Capitol hill thrills

So I managed to claw my way off the island last Friday, April 20 for a trip to Ottawa, both the political epicenter of the country as well as the nation's capital for hideous, domestic, pastel blouses, sports tees and sensible haircuts. Not being a fourteen year-old Green Day fan anymore, it wasn't until I strolled up to Capitol Hill that the significance of the date dawned on me. A throng of shifty-eyed adolescents wearing baggy cargo and listening to atrocious 90's rave music congregated on the grass in front of the stoic government headquarters, pipes and bongs in hand, reminding me that, not only was it four-twenty, but it was almost 4:20. Naturally, I giggled and squealed in mirth.

As I stood there, I briefly wondered whether Stephen Harper was gazing out his office window, waiting to punch the clock, roll home and skin up a joint for the first hot weather of the year. The answer is, of course, not bloody likely. In fact, I'd bet my procreative faculties that the Prime Minister hasn't even had the chance to fail to inhale, regardless of recent allegations that the government has been charging an arm and a leg for medicinal marijuana (for which, by the way, research funding has been cut to the tune of $4 million). No, the Doors of Perception are safely rusted shut for this gentleman.

That got me to thinking about other cultural landmarks which happen around that traditionally-mild weekend, and how they relate to our pal Steve (can I call you Steve?). Earth Day's a touchy subject to any politician, particularly one who once called Kyoto a "socialist scheme" in his call-to-arms for "our campaign to block the job-killing, economy-destroying Kyoto accord." Especially when recent polls indicate that the environment has surpassed even healthcare in the average Canadian's itinerary of concerns. Damn, I guess last weekend was kind of a Conservative Kryptonite. Well, maybe Steve was up there worrying about whether voters detest him for not being a tree-hugging stoner. Again, not bloody likely. In fact, I'd go pounds to pennies that he's feelin' pretty damn good about his shot at reelection, given the recent rise of support for the similarly-aligned ADQ back in Quebec.

On top of all that, I thought, Steve's got a mean hard-on for arts cutbacks. Gulp. Just then, as I looked down in the grass below me in dismay, I saw a jettisoned wood pipe lying in the grass, laden with a bowl of fresh ganja. I try to stay away from weed these days, but, damn, I thought, as the pulsing beat of pre-millennial trance rumbled the grass underfoot, better smoke that shit while I can.

Things to look forward to before Steve guts the arts:

Rumor has it that French techno kingpin Mr. Oizo might make an appearance at this year's Mutek Festival. Piknic Electronik starts back up on May 20 with a crazy lineup for the summer. Air will be at Metropolis on May 6 and LCD Soundsystem are due back on May 9 at Spectum. Orchestral electro phenomenon !!! will be at Les Saints on May 18 and Datarock hit La Tulipe on June 3 with CSS and Bonde Do Role.

Art, weed and nature: the pillars of society. Jack.oatmon@gmail.com

Also, here's this:

Bassnectar
Underground Communication
(Om)

Sometimes hinting at a potential lifejacket for the thoughtful artists left on the sinking ships of hip hop and drum and bass, San Francisco's Lorin Bassnectar dispenses a psychedelic cocktail of club breakbeats, Yankee rap and stoner worldbeat on his latest release. The weakness here is that too much genre affiliation ends up sounding, well, generic at times. The production and concepts are there, the killer low-end is most definitely there, and with a bit more fleshing-out and distillation, the devoted following will be there, too.

Toss up your tomatoes

Beleaguered university students, aging transvestites, surly urbanites and the seasonally depressed can all celebrate in unholy unison this week. As both the winter and the school year grind to a welcome close, students prepare for the carefree days on the horizon by hurling all their plywood furniture, obsolete notes and thrift-store winter wear out into the streets, as a part of our culture's equivalent of the Spanish Tomatina. Like the Tomatina, where tens of thousands of Spaniards flood the streets of the town Buñol and throw overripe tomatoes at each other, this is a time of plenty for Montreal. To do their part for this cultural event, grumpy Montrealers come out of their hibernation spots to hurl a few last callous comments and catcalls at the departing before beginning to wonder whether they were better off with the students than the coming tides of tourists. The booking agents and party-people in general are also in on the madness, making for a week in which you can't huck a rotten tomato without hitting a bar stacked with killer beats, club kids in heat, fresh meat and shimmying feet. In an effort to contribute to this already volatile circumstance, the government is doing its best to throw juicy, fresh tax returns into the bank accounts of all the deadbeats and stoners in the city.

