Thanks to Navi for sharing this with me. Is it weird to listen to just a little clip over and over again in one evening?
Nils Frahm performed live not once, not twice, but thrice (is that a real word? it is now!) at Mutek this past year, but the Hot Sauce crew managed to somehow miss him all three times. We heard his sets were phenomenal and a highlight of the festival for many. Kicking myself more than a little for missing it.
More experimental electronics, less piano virtuoso.. but still not your typical Boiler Room set:
Less experimental electronics, more piano virtuoso (you can download this whole thing for free here.. and with an invite to rework the tracks for you creative types!):
Update: There’s a full clip of “Says” (from the album teaser video) floating about in the Soundcloud universe:
Our friends Stuart Li (aka Basic Soul Unit, one of my fave producers fo’ realz) and Jason Ulrich have been throwing Lab.our of Love parties in Toronto for some time now, and both have some seriously good taste in music (in my humbly good taste in music opinion! Ahem). Happy to hear they are now releasing top tunes on their newly minted label, Lab.our.. you know it’s all gonna be good! Check out some snippets from Basic Soul Unit’s new release (Lab.our 01):
And a sampling of what we have to look forward to in October (Lab.our 02) from upcoming Toronto producer, Maxwell Church:
Oh yes! Keep it coming, guys! Also, catch them on the decks at the Lab.our 01 record release party this Saturday night at a very unique venue. You know you wanna.
Update: Check out Lab.our Podcast 01, a taster mix from Jason Ulrich for Saturday!
We’re pretty excited by the lineup at the upcoming 2nd annual Sound in Motion independent electronic music festival, organized with love by our friends at StudioFeed. Kode9, Pinch, Akufen, Basic Soul Unit, Daniel Bell, Audio Werner, DeepChord, SlowPitch, and more more more.. say what?! There’s even a free outdoor event, and a critical mass musical bike ride (check the website for more info!). Yup, see you on the dancefloor.. and also with a SubPac at your back!
In Dubstep/Bass, Electronic, Event, Hot Sauce Crew, House, Live, MissRuckus, Music, Photos, Tech House, Techno, urbansteve
By urbansteve
Robert Hood live at Metropolis
All three members of the Hot Sauce crew finally made the trip up together to Montreal for MUTEK 2013 – the International Festival of Digital Creativity and Electronic Music. We had a phenomenal time dancing for 4 long nights to the forward thinking sounds of mostly live electronic acts. Highlights for us included Pantha du Prince and the Bell Laboratory’s astounding live performance in a Symphony Hall, Robert Hood’s live set and Boiler Room DJ set, Efdemin’s 3:00am throwdown, Andy Stott’s slow motion rumbling performance, Nosaj Thing’s eclectic sounds, Boundary’s world premiere, Graze’s debut (Adam Marshall and XI) and Brandt Brauer Frick’s revamped stripped down live set.
Boundary (Ghislain Poirier’s new project) at Société Des Arts Technologiques
Venue hopping between the Société Des Arts Technologiques (SAT) and the Metroplis – located right around the corner from each other- we got to take in almost all the acts we intended to see. At times, we had to make hard choices – I missed Martyn’s set in favour of Wishmountain (Matthew Herbert’s vinyl techno set).
Matthew Herbert as Wishmountain at Metropolis
Brandt Brauer Frick at Metropolis
When it comes down to thoughtful programming; boundary-pushing live performances; world class venues; digital creativity, immersive visuals, and a charming city with an arts-centric infrastructure – one might be hard pressed to find another electronic music festival in the world that out-Muteks MUTEK.
Please read our more in-depth review of MUTEK we did for Juno Plus out of London, UK. It’s quite entertaining! Click here.
Efdemin at Metropolis
Pantha du Prince and the Bell Laboratory at Maison Symphonique
View more of our MUTEK photos here.
When I first came across Daft Punk‘s “Get Lucky” from their new album, I couldn’t stop listening to it on repeat (i.e. 5000x in a row on each listen.. I’m excessively obsessive like that).
A few days ago, a friend turned me onto this fantastic cover by London UK’s Daughter and now I can’t stop listening to this one either. Enjoy!
You can check out Daughter’s album, If You Leave, on 4AD here. Her voice kinda reminds me of Chan Marshall (aka Cat Power).
