Techno has a bit of a reputation for impermanence – ephemeral labels releasing records by even more ephemeral aliases. Take Ilian Tape, for example, – the German record label was founded in 2007 but released its second LP, Shred by Skee Mask, only two weeks ago on February 1. Little is known about the band, besides being from Munich and having released two EPs on Ilian Tape in the past two years. The lack of an image to latch onto can make it difficult to distinguish bands who tend to appear only rarely; nevertheless, a distinct techno sound is there. While Skee Mask doesn’t innovate or push the boundaries of techno, Shred is a well-produced album with great sequencing.

The album opens with “Everest,” an ambient track with gently pulsating and atmospheric synths. The track sets the mood for the album: certainly nocturnal and a bit cold, but not unwelcoming. For the most part, the rest of Shred bears the usual markers that techno producers have used for the past 25 years: cold, mechanistic synthesized drums, a lack of vocals, and relatively sparse, repetitive synthesizer arrangements.

Starting with “HAL Conv.,” the album progressively picks up steam. The track is still fairly subdued, with its quiet, skittery beats perhaps more suited for home listening than for dancing. But the misleadingly named “Autotuned” begins a series of sounds where each is more hard-hitting and danceable than the previous one, culminating in the sixth track, “Melczop 2.” This track’s synth arrangements are still fairly atmospheric, even delicate. However, the breakbeat-inspired drums in the sound are much more aggressive than the preceding tracks. “Melczop 2” is an excellent payoff for all the buildup of the first five tracks, and a definite highlight.

The next few tunes represent something of a comedown; the drums hit a bit less hard and the songs are less immediate. However, “Japan Air” and “Shady Jibbin’” feature fairly intricate and complex drum patterns, which makes them stand out among other sounds. The final track, “South Mathematikz,” is an excellent closer, subdued, and influenced by breakbeat similar to that heard in “Melczop 2.” While Skee Mask doesn’t stray far from techno’s usual characteristics, there’s a lot of artistry and subtlety in Shred. The album creates a nice experience not unlike a good DJ set.

Moss Lime – Zoo du Québec

Zoo du Québec is the third and most recent album by Moss Lime, a relatively new Montreal band that has grown in popularity since it appeared in 2014. Released on December 8, it features repetitive vocals with rhythmic undertones. The band’s music is best categorized as psychedelic rock. Moss Lime’s own interpretation of the genre has a unique indie feel, which adds character and authenticity to the album, making it snappy and identifiable right away. However, despite its creative direction, Zoo du Québec is lacking in quality of execution, as some instruments do not contribute to the band’s blend of sound equally, but, rather, leave it to the vocals and minimalist beat to do the trick.

Most of the songs in Zoo du Québec start with a catchy guitar introduction, which does an excellent job drawing the audience into the musical vibe. One of the songs, “Bottom Feeder,” has an especially luring mysteriousness to it, growing into an assertive beat and intense lyrics: “Couldn’t be more depressed / I think we’re both repressed.” The sound’s energetic pulse creates a feeling of self-assertiveness, but the guitar’s piercing chords splash ambiguity onto the melody, best exemplified by “Rock Paper.”

Quite often, however, the flow of the sound falters when more instruments are introduced. The band attempts to add depth to its music with multiple layers and syncopated patterns, but the final product ends up sounding messy and out of sync. The drums are especially lacking in consistency and clarity. Some rhythms have the potential to be quite good, but are muddled by the lack of coordination.

Nevertheless, Zoo du Québec continues the psychedelic rock staple of repetitive beats and vocals. The recurring vocals’ unconventionality is particularly good at capturing that kaleidoscopic sound known to fans. However, the pattern’s inconsistent rhythm is a hindrance to audience engagement with the tune, which leaves most songs sounding stale.

Despite some shortcomings in execution, Moss Lime’s psychedelic mix of sounds has a lot of potential. Zoo du Québec is a unique blend of upbeat minimalism with a fusion of playful guitar and intense blunt vocals. Fans of minimalist psychedelic tunes will have no trouble distinguishing the album among others.

