A/Visions 4 - Live Wires

A classic participant from the very first MUTEK in 2000, Finland’s VLADISLAV DELAY returns to the festival stage after a prolonged absence to reignite the open-source echo chambers that have made his ultra-loose take on dub so tangential, deep and hypnotic. Since 1997, Sasu Ripatti’s prolific Vladislav Delay moniker has produced some of the most arresting and deeply woven experimental dub-techno committed to record. An alumnus of the classic Chain Reaction and Mille Plateaux catalogues, Delay’s musical landscape is an echo chamber of abstract bass, weaving subtle and complexly corroded rhythms through an epic framework that drifts along at a glacial pace. The nine albums in the Vladislav Delay discography – his latest is 2009’s “Tummaa” – borrow as loosely from his European jazz roots as they do from Jamaican dub. The last time Ripatti brought the Delay oeuvre to MUTEK was back in 2000, at the inaugural festival. That two-and-a-hour set, available on the MUTEK website, is the stuff of legends. This year, Ripatti also brings this musical range to his other appearance at the festival, as the drummer for the Moritz von Oswald Trio. These days, Ripatti runs his own boutique label, Huume, where he releases the majority of his many aliases. A restless practitioner of numerous genres, Ripatti is just as well known for his long-running house alias, Luomo, and his more techno-leaning side project, Uusitalo.

Meanwhile, Austria’s CARL MICHAEL VON HAUSSWOLFF uses tape machines and electrical tones to produce a wall of drone accentuated by industrial-sized hammers and swirls.A sonic precursor to Berlin’s Raster-Noton family of artists and a living legend in the world of electro-acoustic sound art, Carl Michael von Hausswolff began composing in the late-70s using only a tape recorder, radar, and sonar. Since then, Hausswolff has produced literally dozens of recordings of his experiments, many of which revolve around the permutations of electrical sound in its most literal manifestation. Equally feted in the world of installation art, his sonic sculptures have been featured in major exhibitions around the world, including Manifesta, documenta X, the Johannesburg Biennale, and the Venice Biennale. In 2002, he was awarded the prestigious Prix Ars Electronica. In this past decade, a new generation of electricity musicians has fallen under the influence of Hausswolff’s explorations, including former MUTEK performers such as SND, Frank Pommasl and John Duncan, as well as Jakob Kierkegaard, BJ Nilsen and Machinefabriek. These days, Hausswolff makes appearances as a member of the 12-member freq_out orchestra, a collection of sound artists all working together within a specified frequency range. He also continues to release solo works on labels such as Oral, Sub Rosa, and Die Stadt.

Australia’s BEN FROST, a breakthrough act and major highlight of MUTEK 2008, has managed in three albums to breed a new and visceral approach to sonic and cinematic experimentalism. His flowing compositions brim with howling wolves and distorted string sections, haunted clavichords and sustained guitar that all add up to fearsome melee that grabs the listener “By the Throat”, as Frost aptly titled his much-admired 2009 album. But Frost’s compositions are by no means uninviting – in fact they’re quite the opposite. The real talent behind Frost’s music comes from his ability induce longing emotion out of bristling source material. He can deliver a tribute to abrasive art-punks Swans – as he did on 2006’s sleeper cult-hit “Theory of Machines”. Currently living in Iceland, Frost also belongs to the Bedroom Community collective of artists, who all share the record label that operates under the same name.

TIM HECKER, a veteran of the Montreal experimental community, has performed at the festival numerous times over the years as his international reputation has swelled to enviable proportions, most notably in 2008 alongside Christian Fennesz. Though he began his musical career as the ambient techno act Jetone, Hecker soon dropped all semblance of rhythm for more intense and atmospheric drone compositions under his own name. His work often bridges the divide between artful dissonance and avant-garde classical, delivering pieces that are at once harsh and soothing. He has since amassed a wide cult following with such classic albums as 2001’s “Haunt Me, Haunt Me Do It Again”, 2003’s “Radio Amor”, 2004’s “Mirages”, and 2006’s critical high-point “Harmony In Ultraviolet”. This year he returns to the festival stage to present innovations on his most recent recorded outings, including the 2009 album “An Imaginary Country”.