In short, dear readers, this is a prime week to be mashed, crunk, boogying and lecherous, so let's get down to the itinerary. I know you're not planning on missing out on Radio Soulwax tonight, Thursday, April 19, at the SAT. The last one was jam packed on a freezing Tuesday, so expect this one to be a lined-up, dressed-up, rumbling shit show featuring every variety of jarring synthesizer and greasy, cracking beat known to electroclash. You know 2manyDJs and Soulwax's Nite Versions project, but make sure to get there mad early as not to miss Muscles who, in the tradition of Aussie contemporaries like Cut Copy and Van She, shows that, like the fashion featured in Mad Max movies, melodic new wave from Down Under is timeless, or at least extremely timely. Other than that, you might want to go to Olympia and hear seminal deviant Boy George DJing the Hugo Boss fashion show, or the 'Pump Up The Jam' 90's theme party at Lambi.

There's a Friendship Cove jam on Friday night with Hexes and Ohs and Woodhands, both fine purveyors of cuddly club crooner beats. Barring that, catch 011, Automelodi and Quebec Connection at Zoobizarre that same night. Saturday throws predictably down to The Showdown at Lambi featuring Peer Pressure vs. upstarts Nu Ravers on the Block. Furthermore, Supersystem may have broken down, but the funk still functions through Antelope, appearing at Casa del Popolo on Sunday, April 22.

As promised last week, our final order of business here shall be the Banger of the Week. It's a tossup between Kitsuné neophytes Punks Jump Up's cutthroat rug-cutter "Dance to Our Disco" (I prefer the Nightmoves mix) and Brit-poppers The Aliens' "Setting Sun" which compiles the Hammond organ and reckless abandon of The Doors along with a mean, twistable mod groove.

You tell me. jack.oatmon@gmail.com

 This just in: Saboteur Ball #4!!! Who'd o' known???

Open to Interpretation

The Books let listeners distill meaning from a chaotic world

By Jack Oatmon

To guitarist/bassist/singer Nick Zammuto, the American half of The Books, life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying something different from each passing perspective. Together with Dutch cellist Paul de Jong, Zammuto is in the business of conglomerating the percussive tribulations, melodic details and incidental harmonies of our chaotic existence and weaving them deftly together with evocative string instrumentation and sweet, hopeful vocals to compose rumbling collages of music that aurally articulate the human experience.

"My interest in the music is sort of a way to tune all of this unbelievable noise," says Zammuto. "We're just saturated by tonnes of different media all of the time now. The music becomes a way to make sense of all of the noise. Instead of letting it make me mad, I want to laugh at it. I want a way to enjoy it, so the music has been a way to turn everything into something that's more spiritually satisfying, rather than hearing bad news all of the time."

Listening to the fantastical results of The Books' unique method of 'tuning' the noises of the world, one inevitably wonders how they manage congeal so much sonic aggregate without simply sounding random.

"Every track is totally different, so there's no real system to it," he explains, "although it tends to come in an evolutionary sort of way. We'll start off with something, it could be a rhythm or a riff of some kind, a melody or just a sample of a spoken word, and then we kind of throw sounds at it and see what sticks. Over time we develop a body of sounds that works together and supports itself. From there it's easier to decide how the track will begin and how it will end, how it will move over time. So it's like rolling up a big snowball, then pulling it apart again."

As with any project that draws its raw components from the ambient data of the surrounding world, The Books' albums are laden with the kind of allusion and potential insinuation that sets curious minds wandering.

