate it with the culture and the music. It’s a bit like the early ’90s, when raving got big and people went all out on the flyers. It was almost like a competition to see who could have the biggest, nicest design for their party. People spending $4,000 on just the flyers, with holograms on them and stuff.”

“People like to see that stuff,” adds Mathieu. “And it’s more likely to draw in people who are interested than something drab.”

“The goal of the parties is really to introduce the people of the Montreal scene to things they haven’t discovered yet,” says Lê. “The artists we’re bringing in are often emerging artists in electronic music. It’s great—we can bring names our audience doesn’t know, because a lot of people come to our parties to discover new things. So we can bring in artists that would otherwise be harder to sell, but people are there because it’s a Nu Ravers party.”

For the coming months, NROTB are focusing on larger events, as well as on producing their own music. They’ve also recently started releasing tracks online and have plans for more remixes and original songs in the near future.

As for the anniversary, they have a suitably distracting lightshow planned to complement the erratic hurly-burly of the acts they’ve booked to perform.

“We’ll have VJs doing big-screen projections and LED displays,” says Lê. True to form, the duo will have something of a multimedia panopticon set up to record the action. “A camera will be filming the dancefloor so that the people at the party can be mixed into the projections and visuals live at the show.

“We’ve definitely moved up to a different level from our first party at Vinyl last year.”

NROTB 1st anniversary party with les Petits Pilous,
Felix Cartal, Heartsrevolution, DJ Cherry Cola and
NROTB DJs at SAT on Saturday, Feb. 2, 9 p.m., $16

>> A rundown of the acts on
tap at the NROTB party

Heartsrevolution: Though more centred on the bling than the angst, Leyla Safai and Ben Pollock are NYC’s answer to Crystal Castles, with whom they have done a limited-run split EP. Nintendo-core temper tantrums with crunchy, filtered vocals bounce strangely off synth-pop ballads and noisy, distorted disco tracks on their releases. Their newest single, “C.Y.O.A.” (for “choose your own adventure”) has both a corresponding t-shirt out on shit-hot surf/skate fashion line RVCA and a glitzy music video produced by Parisians HANDZ.TV. The live performance is a shrill addition to the ranks of the laptop karaoke boom. Not only that, but they have a pink ice-cream truck called the Heartschallenger that delivers candy, imported international frozen treats and toys to dance parties and cultural events all over, and has been featured in Vice, Elle, XLR8R, enRoute and the New York Times Magazine, amongst numerous others. Check for evidence of their bizarre adventures at www.heartschallenger.com. Anybody else get the feeling that truck’s a front?

Felix Cartal: Sometimes-Vancouver-based Cartal is the latest contribution to the French electrohouse explosion, complete with grating uptempo ear-busters called “Montreal Dreams” and “Parisienne,” if the geographical influences weren’t obvious enough already. Originally from France, his Ashlee Simpson and Britney Spears remixes are yet more blog fodder to attest to his native affinity for Ed Banger-style releases, chainsaw synths and cheesy pop vocals.

Les Petits Pilous
Mediterranean Frenchmen and Boys Noize signees les Petits Pilous are in the game of glitch techno, scrambled samples, analog-aping laptop house and other such headache remedies. With a strong focus on looping, feedback and intentional distortion, these boys with toys lay right at the point where house heads and the noise set intersect. It’s bloodcurdling and ear-piercing in just the right way to make adolescents want to get a leather jacket and start staying out after bedtime drinking malt liquor. They’ve also got some tunes out on local label Turbo.