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Seoul attempts to distance itself from frequent comparisons to the electropop of Passion Pit with I Become a Shade. Compare the bright, hectic energy of Passion Pit’s “Sleepyhead” to any of the tracks on Shade – Seoul’s sound is much more subdued. If a comparison has to be made, French synth pop group M83 might do. Seoul crafts a similarly lush atmosphere comprised of synth textures straight out of the 80s, layered with indistinct vocals. Another comparison might be drawn to the work of Dev Hynes, who records under the name Blood Orange and has co-produced tracks for Solange and Sky Ferreira. Seoul’s “Stay With Us” invokes Hynes’ slick sound, peppered with guitar flourishes reminiscent of disco guitarist Nile Rodgers.

Dream pop typically features distorted and indistinct vocals, and the tracks on I Became a Shade are no exception. This indistinct quality lends the lyrics a certain intimacy. Lyrics become thoughts on Ward’s mind, confessions not necessarily meant to be heard by others.

Seoul tries to move away  from this derivative sound on Shade. Self-ascribed as consisting of three “distinct suites, equal parts […] dream-pop, […] r&b, and […] ambient,” Shade provides a generic ambience. “Fields,” “Thought You Were,” and “Carrying Home Food in Winter” are all short tracks invoking the sparse instrumental work of Icelandic band Sigur Rós.

The closer, “Galway,” is probably the most original track on the album, with dense, reverb-heavy synths creating an intimate, moody pop feel. It’s also the hardest song to tune out to, with no catchy chorus for the less mainstream elements to hide behind.

Seoul’s lyrics, co-written by Ward, Flavin, and Garcia, reflect a poignant existential restlessness and dissatisfaction. In “Haunt,” Ward asserts, “I won’t be living in this miserable city again.” Dream pop typically features distorted and indistinct vocals and the tracks on I Became a Shade are no exception. This indistinct quality lends the lyrics a certain intimacy. Lyrics become thoughts on Ward’s mind, confessions not necessarily meant to be heard by others.

Notwithstanding the technical success of the album, its monotony is hard to ignore. The three suites are anything but distinct and the tracks blend too easily together. Lacking in innovation, I Become a Shade dangerously approaches a series of pastiches. “I Negate” instantly recalls Beach House, “Real June” M83, “Fields” Sigur Rós, et cetera. As a debut album, I Become a Shade is promising, featuring some excellent production. That said, the band’s existential troubles clearly go beyond its lyrics — Seoul is audibly struggling to find itself on this first release.

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In 2011, she released the first chapter in the COIN COIN series, COIN COIN Chapter One: Gens de couleur libres. That record blended spoken word, art-song, lullabies, and heart-wrenching screams within a jazz framework somewhat reminiscent of Pharoah Sanders’ work in the early seventies. The next chapter in the series, Mississippi Moonchile, focused much more heavily on jazz alone, having only a few short spoken word segments and singing occasionally throughout the record.

Now, with River Run Thee, Roberts has completely reversed that trajectory. River Run Thee strays far from jazz into drone, noise, and avant-garde music, and her storytelling is much more surreal now than on previous installments. While this makes for her most challenging and least accessible record by far, repeated listens reveal that this also may be her most accomplished and fully-realized album yet.

In the first two chapters, the spoken word was very much in focus, high in the mix. On River Run Thee, spoken word segments come and go without clear beginnings or ends, recorded low in the mix, producing a very surreal quality. Roberts adds to the surrealism of her storytelling with the great variety in source material.

While Chapter One mostly focused on one narrative, Chapter Three draws from a number of sources, including field recordings from the American South, the ship’s log of an abolitionist in East Africa, and a speech by Malcolm X. The album opens with the lines, “your sadness grows as years roll by / you grow remorse, may even cry / woe to live, afraid to die / the weeping of the willow.” These words of despair frame the album, establishing themes of sadness and black liberation, and tying together the diverse stories that follow.

The music behind the narratives fits very well, its abstract elements mirroring the fragmented words. Sax drones, pulses of electronic noise, and wandering, eerie vocal performances weave in and out of the mix, creating a kind of hallucinatory ambiance. The storytelling and soundscapes come together to make the listener feel as if the album is just one long dream.