"I don't think it's necessarily to produce any particular kind of thinking, except just to sort of sharpen people's experience of hearing. We always talk about meeting people half way. If you make something that's too didactic and hits you over the head too hard then the listener's just going to reject it, like any authoritarian thing. Then if it's too subtle, it will just be lost on people. So there has to be this middle ground, where it's pregnant with meaning, but exactly what that meaning is, is completely dependant on who is listening to it. So you bring what you have to it, and you complete the music by listening to it. That's how the music is designed: left open to interpretation."

There's certainly a lot of interpretation to be drawn from Zammuto and De Jong's compositions, each of which feature a rhythmic track of sampled percussion as well as synchronized video for the live performance, which consists of the duo noodling their strings over top of the songs' pre-arranged beats and samples.

Who you funkin' with?

Whether it be the broken mirrors strewn across the sidewalks, the tumultuous rain of pianos and anvils plummeting from the heavens, or the invasion of inflated, touchy-feely indie pop groups that have obtusely long band names and only a few bangin' tunes watered with a bunch of pining, half-baked filler tracks on their new albums, this Friday the thirteenth might make you want to stay inside. I know what you're thinking, and I'm thinking it, too. While all our net-hypester Spacebook friends rave on about Do Make Say Think's raucous splendor (available at Le National for fifteen bones) and we find ourselves wondering just how endearing the whiny warblings of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! could possibly be in the live setting (Tap your wallets, say 'WTF?!' for twenty-five bucks at Metropolis), we need something a bit more chunky to chew on for the unluckiest day of the year. Sure, we could sit at home and listen to Planet Rock on repeat for six hours while tackling a few Sudokus, but where's the gumption in that? Hrrrrrrrrrm. Album launches maybe? Lesbians on X have got a jam coming out on Alien8 and the party's at Lambi, which means we could drop by next door at the Academy afterwards for an evening of bleepy tech-house et al. Toronto indie-dance outfit The Wooden Stars also release a disc at Main hall alongside synth-poppers Hiltorons, which leaves us in proximity of the Green Room's Friday night mashup/electro/indie rock bonanza. I still feel vaguely nonplussed by my options on the thirteenth. Fuck it. House party anyone?

So here's the plan: we save our dough for Saturday. We won't regret it. After a chilled-out smoke-down for The Books (at Ukranian Federation), my default introspective, easy-listening choice of late, we crash the SAT for Jordan Dare's surefire monthly, Voyeur, along with Tiga and Tommie Sunshine, for a tit-twisting trifecta of grinding electro, moody disco and garbled, psychedelic house, respectively. There's a reason it's a classic.

That aside, don't forget about the big shows early next week. I don't know how much RJD2 I can digest on a Monday, but he'll be at La Tulipe, squishing together every conceivable kind of instrumentation and slapping the blend on top of catchy breakbeats to make a surprisingly cohesive hip hop package, supporting Marshall MacLuhan's adage that the medium is the message. There's that and, perhaps more interestingly, oft-remixed, never bested Brit rockers the Kaiser Chiefs ride in on the wake of a wicked new album to play the soon-to-be-remodeled Spectrum on Tuesday.

As for tonight, Thursday, April 12, might I suggest a staccato soirée provided by Martin Tétreault and his nine (count 'em) drummers at la Sala Rossa? Note the intentional absence of peripheral instrumentation.

Finally, for some time now I've been accosting my roommates and neighbors with my official Banger of the Week, and I've finally decided to incorporate it into the column. This week's pick is the track "Carmilla" from French house/techno/indie kingpin Alex Gopher's wicked new self-titled. It's got just the right blend of uplifting new wave vibe, slappy bass and majestic white-guy-disco groove.

Looking for the perfect beat. jack.oatmon@gmail.com

Forward to the Past

There's a scene in William Gibson's tour de force near-future thriller novel, Neuromancer, where the protagonist visits a decommissioned space station inhabited by former satellite-construction employees who have turned to Rastafarianism and begun growing hydroponic marijuana in space. The inhabitants refuse to leave the station, content to float around for the rest of their days, eating lentils and constantly listening to a bizarre, futuristic, electronic form of dub reggae. The book, written in Vancouver in 1984, single-handedly coined the term 'Cyberspace', invented the cyber-punk genre of literary and film fiction, and laid the philosophical groundwork for modern internet culture, not to mention being one of the most terse, lovably pedantic, spine-tingling novels ever written. And, I'm also pretty sure that I found the stoner electro-space-reggae he was talking about. Check it out at the monthly Komodo Dubs, which is tonight at Academy Dancehall with Komodo, DJ Hosta and this month's guest, Nils Fluck.

