Baltimoroder and Akufen
As the momentum picks up on our film, our events and the times in general, you have to keep focus on what got you where you are.
Tonight was a frustrating night. As we were recording the set over at Make It New, our newly-purchased iKey flamed out (long story short: do not plug your iKey in with non-chargeable batteries inside!). The shame of it was how much Mike Uzzi and Erik Pearson were killing it. Guess we’ll have to charge another one to the credit card.
Pearson is one in a million. I met Erik pretty much at random one night at the famed River Gods. A mutual friend brought him by and the next thing I know he was up in the booth. “Can I spin for a while?” he said (or something like that). Moments later, Erik is grabbing my own record pile and, one by one, mixing them with agility… the thing is, I don’t think he’d heard a single one. Hell, I don’t think I’d heard a single one.
So, Erik is now a secret weapon of sorts, mixing it up at both the PanAm night at Enormous and the Make It New night at Middlesex Lounge. I hope the secret is out.
With the film and so forth, we have a lot to do in the weeks ahead. The limited money we have needs to be spent wisely, and we’re on a strict budget. The film could be great, though, and we’re planning some fund-raising events in the near future. All this will be seen here. The new mailing list form (to the right there) should be filled in by all y’all.
This summer will be the film. We’re spending almost a month in Europe, to see old and new friends, plan to revisit the Mutek festival and the other characters in the US. in one form or another..
Mutek and Montreal comes to mind beacuse of Marc LeClair, aka Akufen. Akufen is one of the most well-developed electronic musicians in the world. His long-overlooked Canadian import Musique Pour 3 Femmes Enceintes gets wider distribution this summer. He’s much of that voice in the trailer, too.
Musique is one long, gradual piece divided up into 9 tracks, each named after days of a cycle. This is the 236e Jour (236th day). It bounds from speaker to speaker, all beat and warble, until you’re enveloped in its rhythm:
Guys like Pearson and LeClair have something in common: they don’t like to force their talent on you. Yet their talent inspires people time and time again… I guess it’s why we all do what we do. To get our friends and our passions some exposure.
More over the weekend, including details on our 25 May show with Modeselektor and Jan Jelinek.