Montreal Mirror - Music : Kid 606 / Victoriaville '03

Child's play

>> Kid 606 brings the noise at Victoriaville '03

In 1999, with tongue placed firmly in cheek and middle finger pointed skyward, Kid 606's humorous, genre-defying musical potpourri of gabber, pop, drill & bass, hip hop, techno and noise pretty much saved experimental electronic music from its own self-seriousness. Four years later, at the ripe old age of 23, we find the Kid shedding his plunderphonic rep with an all-out, ravey, franticly sample-laden breakbeat assault on the senses. Now, just over a year since his last appearance in la belle province, Kid 606 is ready to take his experimental punk sound to Victoriaville's annual Festival International de Musique Actuelle.

Mirror: It's been about a year since we last talked. Besides the new album, what else have you been up to?

Kid 606: Musically, there's tons of stuff. Me, Gold Chains and a couple of other guys are doing these real authentic West Coast booty tracks. It doesn't sound like Detroit stuff like Databass, DJ Godfather or Assault - it's definitely our own shit.

M: I hear the U.K.'s got a bit of a booty scene starting up.

K606: I was talking to DJ Godfather about that and he's like, "These people are trying to use all our vocalists, asking what kind of gear we use, and we're like, dude, create your own scene, sing about fish and chips!" Godfather swears he's convinced 'em and now they've got this British booty thing, which I can just imagine goes something like, "me girlfriend's got no butt, I got a bag of crisps… fish-fish-fish-fish, chips-chips-chips-chips."

M: What else you got cookin'?

K606: Right now, I think dancehall's the new shit. We started a sublabel called Shock Out and have been buying up a cappellas and doing remixes, real fucked up, Sean Paul type shit. We're licensing an artist called the Bug who features all these dancehall MCs like Daddy Freddy and Tikiman.

M: Dancehall started off with a real futuristic vibe.

K606: Sure, 10 years ago, but now most people try and recreate that sound and it doesn't sound so futuristic anymore. With the Shock Out stuff, we don't give a shit about sounding authentic. We just wanna have tight riddims and really good MCs.

At Cégep de Victoriaville on Saturday, May 17, 12:15am, $18

The more, the hairier

>> A trio of team-ups to catch at Victo this year

Oren Ambarchi/ Hecker

Electronic producer Tim Hecker throws down some musical mayhem with experimental noise guitarist Oren Ambarchi. In this corner you have the Montrealer minimal maverick behind the lush and layered drone releases on Alien8 and Mille Plateaux, in the other Australian audionaut Ambarchi - basically, the ambient experimental music world equivalent to a steel-cage death match.

At Cégep de Victoriaville on Friday, May 16, 5pm, $16

Peaches/Pan Sonic

After their triumphant closing duet with Merzbow last year, Pan Sonic return to FIMAV, this time with Peaches. The latter, after single-handedly blowing away Montrealers on this year's rather sour Electroclash tour, will no doubt prove yet again that she's more than just a sassy-talking sexpot - she's truly a vocal force to be reckoned with.

At Cégep de Victoriaville on Sunday, May 18, 12:15am, $20

Fantomas/Melvins Big Band

The two-pronged attack of Mike Patton's Fantomas project and masters of monstrous sludge the Melvins combines the speed and precision of the experimental with the raw, unbridled energy of heavy metal. This seven-man wrecking crew goes back and forth between repertoires in a musical thrill ride as tight and complex as it is noisy.

At Colisée des Bois-Francs on Monday, May 19, 8:30 pm, $32

» Raf Katigbak

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