Continuing the theme of dystopic west-coast pop-culture from 1984, there's a movie called 'Suburbia' which was directed by Penelope Spheeris, who also directed such greats as 'Dudes' and 'Decline of Western Civilization.' In that film, there's a scene where unsung Los Angeles hardcore powerhouse, TSOL do a synthesizer set for a crowd of cynical, flamboyantly-dressed twenty-somethings in colourful high tops and handkerchiefs. I swear that the electroclash scene in Montreal inches closer to that paradigm with every passing week. Go on youtube.com and search for "suburbia" and "TSOL", then click on the video for the song called 'Darker my Love.' Then go out on Saturday night and see Trash Fashion, Nu Ravers on the Block, Cherry Cola and Put the Rifle Down, also at the Academy Dancehall. I swear you'll piss yourself laughing. Big shout outs go to Cherry Cola for his spur-of-the-moment, marathon set opening for the Ed Banger posse at Club Soda. Special thanks also go out to the chick who broke my nose in the mosh pit.

I don't have any early eighties trivia to draw similes from for this one, but it's definitely within your best interests to go see the Junior Boys on Saturday at Sala Rossa. They put on a fantastic show last time, inciting so many impromptu dance floor hugs and cuddles that I started to wonder if they might do a cover of the Care Bears theme song. Oh, there you go. I knew there was some eighties kitsch in there somewhere.

If you've been missing Zoobizarre's defunct FlakyDisco Fridays, or have been looking for an excuse to trek up to the raddest hole-in-the-wall north of Laurier (you heard me, Greenroom), check out the new Poussez! Poussez! monthly, featuring residents WhyAlexWhy? and Sons of Warsaw as well as this month's guest, NYC's Mike Simonetti, founder of Troubleman Records. Once again, that's Friday at Zoobizarre.

And, finally, there's a weekly in Montreal that I've been tragically neglecting up until this point. Not only is it at one of the very coolest venues in the city, formerly Maison Lyall, now Le Social on Bishop, but they play disco, real disco, mind you, with rotating themes and guests every week, including the odd loft party sprinkled here and there. That's Loose joints at Le Social (1445 Bishop), every Friday night, and this week is Italo week.

Writing between the lines. jack.oatmon@gmail.com

Forever Fresh

OLDgOLD's timeless taste and club couture.

By Jack Oatmon

boutique n a small shop, esp one that sells fashionable clothing [French]

meticulous adj very precise about details; careful and thorough [Latin meticulosus]

From the intriguing installations in the front display to the tasteful minutiae complimenting every inch of the store, not to mention the animals, live and otherwise, housed within, OLDgOLD is a hidden treasure among Montreal's myriad boutiques.

The store's existence is the product of a classic tale of determination, the details of which are as endearing as the unique, funky articles of clothing inside. Owner Jonah Leslie built his financial and cultural capital up from a single box of clothes he bought while on a trip to Southeast Asia.

"I started with one box," Jonah told me. "I had some extra money saved up for my trip and I just went out and bought clothes that I thought were really cool. At the first street sale I sold a bunch of stuff and reinvested the money I made by going back and getting two boxes. I then did the street sale at the end of the summer and, again, kept the money aside, went back and got more stuff."

Jonah used that pattern in concert with his social network in Montreal to build a familiarized clientele who sought after his ever-expanding imports which, for the record, are not the products of any sinister sweatshop schemes.

"It was inspiring the way it's very merchant-oriented in Asia. You can print t-shirts in your basement, put them in a suitcase, go out on a sidewalk downtown and just sell your shit if you want to. It's a good thing for emerging independent designers and artists. A lot of stuff is produced in that area of the world, and it's not necessarily sweatshop-produced. Those four polos, for example," he said, pointing out the shirts, "it's a good friend of mine that makes those. It's not mass produced where the quality is really bad and the conditions of the factories are not so good. I stay away from that stuff, you know?"