The lack of melody and structure does not make for easy listening, but after an initial shock, River Run Thee becomes very immersive. The pieces all seem to fit together very well – River Run Thee, like Mississippi Moonchile, was conceived of as one continuous piece rather than the distinct movements of Gens de couleur libres. The result is abstract yet beautiful, evoking a powerful dread or unreality. Roberts sounds more inspired on River Run Thee than ever before, which makes braving the difficult soundscapes definitely worth the effort.

 
COIN COIN Chapter Three: River Run Thee was released February 3 on Constellation Records.

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That doesn’t mean they’re not there – there’s a few women in the lineup, and a couple more producing visuals for the festival – but they receive no visibility. All of the headliners are men (including the misleadingly named Girl Unit). To combat this issue of visibility and promote female DJs, some members of the Montreal scene recently formed the DJ collective FéMTL. The collective’s launch party, which took place last Saturday, highlighted five female DJs working in Montreal: Amanda’Mour, Claire, Eloïze, Isa Ghio, and Monokini San.

FéMTL’s launch party took place in a loft in the Old Port owned by the co-op La Commune. Alex Grenier, president of the co-op, explained to The Daily that while La Commune operates its space mainly as a “cooperative coworking space for tech entrepreneurs,” one of its goals is also “to encourage female participation in activities that seem traditionally male-orientated, in technology as well as arts and culture.”

From underground legends of the past like Larry Levan, Frankie Knuckles, and Jeff Mills to current festival-conquering electronic dance music (EDM) acts like Skrillex, deadmau5, and Calvin Harris, DJing (on the surface at least) comes across as a very male-dominated field.

This first event was a relatively small affair; Grenier described the party as “semi-private,” and at any one time there were around two dozen people dancing in the loft. A couple of couches, a makeshift bar, some colour-changing lights, and the DJ’s setup were the only features in an otherwise empty loft. In some ways, however, the event felt even more intimate because of this.

Musically, the DJ sets focused around techno but remained very diverse, ranging from proto-techno classics such as Cybotron’s “Clear” and Kraftwerk’s “Home Computer” to more recent tracks. The DJs also played a number of different styles both within the techno umbrella (like acid, minimal, and Detroit) and outside it (like deep house and UK garage). Even though there was a general sense of stylistic unity in the sets, the DJs brought enough variety to keep the energy level high. The relatively simple setup combined with the energetic sets kept the dancing, and the female DJs, as the focus of the evening.

But while the focus of this event was the DJs, the sets were actually less concerned with glorifying the DJ figure than most EDM concerts, and more with innovation and musical liberty. Several of the DJs stated the importance of looking past labels in their work. Claire expressed a love for techno in all “its various incarnations” and Monokini San said of her style: “I am absolutely obsessed by 2-step and garage sounds. But I wouldn’t consider myself a 2-step DJ or anything like that. I easily mix deep dub techno with garage that will not please garage fans but initiate a new sound, something that will make you dance and forget about genres or labels.”

The DJs at FéMTL’s launch party seem to agree that the gender disparity is still a problem, with all who spoke to The Daily saying that they believe there are more male DJs than female DJs, not just in Montreal but in the world at large. Claire noted, however, that this gender imbalance in DJing is “rapidly changing,” indicating an even more urgent need to support the new influx of female DJs.

This where groups like FéMTL come in. Women have always played a major role in EDM, including as DJs. Traditionally, however, women have only been recognized as the voice of the production, with female vocalists on seminal tracks such as Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” and Inner City’s “Big Fun.” But women have always played an important role behind the boards as well, from Screamin’ Rachael, co-founder of Chicago house music label Trax Records, to Kemistry and DJ Storm, two female DJs instrumental in the pioneering drum and bass label Metalheadz. These are the women we don’t hear about often. Groups like FéMTL are making sure that these DJs get the recognition they deserve and creating space for new female DJs to enter the scene.

