Mini to the max

>> What to check at Mutek

by KRISTA

The first fest of the summer, Mutek--the festival of music, sound and new technologies (or, the festival of blips, bleeps and minimal beats) got under way yesterday afternoon, Wednesday, May 30. Here's a short, day-by-day synopsis of the remainder of the event's itinerary.

Tonight, May 31 at 9 p.m., the Ex-centris' Fellini Theater welcomes back Germany's mobile "data processing centre," Rechenzentrum. The deutsch trio of Christian Conrad, Lilleran and Marc Weiser, who closely resemble a cross between Huey Lewis and Devo, focus heavily on the dialogue between music and video, taking cues from Burroughs's cut-up techniques and Dadaism to create an electronic listening and viewing environment.

This same night, the Chile-meets-Germany showcase starring the talents of Ric y Martin (not to be confused with...) goes down at the SAT at 11 p.m., along with a performance by Toronto's Mike Shannon.

Friday, June 1 at 9 p.m., the famous Cologne school of minimalism takes the stage at the SAT in the form of acts from the Traum label. France's dramatic minimalist-classicist Philippe Cam will fill the room with floaty French ambient, Brit ex-pat Process demonstrates where math meets music and Argentina's Gustavo Lamas makes warm, gentle waves of sound.

The cocktail set frequenting the SAT on Saturday evening, June 2, for the 5 à 7 will be treated to a show from the first two artists to be featured on the new Montreal-based, techno-oriented Substractif label (an offshoot of Alien8). Toronto's Thomas Jirku and Montreal's Mitchell Akiyama are the premiere talents on the label and will let you know just why.

The second part of the Cologne experience takes place on Saturday night at 9 p.m. at the SAT with a performance from the Kompakt conglomerate. Representatives from Wolfgang Voigt's all-in-one store/studio/label/lab Dettinger, Jonas Bering, Closer Musik and Tobias Thomas will wow crowds with their ability to loop loops, create organic masterpieces with little metal boxes and leap tall buildings in a single bound.

Finally, the festival wraps up Sunday night at the SAT with performances from German-electro-minimal pioneer Thomas Brinkmann and the Perlon label's Dimbiman. Brinkmann's "R&B goes minimal" mastery gives new meaning to the term "white man's groove" while Dimbiman's ability to take the serious out of minimal will surely make for the perfect end to the week's festivities.

For more details call 847-1242 or go to www.mutek.ca