The result is a store with virtually no identical items or filler-fashion, but a lovely array of pieces that scream "someone's future favorite shirt/hat/dress," with a discerning focus on taste and vibrancy. The fabulous colours and quirkiness of the articles are, in fact, the primary indicator of Jonah's history as a DJ and party promoter.

"My personal involvement in the club scene is one of the big reasons why my clothing business has merged with the club scene," he explained. "I'm a guy that goes out a lot. When people go out they want to have a nice getup. They want to have something that differentiates themselves. It feels good to look good. You wanna wear something catchy, so a lot of the clothes pertain to that fun, creative way of dressing."

Like many such thoughtful magpies who indulge in both the fashion and the philosophies of the east, Jonah naturally wonders about whether intellect and materialism are mutually exclusive.

"I've had this internal debate going for a while now. I'm not a materialistic guy, so what the hell am I doing selling clothes? But there are material things in this world that are made with passion and love, and those things carry on that energy. There's something really special about that. It speaks of humanity."

OLDgOLD boutique, 256 Mont Royal Est. 514-509-1675

A Thousand Slurred Words

Gabriel Lussier captures the wild animals of Montreal's clubs.

By Jack Oatmon

Whether you want to treasure the mementos of your youthful ambivalence or do anything your power to forget what happened after you took those tequila shooters, the digital panopticon of the internet ensures that evidence of your folly will be forever entombed, so the photos might as well be cool. Gabriel Lussier is a local photographer who has taken it upon himself to capture the brilliance and fury of Montreal's club scene in quality images that transform the traditional, wasted and compromising bar pic into something of beauty and diligence. The Mirror spoke to Lussier over a beer, under the din of a throng of carefree, bar going revelers.

Mirror: What kinds of people draw you in to take photos?

Gabriel Lussier: I'm trying to give an overview of what's happening here. I want to look at different kinds of people. Sure, eccentric people, people who sort of costume themselves, those people really interest me. They're different, the way they dress or the way they cut their hair, it's kind of avant-garde. Some people don't actually follow fashion, they make fashion, and I think they're way ahead… well, maybe not way ahead, but they're part of this frontline pushing things forward. At the same time I'm also interested in more average people. Maybe I'm trying to push those people to seem a bit crazier. I want to give an overview: not to be so selective that you only find beautiful and perfect people in the photos. For sure there are people that don't go really well in the photos, but it's a bigger challenge for me to show somebody that isn't naturally photogenic and catch that person in the right spot and make them look great. So it's a wide range; it's not only one type of person.

M: Sure, you could just go out and take photos of the most beautiful people at the bar, and lots of people do. But I think there's something to be said for putting those beautiful people in a realistic context, or the real people in a beautiful context.

GL: Yeah, sure. I'm doing it to party, I'm doing it for style, I'm doing it for design, but the important part of the work I'm doing is, within the timeframe in Montreal right now, I want to do an archive. So that in ten or twenty years I can give a really good idea of what I was living and what people around me were living. I see it as a cultural archive.

M: I guess that's kind of the same thing I'm doing, only with writing. Maybe it's not relevant in a political sense, but culturally I think there's something happening that's worth documenting.

GL: That's why I started taking more and more photos. I felt like there was something good happening in Montreal. I really love Montreal. I'm really proud of it and happy to be a part of what it is and participate in that cultural exercise. There are so many tentacles of it, and I'm in one of those tentacles, but there are many other things happening that I'm not covering, so maybe at some point I'll go discover that.

M: How do people react to you when you're out taking photos?

GL: Some people get crazy. They really like it so they become kind of a model for you. These people take me as a fashion photographer, so we really interact in a fashion show way at the party. More typically, I get the permission to take the photos by looking at them and by creating an interaction, showing them the camera. I'd say eighty-five to ninety percent of the time people react well. I like when people get crazy, so I try to give them the message, you're free to do what you want, I'm looking at you, I want to encourage you to be something that you might not be usually. We're into that party form, we're shooting, and sometimes we get that perfect moment, with the music, with the lighting. Good people and good times make good shots.

