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viewing 1 To 8 of 8 items
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CD
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MTK FAB006CD
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This is Montreal-based Stephen Beaupré's (half of duo Crackhaus) first full-length solo album. Foe Destroyer's wildly varied sonic tableaux aptly reflects the vivid imagination, sharp wit, and keen sense of humour of master sampler Beaupré. To his ears any sound source is fair game, any noise a potential instrument. In the Buddhist tradition, the term "Foe Destroyer" refers to a student who has abandoned all delusions of worldly importance, through training on the path to enlightenment. Fittingly, Beaupré strips his sample sources of all but the most fleeting remains of their origins, weaving them into complex percussive networks. Described in this way, Beaupré's creative process seems closely related to the manifestos of Akufen and Mathew Herbert, associations which, during Foe Destroyer's danciest moments, will be clearly audible to discerning ears. His meticulous editing clearly shows he can splice and filet his samples with the best of them, easily overcoming the worn out clichés of intelligent dance music. It is a sense of fragility, the feeling that each song might collapse upon itself at any moment that marks Foe Destroyer as a unique creative vision. The disc begins with "El Gato," a mid-tempo tech house affair which invokes images of a 1930s traveling carnival with its playful melodies and dark undercurrents. On "Shy Moon," Beaupré strips away all but the most essential elements to create a chugging, blues-fueled late night special. On "Keep Your Hands Off," Beaupré sends the album running for the dancefloor with an infectious bassline and schizophrenic melody running circles around the title's mantra. "Les Filles" combines the most basic of male confessions with a dirty little bassline to form this album's certifiable floor filler. "Plump City" keeps spirits high with a disparate array of oddball effects and noises configured into a stumbling break. On "Jacaranda," Beaupré offers a modern soundtrack for locking, popping, and big time B-boy floor moves, while "Sacrelicious," delivers the album's most infectious rubber bassline. Finally "Dark Water" is a fittingly tranquil ending for what is a promising sign of things to come from one of Montreal's finest electronic music composers.
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12"
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MTK 006EP
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The Montreal-based micro-house boys from Luci return with a slammer for the summer. The Rapatapaton EP is a gift to anyone who still enjoys the fine art of tongue twisting. Once you've repeated the title several times in quick succession, feel free to unwrap the record. Inside you will find three brand new tracks from Guillaume Coutu-Dumont (EGG) and David Fafard (Nanalog). A-side "Da O" deli-slices voice samples against a wobbly Timbaland backbone, and builds from there into a wall of meticulous micro-funk. "Weeners ISO 9001" grabs you by the shirt collar and pulls you to bed. It's difficult to resist this track, what with the very friendly lady cooing about weeners. The EP finishes off with "November Pain," the saddest track of the three. Seagulls squawk over a muffled house beat, as the duo Luci walk along the beach and contemplate where to go next.
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CD
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MTK FAB005CD
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Originally released in 2005. The Mutek organization has played an instrumental role in exposing the undermined and vastly talented collective of South American electronic producers to the world at large. This release is from Chilean acolytes Pier Bucci and Daniel Nieto, aka Skipsapiens. As a solo artist, Pier Bucci has become somewhat of an elder statesman on the Chilean electronics circuit. He began his producing career seven years ago with a track on the Austral compilation on Chilean label Ruta 5, and has gone on to release work on the Background, WMF, and Peacefrog labels, to name a few. He is also a member of the Chilean outfit Mambotur. Daniel Nieto (aka Danieto) has been experimenting with bits and beats since the late '90s, and his debut employs dubby rhythms, high tech constructions, heavy bass, IDM melodies, bleeps, piano and warm electronic textures all wrapped in a very personal style. Eco is an album that showcases the growth and development of what both producers are capable of doing, given the right time and the proper audiences. Chilean electronic music has learned lessons from Berlin, but what it knows it filters through the heat, passion, and fatalism of South American history. If you're a fan of Ricardo Villalobos or Atom Heart, then Skipsapiens belong in your record collection.
