NAUTILUSS and KODE9 at Mutek, June 1. Rating: NNNNN
Last week’s political and, uh, psychopathic, turmoil aside, Montreal played perfect host to Mutek attendees.
Since 2000, the annual electronic and digital arts festival has incubated and platformed the best in diverse Canadian talent, stacking them against some of the biggest producers, DJs and musicians in the industry, with incredible AV accompaniment to match.
Just two weeks after the release of his alpha EP, Toronto producer Nautiluss (f.k.a. Grahmzilla) made his Mutek debut with a live performance. And after funneling through the sometimes-guttural, sometimes-beatific, techno-house-and-two-step-influenced sounds of his recent catalogue (including my favourite: last year’s dark, drippy, dizzying Bleu Monday) there was a surprise!
Fellow Torontonian, singer Allie Hughes – also about that alias life, as ALX – took the stage and began breathing elegiac fragments into Nautiluss’ tastefully deconstructed elevation of synth-pop and/or whatever they’re describing as ‘future R&B’ now.
Fragmented vox and dreamy note-scaling, a la Grimes, with less inertia. It’s a project they’ve kept on the low for a couple of months now, I learned later – one that bridges his recent pop-leaning remix work with a more oblique side. And finds him singing to balance Allie’s highs as well.
After a quick trip to teeming Metropolis for the tail end of Deniz Kurtel’s hypnotic, dark, deep house set (she plays Footwork in Toronto tonight, go!), it was Kode9 time.
There’s not much that could describe the two hours that followed – cries for an encore were promptly shut down by Mutek staff – except that it was proof-positive as to why dude is Lord-God of HyperDub, turning cult-status everyone he boosts (from Burial to Ikonika to Laurel Halo).
Building and building and exploding and recessing with precision, Kode9 charted UK dance music history – from drum and bass to grime to funky to dubstep – slipping in cult records new and old, British and non-. Derrick May, Funky Stepz, Mosca, Ill Clappa, Rustie, Jay-Z and Kanye West, Nicki Minaj – DJ Sliink’s mobile buzzing anthem Vibrate, the Reservoir Dog’s garage remix of 702’s You Don’t Know, a juke-ified take on Lil Wayne’s A Milli, an insane, stuttering rework of the Funkadelic class Knee Deep by DJ Clent.
Note-taking was forfeited for the sake of maniacal dancing, but I do remember he walked off stage to Warren G’s Regulate. Like a boss.