M: Yeah, well people experiment at the club. Like in terms of fashion, things hit the club before they hit the runway; things hit the club before they hit the stores.

GL: I actually think that designers have to be influenced by the people out there doing that. There are a lot of people who go out who don't work in design, they're not into fashion, but they have something to express, so they take crappy clothing and put it together, they take pieces of different clothes, put them together and that nightlife style is a very interesting form of fashion, because it's fashion before it's fashion in the store. Especially when people really push it. A good party is where people are madly dressed, the music makes you even madder than you already are, and the place turns into a big whirlwind, everything blends together, and that's what I want to capture.

M: That's it: the idea of capturing this crazy time in this crazy city.

GL: I'm not sure we're living in a special moment, but it's our moment. Everybody had their young moment and they probably felt the same. We're looking at what we're living in, we're taking photos, we're talking about it or we're writing about it and I think that's something essential.

Gabriel Lussier shoots with a Nikon D70 and his photography can be seen at www.flickr/photos/draglion.

I Survived a Year at the Mirror

This column caps off the first year of Disco Volante's existence. That's a whole year of hands-on investigation of the progressive and fanatical elements of Montreal's club and concert scenes. We've been to myriad celebrations and expositions of the highest and lowest order, spanning the entire spectrum of venues and spaces hidden in the shadowy crannies and bustling thoroughfares of this wild city. We've seen some of the pioneering luminaries of our times hypnotizing and fomenting hedonistic mayhem among the music-loving public. We've been both glamorous and guttural in all manner of locale, from dingy to distinguished, always fighting the urge to indulge in those nagging hints of responsible foresight that loom like flies of reason buzzing around our ringing ears. Yup, it's been an incredible, challenging, ludicrously entertaining year, and let me tell you, I've got a fucking headache that could kill a lab monkey.

While the persistent, cracking dryness at the corners of my mouth and throbbing of my over-danced ankles evidence the charmed life at my heels, the bloodshot eyes that hide behind my shades peer ominously forward, toward a summer that already threatens to be jam-packed with amazing concerts. So I hope you're ready.

Fresh off last week's barrage of events, in which we heard Digitalism's art-punk approach to euphoric electro and the marvelous grandeur of Bloc Party, as well as the dodgy disco of the Presets and Lo-Fi-Fnk, this week promises to be a big one, too. Woe is they who miss the second coming of the Ed Banger Posse on Saturday, but that's not all.

A guaranteed rager is slotted for the SAT on Friday, March 30, when hipster extraordinaire, DL Jones celebrates his, wait for it, 21^st (!) birthday to the tune of  Amanda Blank and Spank Rock, some of Philadelphia's premier purveyors of groovy, fluorescent crunk. Likewise NYC's the Pase Rock, more incontrovertible evidence that hip hop was once as preoccupied with Kraftwerk as it was with Malcolm X. As ever, the Peer Pressure crew, A-Rock and Hatchmatik light up the floor with a fine blend of electro, handclapping rap and fashionable mashups. Stay tuned to the Peer Pressure crew for a Tuesday showing of Brazil's rockin', low-end baile-funk phenomenon, Bonde do Role at Club Lambi.

Furthermore, La Cabane à Sucre Electronik, an exciting reminder of the upcoming Piknic Electronik season, happens on the first of April, fools. The vibe will be friendly and festive, the venue, Jean-Parent in St-Ambroise-de-Kildare, will be rustic and relaxing, and the tunes will be first-rate, with DJ Remo, Pan/Tone, Sid LeRock and Mini. Get your tickets, with transportation organized, at Moog on St. Laurent or Atom Heart on Sherbrooke.

Well, there you have it: another crazy week to welcome another crazy year. So, while continuing to provide the most adequate narrative I can about Montreal's whirlwind dance music scene, I've recently expanded my activities to include informal studies of the city's street-level live jazz community as well as some of the larger clubs that are often absent from Disco Volante's personalized forays, the results of which I will hopefully be bringing to you in the coming months. Keep your eyes peeled and your ears to the underground.

