by RAF KATIGBAK

Local DJ Vincent Lemieux has a problem with a lot of minimal techno. “It’s very line-dot, y’know? Straight. It’s in the same danger as drum & bass was, in the sense that producers and labels are reusing the same formula and it’s just getting boring. You have to be really unique.

“We didn’t want it to be like that, we wanted it to be something that was completely out there, sort of absurd and ridiculous, almost Dadaist.” He’s talking, of course, about the new label Musique Risquée that he and his partners (Marc Leclair aka Akufen, Scott Monteith aka Deadbeat and Steven Beaupre) are about to kick start into high gear in the New Year.

“It’s easily been two years in the making,” reveals the young DJ, whose regular gigs at Laïka and Bily Kun as well as appearances at several Mutek events have already established him as a veritable pillar of the Montreal minimal techno community (quite literally, in fact, as Lemieux stands well over 6-foot-6). “It was really a question of timing, a question of having the resources and the reputation.”

Reputation is something that Risquée has gained en masse as Lemieux’s partners Akufen (who will produce the first few releases on Risquée) and Deadbeat have been busy blowing shit up on the international techno scene over the last two years. But it wasn’t until one fateful trip to Cologne last summer - when Leclair visited the respected German minimal label Kompakt’s artist and label manager Wolfgang Voight (aka Gas) and easily secured a P&D deal - that their dream became much closer to reality. (A P&D is a production and distribution deal where a small label just sends the artwork and music to a larger label who then takes care of the rest - in short, the Holy Grail of contracts for a fledgling label). Voight’s eagerness to support the Montreal scene comes as no surprise when you consider the strong ties that his label has to our artists. In fact it was on Trapez (a Kompakt sub-label) that Akufen released his much heralded Psychometry 12-inches a few years back, subsequently skyrocketing him into international techno superstardom.

In Montreal’s relatively small scene of successful club-oriented labels (Gotsoul, Bombay, Turbo) as well as a handful of reputable experimental labels (Intr_version, Alien8, Oral), Lemieux saw that there was something missing. “There’s a need for something that we do, stuff that’s not too serious, not necessarily minimal techno per se, but in that sort of vein.

“The name says it all. There’s an accessible side that people will easily be able to get into and then there’s a side that’s completely fucked up and abstract that’s going to make it also really interesting.” :

Label launch with Akufen and Vincent Lemieux
at O Patro Vys on Saturday, Dec. 21, 10pm, $5

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