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>> Other picks for Victoriaville

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

Thinking of hitting the 20 for some of that crazy experimental music stuff--but confused by all those unpronounceable foreign names? Here's a few highlights from this year's Festival International Musique Actuelle Victoriaville, five days of free-form fun and freakishness.

Day One: Thursday, May 18

Kimmo Pohjonen: This one's dedicated to the Rant Line caller who made the crack about nobody shedding a tear over a dead accordion. Let's just say that Finnish native Pohjonen's rock-based squeezebox racket hasn't much to do with pasta by candlelight.

Pierre Dumont: Part renaissance man, part future man, part crazy old man of the woods, sculptor/percussionist Dumont has a two-fold take on art. First, it's about space and dimensions (that's the sculptor coming through, even in his music). Secondly, it's about the natural world--even if some electronic sandbagging gets applied to his quintet. By the way, some of Dumont's sculpures will also be on display throughout the fest.

Day Two: Friday, May 19

Detention: Joining Edmonton's Vertek in a duo of duos is Montreal's own Detention, in which guitarist Sam Shalabi and drummer Alex MacSween raise a thought-provoking ruckus.

Willem Breuker Kollektief: With a third of a century under their belts, Holland's Breuker and his brass-heavy posse are a cornerstone of experimental music in Europe. This time 'round they're accompanying footage by avant-gardist Van der Keuken, with whom Breuker's had a working relationship as long as he's had his Kollektief. Roll 'em!

Day Three: Saturday, May 20

Bob Ostertag: American sample-wrangler Ostertag's not the kind of out-there artist who's afraid to make concrete sociopolitical statements with his work. His Yugoslavia Suite incorporates video games, military training videos, aftermath footage and Milosevic's ugly puss to remind us that war is war and war is bad, no matter where it is or how "surgical" the war pigs say it is.

Martin Tétreault/DJ Pocket/DJ Mutante: Okay, this is going to be nuts. Between Pocket's hip hop chops, Mutante's hardcore techno terrorism and Tétreault's wild excursions into the very essence of the turntable as instrument, you've got enough ground for some substantial head-on vinyl insanity.

Day Four: Sunday, May 21

David Thomas: Although never as flat-out absurd as the Dadaist play which gave them their name, Thomas' band Pere Ubu helped define what would become "alternative rock." That was 25 years ago--today, Thomas is fooling around with stuff like Mirror Man, a pseudo-operatic reflection on language and geography. Think of it as a scenic busride through a dictionary of onomatopoeias.

Day Five: Monday, May 22

This is the closing day, and the Victo tricksters are pulling out the stops. Things get rolling with guitarist René Lussier, a mainstay on the Quebec actuelle scene, tackling Goethe's Faust in a work called Le contrat. Next up is that nutty nut Jean Derome, calling in the likes of Tom Walsh, Joane Hétu and Pierre Tanguay for a meditation on the experience of camping. You know, sleeping bags and black flies and all that. Onwards to even bigger guns, you've got Fred Frith and Chris Cutler teaming up--two names who, since the days of Henry Cow, have busted up the concepts of jazz, rock and experimental music with gleeful abandon. Matters come to a close on a high note when septuagenarian Cecil Taylor, one of those for whom the term "free jazz" was coined in the first place, sits himself down behind the piano. :

Check FIMAV program for further details, or go to www.fimav.qc.ca