Get your !!! tickets ASAP, folks. jack.oatmon@gmail.com

Second Coming

Justice return to Montreal with fresh tracks and growing worship.

By Jack Oatmon

An altar on a raised platform, a luminous cross, a spacious hall with a grand ceiling, shuddering with the ominous wailing of classical organ and hundreds of devout worshippers, hollering in tongues as they consume cleansing wines and rejoice in the unwavering power of… dance music?

This is what Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay see when they look at a nightclub. The French duo, who go by the suitably weighty moniker Justice, have a style steeped in Christian imagery that highlights the blasphemous idolism of the DJ world with what might be backhanded critique or religious fervor, depending on how seriously you take it. Augé equates "the energy that can exist in the club with some kind of mass," by way of explanation.

Whether you take the image in earnest or as a gimmick, Justice have certainly amassed a sizeable congregation since they released their first remix, 'We are Your Friends' on Ed Banger Records in 2003. While the track gained them some attention, the two slowly emerged from relative obscurity until the release of their vicious anthem, 'Waters of Nazareth', in 2005, all the while compiling a catalogue of remixes for high-profile acts such as Britney Spears, Daft Punk, Soulwax and Franz Ferdinand.

"If we think we can bring something to a particular track, we do it," Augé said of Justice's remixes. "In general, they're pieces with vocals, because that permits us to completely change our mindsets (about the tracks) and find new harmonies and arrangements. It's a mental exercise that's very fun to do." In doing so, Justice have carved out an unmistakable sonic signature of discombobulated vocals, rattling, onerous dance beats and brutally distorted melodies produced by synthesizers that sound as though they were martyred just to emit one last growling roar for Justice's cause. All that is juxtaposed by lullaby piano interludes and the imposing church organ sound which markedly distinguishes the songs from standard party fare.

"In the beginning we used lots of analog synthesizers and machines, but now it's all done on computer," continued Augé, who calmly hinted at a new direction more than once over the course of our interview. "For the new album, anyway, it's only computer. The 'Phantom' track we did is the closest thing to what we were doing with 'Waters of Nazareth'. It's a very distorted piece. It's the most violent part of the album. The rest is more pop and disco."

That's not the only thing that's changing for Justice. Since the last time I saw them here in Montreal, along with a crowd of perhaps seventy-five people, Justice have begun to garner their share of attention from major media, including their reception of the MTV European Music Award for 'We are your Friends' in the category 'Best Video of 2006'. It was at that ceremony that hip hop artist, Kanye West, would make a spectacle of Justice's video by storming the stage and throwing a tantrum over having lost the award.

"I think Kanye had drunk a bit and he did it to amuse himself. He didn't really seem angry. He was just full of the fact that his video was super expensive and ours cost nothing to make. It's funny, because we were totally unheard of and we could have just taken the prize and no one would have seen it. But because he made a scene, it sort of became the highlight of the ceremony. So thanks Kanye!"

Give me Disco or give me Death

Well, it's almost election time again, and we all know what that means. The overwhelming interest that the youth of our fair city take in provincial politics will culminate in a glorious amalgam of drinking, disco dance parties and serious, thoughtful consideration of the direction of our communities over the coming electoral term. Yes indeed, nothing gets kids more fired up than democracy, and the election barnburner before us promises to ignite countless dance floor debates and bathroom stall campaign graffiti. Okay, so my generation's not necessarily the alpha and omega of the democratic process, but there's still hope. I can prove to you that we're at least capable of making a critical decision when it comes down to the things that really matter to us (booze, smut and bass). Check out, for example, the following two sets of unnervingly tough choices.

Kweku and the Movement is an exciting local ensemble whose eclectic parameters grace the spastic, future-obsessed grooves being produced by groups like Funkadelic and Afrika Bambaataa in the late seventies and early eighties as readily as they do the fresh, melodic flow of modern R&B vocalists and left-field hip hop acts like Outkast. In fact, there's even a touch of contemporary analog electro in there on 'The Full 'Eh' Show'. I can only imagine it being fantastic live, which corroborates the reviews I've heard from friends. Kweku et al will be at the Saints tonight, Thursday, March 22, along with The Lovely Feathers, another promising element of the show that's sure to ream even wider the already-broad spectrum of sounds that will be echoing around Les Saints.

