hallucinations & antics . tobias c. van Veen :: .techno.culture.
drunker @ mUTEK / berlin robot sex
"MUTEK GROWS OLDER &
WISER" .. well .. or at least so goes the XLR8R
headline.
[[ perhaps "OLDER & DRUNKER" would be more appropriate. ]] In any case:
here's the youtube embed for the video I worked on with Ken Taylor. thanks to
everyone involved & to the vid editorial team for making it look sweet. LONG
LIVE XLR8R.
++ and some
more words on Berlin, specifically a call-out: where are the underground techno
DJs of this city..? or does everyone here take DJing to be a smoking sport &
think that their reserved 'air of boredom' is at all becoming .. ?
a few recent
experiences in Berlin clubs confirm my suspicion that the best dJs in the world
come not from the centre but from the periphery. most dJs here approach the
mixer like it's a barrel of uranium, a total poison for the fingers, or like
some kind of sacred apparatus not to be fooled with. as if to make matters
worse, these dJs seem to lack any sense of composition. they've got all the
right threads -- the general availability of quality music speaks volumes about
how *easy* it is to SOUND good with little or no effort -- but these dJs can't
seem to weave a tapestry with the silk threads given them. instead, by the end
of the night, you just have all these beautiful threads on the floor, stomped
all dirty and in a big mess. where are the tapestry weavers of sonic silk, the
journey shamans of sound?
indeed, no wonder
that right now Canadian artists & turntablists are at the top of their game
here: they have talent, and they truly love the music. for us Canucks, coming
from a country that has long left its electronic musicians at the bottom of the
heap, dJing & playing live is not a task to be belatedly performed, like a
perfunctory bowel movement, but a moment to be savoured, like good
sex.
i have yet to
encounter a single dJ in all of Berlin (not counting famous foreigners) who
knows how to make love to a crowd -- to stomp it, shake it, caress it, sweat it.
i hope to be proven
wrong.
++ i've
always thought that how someone dances & dJs (as well as cooks) reflects how
they make love. side note: given the inability here for a lot of people to
express rhythm, either as a dJ or a dancer, is this air of bored roboticism
reflected in how the German technoheads perform in bed ..
?