These are the women we don’t hear about often. Groups like FéMTL are making sure that these DJs get the recognition they deserve and creating space for new female DJs to enter the scene.

Claire also spoke to the importance of female DJs as role models, pointing to women who have played a decisive role in her life as a DJ. When she was living in Nova Scotia, she and her friends had a party in a cabin in the woods. “This [was] the first time I could see the DJ booth up close and personal, and when I went up there because I liked the music I noticed a girl was playing. As I watched her hands slip over the records I thought, ‘I could totally do this!’ and resolved to learn.” Events like those being planned by FéMTL encourage exactly these kinds of interactions.

“The further ahead I get in the game, the less difference I see in how I’m treated,” Claire said, but admitted she is still sometimes treated differently because she is a woman, as sometimes a male promoter, organizer, or artist will start “putting on the moves.” Seeing other female DJs perform could give female DJs who are just starting out some much-needed confidence to overcome discriminatory treatment.

Similar to her views on music, Monokini San also wants to get beyond gender labels. “For me playing with girls is a bit weird,” she explained. “I will put [down] badass tracks as usual and hopefully one day people will understand that there isn’t any gender really, just people.”

Unlike Monokini San, Claire does see a difference between male and female DJs. “The one comment that I have received very often and that I do believe is true about female DJs,” she said, “is that we DJ from our hearts. So don’t lose this magic, because it will allow you to have a very special connection with the audience, and yourself.”

Whether or not a difference exists between DJs based on gender, there is undoubtedly an unjust difference in their level of exposure. Thankfully, groups like FéMTL are slowly helping to change that, one track at a time.

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Now, straight out of their improvised loft studio, Buck-Moore and Hahn, joined by Drew Barnet on drums, have released a new follow-up single, “Spirit School/Tasting.” The first thing that strikes listeners familiar with last year’s EP is that the band has upped the fuzz on their sound. The A-side, “Spirit School,” is mostly in line with Melodion, with the exception of an unfamiliar fuzzy guitar that drones throughout much of the song. This shift toward shoegaze is even more noticeable on the B-side, where the swirling guitar effects and atmospheric synths in “Tasting” bring to mind My Bloody Valentine’s 2013 album m b v. It’s a subtle change, but one that Slight pulls off well. The increased psychedelic and shoegaze influences, combined with the soft pop of before, make the group’s sound slightly more distinct. Their energy level on this new release is also higher than the first EP. Aside from this shift, however, not much else about the new release is remarkable in terms of the band’s development.

The vocals, for one, are unremarkable, but they don’t seem to be the focus. The lyrics of “Spirit School” come across as a metaphor for an unsatisfying relationship. The narrator sets up an image of “halls and rooms convincing me to stay” but complains “It’s not all on me/what we do when we’re asleep.” Unfulfilling relationships consistently inspire music across the board, from the powerfully moving to the the eye-roll-inducing cliche. For Slight, the relationship-inspired lyrics are too ambiguous to have any sort of emotional impact. Meanwhile, the vocals to “Tasting” are so obscured through effects and filters that the lyrics are hard to discern – but this is is often the case for shoegaze music, which is more about atmosphere and timbre than lyricism. As such, the lyrics don’t add much to the music. The vocals are more of a background layer, a feature like the fuzzy guitar, not noteworthy but still noticeable – they would be missed if the tracks were purely instrumental.

“Spirit School/Tasting” is a promising single. While there’s nothing about it that really stands out, that may be the point – not to take any of the elements as independent, but to simply listen and absorb. In terms of the band’s development, it shows a new level of sophistication, incorporating various influences to produce a more distinguishable sound. Indie rock and psychedelic fans should keep a lookout for Slight – they won’t grab you immediately, but you might just like what you hear.

Both Melodion and Spirit School/Tasting are available for digital download at the band’s Bandcamp page. Slight will perform at Sala Rossa on November 22 at 7 p.m. as part of M for Montreal.