We’re at Mutek Montreal! Caught a chat with Laurel Halo today, hosted by The Wire. Her debut LP “Quarantine” (released on one of our fave labels, Hyperdub) received numerous accolades in 2012, and a new album is in the works, this time featuring all instrumental/percussive/sample-based tracks.
Although this doesn’t mean that her haunting vocals will be gone forever, Halo revealed that she feels happier and more comfortable standing behind her instrumental music than her vocal music. Writing lyrics for her previous work included crying sessions (interspersed with running to her gear to write melodies in between) and reaching deep down to pull up that deeply personal, anxiety-ridden side of the psyche that she’s weaved as lyrics throughout her music on past recordings. On the flip side, creating instrumental, sample-based music is a transcendent process that means tapping into a much more joyous and hopeful side, a side that she also hopes she inspires with her music, despite the bleak sound she is known for. For Halo, music-making in general is a cathartic process which serves as an outlet for her general dissatisfaction with the world.
Now based in New York City where she can’t help but draw some inspiration (“the skyline is a cemetary,” says Halo), the influence of her home state, Michigan, plays a prominent role to our ears as well, but this may be because of her tools of choice which just have that quality about them: that machinistic, all analogue, all hardware sound that features in the sound of classic Detroit techno (despite Halo’s music sometimes sounding worlds apart on the surface). Unlike with her first releases, Ableton is now only used for her editing process, playing a back seat to production hardware. Maybe we’re not that far off with this connection though because Halo says she likes playing around with the idea of futurism and what the future means. She tells us that she is drawn to the notion of an infinite moment: jamming, letting the shackles of the world go, and just being in the infinite present.
Catch Laurel Halo Saturday at Mutek’s Nocturne 4.
Laurel Halo – Thaw (from ‘Quarantine’ LP, 2012), unofficial video from David Dean Burkhart
All three of the Hot Sauce crew will be road tripping it to Montreal for Mutek this year to do coverage for UK-based Juno Plus and for your favourite blog (what do you mean “which blog?” You know you love us!). Follow us on Twitter for in-the-moment updates, and watch this space for upcoming photos, reviews, and interviews! We look exactly like Shingo’s drawings of us so if you spot us, come up and say hi! While you wait for this year’s fantabulous Hot Sauce coverage of the festival, check out urbansteve’s review of last year’s festival. Drama! Intrigue! Poutine!
In other festival news, Toronto seems to be where it’s at these days if you like your music with a lil’ beats + bass. Some of the festivals/music series happening in this city include Electric Island (we were on the Toronto Islands last Monday for Seth Troxler), and the completely corporate-free, independent Sound in Motion (hello, Kode9?! Pinch?! DeepChord?! Daniel Bell?! Think we’re just a little excited?). Hurray for good people who still believe in independent music in an age of increasing corporate encroachment into our underground music scenes (and lives in general..).
For a list of other summer festivals across the country, check out this handy guide in Exclaim!
And tonight? We’ll be dancing and blowing out our eardrums on the sub bass at Mala at a secret TO warehouse location (well, not so secret anymore). See ya!
I’m on a music kick this Saturday afternoon! Spent a lazy afternoon feeling uplifted since music has a way of creeping into my spirit like that. Started by tuning in to the sounds of one of my favourite radio selectors, Gilles Peterson (amazing show today, featuring Lonnie Liston Smith and plenty of spiritual jazz and cosmic funk), then on to this free stream of Future Foundations (courtesy of FACT Magazine), a fine UK bass compilation put out by London imprint, 2nd Drop. Check out the nice packaging for the vinyl! The comp features tracks by the likes of Djrum, Pedestrian, Alex Coulton, South London Ordnance, and more.
Got a bit sidetracked there (music can do that to ya!).. this is the main reason for my post today:
On more of that industrial techno tip that has me happy these days, here are a few live mixes from November of last year when oldies Surgeon and Regis, and newbies Karenn (aka: a project of Pariah and Blawan) graced the Boiler Room one evening with their magic. That slow, tense build that starts the last mix by Surgeon is devastating (my friend Earl Grey likes to use that very appropriate word to describe amazing musical things, so imma steal it from him!)…
Enjoy!
(View the Regis video here)
(View the Karenn video here)
(View the Surgeon video here)