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2LP
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MTK FAB003LP
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Double LP version. Originally released in 2004. Bursting onto the scene with their contribution to the Montreal Smoked Meat compilation, and a much-lauded remix for fellow Montreal sound butcher Akufen on Force Inc Music Works in 2002, Crackhaus (Stephen Beaupre, Scott Monteith) unleashed another fine collection of cheeky dancefloor rockers. Spells Disaster takes the Crackhaus formula refined on the Blame Canada EP for Montreal's Musique Risqée imprint to new heights, with more gurgling basslines, sampler tomfoolery, and down-home country hooks than you can shake a stick at. Crackhaus have also enlisted fellow Montrealers Egg, Mike Shannon, The Mole and Vincent Lemieux to contribute their own interpretations of several of the included tracks, making Spells Disaster a must-have collection for discerning techno and house DJs looking to inject a little humor into their crates.
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12"
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MTK 003EP
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2005 release. Montreal-based Luci serves up beats on the Paléotronique EP, like a ball on a squash court. Local fixtures Guillaume Coutu Dumont (Egg) and David Fafard (Nanalog) have managed to take the intensity of their game and fuse themselves into these three tracks. The results are blistering, mixing in barrel-thumping tech-house, ornate samples, and noirish sensibilities to come up with one neck-snapping floorburner. "Mullet Is In Da House" sounds like an over-excited robot learning to play a drum kit. "Dangeresque" trades eccentric energy for coy playfulness, and "Blastocyste" is dirty, unflinching, and ready to blow a hole in any mix ready to take it on. Luci is yet another example of why techno will always have a couch to sleep on in Montreal.
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12"
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MTK 004EP
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Originally released in 2005. This is Canada-based Jay Hunsberger's debut release on Mutek. Hunsberger is one of Canada's most revered producers, alongside Kitchenerites like Deadbeat and Mike Shannon, and seems to have a natural affinity to the sounds of modern-day Berlin, with his unique blend of minimal techno. The Movement EP sees Hunsberger shifting his sound toward the leftfield of techno. Pulling away from the standard 4/4 beat to more syncopated robotic funk, he experiments with the use of his own voice, which he manipulates beyond recognition before looping it into the mix. Having steadily built an ever-growing following over the years, Hunsberger makes things happen and Movement proves to be his calling card.
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CD
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MTK FAB001CD
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"The Montreal based duo Egg. Julien Roy is known for his work behind the renown artistic collective Artificiel and has releases on the Oral and PeP labels. Until recently known more as a percussionist, Guillaume Coutu-Dumont's experiences as a session musician have taken him from the International Jazz Festival of Montreal to the jazz festival of St-Louis (Senegal) and the recording of 3 albums. Together as Egg, they have successfully set themselves at the intersection of multiple influences -- guided by a distinct experimental interest, Egg craft a blend of acoustic instrumentation, tinged with the elements of dub and micro-house, which result in an insatiable amalgamation of infectious body-music. Over a year in the making, their debut full-length, Don't Postpone Joy presents a softly subversive musical universe that is both playful and carefully calibrated to open itself upon repeated listens. Egg have truly defined a signature of their own that compliments the fellow artists in their community, but justly remarks them as a force to be reckoned with in the global electronic scene."
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CD
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MTK CL002CD
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A collaboration by 4 composers: Janek Schaefer, Stephan Mathieu, Timeblind, Radboud Mens. Composed and recorded in an hotel room while at MUTEK 2002, cover by Stephan Mathieu, edited by Radboud Mens and Janek Schaefer. "Quality Hotel is the result of editing the finest moments from probably several hours of improvising music together. It's hard to tell who did the final selection, but my guess it's Stephan Mathieu having a big hand in this. I don't hear Radboud Mens crazy minimal techno, Timeblind's hip hop inspired rhythms and from Janek we hear his turntable, but it's very much incorporated in the total. Leaves the warm crackles of Mr. Mathieu, still one of the more refined musicians when it comes to warm glitches, and it seems to me that he has a firm hand in editing this album. It's subdued ambient like music, with occassional crackles and hiss, maybe even an odd bang here and there (although rhythm is altogether not a theme here). Held back and refined, warm and glitchy."
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