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House music began in Chicago in the mid-eighties as the heir to disco, and has since spawned a plethora of sibling genres and subgenres. Today, EDM (an umbrella term for dance music including house, techno, et cetera) is inescapable, from gigantic music festivals like Coachella to McGill dorms. While this might seem to signal a new surge in popularity for the genre, Sheaf says that’s not the whole story. “Some of the biggest chart hits of the eighties, nineties, and 2000s were straight-up house records,” he says. “Off the top of my head, [there was] Inner City’s ‘Good Life,’ Madonna’s ‘Vogue,’ Nightcrawlers’ ‘Push the Feeling On,’ and then the various strains of house that came out of France: Daft Punk, Modjo, et cetera.”

Sheaf does agree that a change is taking place, stating that “[house] vinyl sales have increased dramatically in the past five years relative to the decade before that, and more and more [event] nights seem to be starting up all over the place.” But the change is not a sudden discovery of house music so much as its evolution and reappearance in the mainstream. “Dance floor-oriented music – which in essence is what house music is – has always been in our collective cultural consciousness, pretty much since the seventies, in its current incarnation,” he says.

So where does OHM fit into the generations of house? Sheaf describes OHM as “a group of people with a shared like and interest in non-commercial forms of dance music, mainly house and techno, who get together and put on parties at venues around Montreal.” OHM is one part of a thriving underground scene in Montreal that has been driving this buzz in the past five years.

Sheaf is careful, however, about using the word ‘scene,’ claiming that the reality is much more fragmented. The multiple subgenres and massive popularity of house make it hard to speak of it as a scene; instead, various underground styles of house music, as Sheaf says, “bring together like-minded [people].” Sheaf admits all the same that, at McGill, OHM and the McGill DJ Collective – another student-run network for house artists – do constitute “something resembling a scene.” The McGill community is a part of the larger Montreal context, where clubs such as Bleury Bar, Salon Daomé, and Stereo Bar, along with regular DJ-organized dance events like Raw Feelings, Psychic Drive, and Morning Fever bring a “friendly regular group of attendees” into a “tightly [k]nit, strong community.” OHM itself has done parties at venues around the city such as Stereo Bar, Espace des Arts, and various loft spaces, for over five years.

As dance music, house is inherently social, and Sheaf sees the kind of parties OHM puts on as part of what makes house so appealing. “When attending nights you get to meet like-minded people […] in a neutral, ‘hair down’ context […] that you would never get the chance to in everyday life. […] In essence, there’s no better party music.” The community that house music offers is more or less unique. “Dance floors are places of immense social cohesion which few other situations we experience in our everyday lives can claim to offer.” It is perhaps for this reason that house music has gained so much popularity; dancing to house is a good time for sure, but it also fosters a rare spirit of togetherness that is almost unparalleled in the age of neoliberal individuality. House music offers the community today what the hippie counterculture of the sixties provided back then – EDM festivals are the new Woodstock.

The underground in particular, however, displays an “adventurous, even punk spirit,” according to Sheaf. He seems to believe that the primary division in EDM is not between the subgenres but between mainstream and underground. Mainstream house is so vast that it results in a homogenization of the music; the underground has more of a sense of community and acceptance of musical variety. Sheaf points to Ben UFO, who coined the recent subgenre “outsider house,” as an example of a great DJ who is “at ease playing a techno record or a grime record within a set that still maintains a house aesthetic.”

Sheaf’s own taste reflects this adventurousness; he names record labels that release mainly deep house and/or “outsider house” such as Mood Hut, Wild Oats, and L.I.E.S. as current favourites. Sheaf also suggests checking out techno label PAN, dubstep label Hessle Audio, UK bass label Livity Sound, and the recently-founded ambient label Johns Kingdom for a more diverse listening experience.

This cross-pollinating between various underground scenes and sounds makes for an exciting and innovative musical climate. It was this sort of freedom that allowed house music to arise in the first place. “From its inception, the scope of what ‘house music’ can be and has always been incredibly broad,” Sheaf explains. “Back in the [late seventies and eighties], house pioneers Ron Hardy and Frankie Knuckles used to mix disco […] post-punk, and new wave records along with the more drum-based music which would morph into ‘house.’”

Today, another component has been added to the mix: the internet. The internet has made it much easier for underground scenes around the world to reach out and influence one another. Sites like Bandcamp make it possible for labels around the world – like Johns’ Kingdom, which is based in Moscow – to reach house fans they would not have had easy access to even a decade ago. All of these factors – the tight-knit communities, the widespread eclecticism, and the accessibility of the internet – have helped foster house scenes in Montreal. As house moves more and more into the mainstream, small grassroots groups of house enthusiasts like OHM are working to maintain house’s underground subcultures, while also welcoming newcomers and wider support. While no one can tell where this house revival will end up, OHM is making the most of the moment and cultivating a vibrant scene for McGill students, whether they’re die-hard house aficionados or just dying to dance.

The DJs of OHM are playing at  The Blue Dog Motel on Saturday, October 18 at 10 p.m.

The post The home of house at McGill appeared first on The McGill Daily.

karen elaine spencer, who graduated from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and now lives and works in Montreal, has been a performance artist for decades, creating work that, according to a press release, questions “the hierarchy inherent in our values.” Adam Bergeron, who is currently a Masters student at Université Laval, often incorporates paintings into his performance art, examining norms of taste and style. Bloggers in Captivity includes both the artists’ focuses, and directs them toward the social and political implications of isolation in a digital world, with the Marx-esque motto “alienated from all countries, unite!”

The “in captivity” conceit of the piece is, in a way, a red herring. Physically, the two artists were not completely isolated. The clear glass allowed the audience to see the artists typing on their laptops, sitting, and eating lunch. On a wall of each cube, a screen showed in real time what the artists were blogging, giving the audience insight into the artists’ thoughts and feelings as they occurred. Some passers by asked the artists if they could take photos, but for the most part, Montrealers were unphased by the spectacle and more concerned with getting to the train on time.

The performance itself was rather anticlimactic, even upon multiple visits. The plexiglass barrier made it difficult to engage the artists directly, and the artists mostly avoided eye contact with the audience. Perhaps their goal was, in fact, not to attract attention.

While the artists did not generate much attention on the streets, the online portion of their performance has attracted numerous comments. Rather than focusing on the physical alienation their “captivity” seemed designed to emulate, Bergeron and spencer centred their attention on other more political definitions of “alienation.”

In their blog posts, the two artists argued that it is not the internet that causes modern alienation, but neoliberal capitalism. Bergeron expanded on the artists’ slogan, itself a reference to The Communist Manifesto, in a post criticizing Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. “For one to believe in a sacred uniqueness of individuals is [a] risk for a political paralysis, even if it is sold as a ‘higher’ form of empowerment,” he states, “it remains that we have to unite our individual strength if we want to knit some kind of social scarf for us to protect each other.” spencer, on the other hand, concentrated her posts on immigration, examining the meaning and etymology of the word “alienated” and connecting it to the term “illegal alien.”

In addition to the political core of Bloggers in Captivity, Bergeron’s posts about his own feelings of alienation, usually accompanied by his own paintings, are poetically candid and add an engaging element to the piece that could not be experienced outside the metro. spencer’s posts, on the other hand, showed an enjoyable dry wit: as rain began to pour on the installation, she posted Buddy Guy’s “Feels Like Rain,” and earlier remarked on the difficulty of finding a picture of a space alien with hair.

Ultimately, there is a limit to the public or political impact that can be made by a project like Bloggers in Captivity. Most of the people heading into or passing by the St. Laurent metro passed by the exhibition entirely.

However, the artists’ location helped to further spencer’s goal of breaking down the barrier between artistic practice and daily life, and despite the lack of attention, the audience was likely larger than it would have been at an art gallery or museum. Moreover, performing outside the metro, a location so often associated with transport to and from work, offered the possibility of spencer and Bergeron’s message reaching the workers who are arguably the most affected by alienation.

Due to the fact that audience members have to find online posts to understand the project, Bloggers in Captivity is ironically too inaccessible to be a connecting artistic experience. It remains, however, a useful piece, demonstrating that both art and politics are simultaneously individual and universal experiences.

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