The other option, if you're feeling less Fela Kuti and more Andy Warhol tonight, is to go to Juste Pour Rire for a live set by Germany's (why did I think they were German? Oops! Even drunken club columnists make factual errors, it seems. France. France.) bewildering Digitalism, masters of the distilled, eerie techno build-up and euphoric, celebratory melody of the rave world, only without all the obnoxiously fast tempos and cheesy fashion. I saw them on New Years 2006, a particularly wild night, and I give them my personal seal of approval.

Another sticky call will be, strangely enough, Wednesday night, when the last vestiges of the SXSW hangover wave stumbles though town, boasting an appearance by zany, Aussie synth-maniacs The Presets, who will both electrify and frighten attendants of Petit Campus alongside Dandi Wind, with a DJ set by the discerning Mr. Thomas Von Party. The other option is the first-ever visit by Swedish invaders Lo-Fi-Fnk at Club Lambi. Lo-Fi-Fnk deftly toe that line between the campy puppy-love of early-eighties British new-wave and the despondent, technology-obsessed, ballistically derivative elements of our current pop-cultural straits, in a vibrant, catchy package. #numéro will open the show.

This would seem to be the time to plug Kitsuné records, a subdivision of a fashion design company in France, seeing as three of those four shows include acts that have appeared, at some time or another, on one of Kitsuné's releases (e.g. The Lovely Feathers, Digitalism and Lo-Fi-Fnk). All you really need to know is that the label is a sure-fire place to find out about new artists that delve enthusiastically into the hedonistic fancies of the party-music-world without sacrificing the wit and moodiness that seem to be the only real elements linking together the dozens of fantastic bands and producers that have been on Kitsuné releases. Find out more on their website, http://www.kitsune.fr/, which is an idiosyncratically programmed mishmash of data sprinkled with numerous, tantalizing musical discoveries.

Citizen Oatmon. Jack.oatmon@gmail.com

Boys with Toys

Lo-Fi-Fnk explore the city with synthesizers and electric drumkits.

By Jack Oatmon

From Annie to The Knife and on through The Legends, Scandinavia likes its pop and it likes it with generous doses of twinkling analog synthesizers and uplifting vocal melodies. Lo-Fi-Fnk, the latest installment in the Swedish synth-pop invasion, comprised of Leo Drougge and August Hellsing, is no exception to that assertion. That said, the band retains its unique qualities amidst the catchy choruses and toe-tapping electronic drumbeats that it shares with its contemporaries.

Leo Drougge, singer and bass player, says that individuality is what interests them about other bands. "We're really into unique music, like right now we listen to a lot of Paul McCartney. It really fits nowhere," he says. He admits, though, that they themselves "…try to make music that could fit anywhere," rather than nowhere. "It's not a very commercial ambition," he says, just an attempt to find a place for their sound. The music is indeed outside certain well-manicured patterns, such as the general tendency of dance to be obsessive about clean, meticulous production. "We called the band Lo-Fi-Fnk because when we started we wanted to make dance music, but more lo fi."

In fact, the wide-eyed musings of Leo Drougge's lyrics combine with August Hellsing's assertive synthesizing to form a brilliant sound that navigates the youthful urban experience with an idiot savant's unfettered grace. The atmosphere of discovery and experimentation that permeates the band's first full-length album, Boylife, makes a good analogy for their current status, touring North America's dance music hotspots for the first time. "Pretty much everything is new for us," says Drougge. "Actually the audiences have been a bit over our expectations, because we haven't released anything outside of Europe and we haven't got a label in North America, so we're really impressed that we get people singing along with the lyrics and stuff like that."

Getting released in North America is a growing aspiration for the duo. "We hope so, because then it gets easier for people to find out about our music so not just the nerds know."

Erratic Discourse

Switch crams the world into a turntable.

By Jack Oatmon

Dave Taylor, AKA Switch, of Chester, England is a tough guy to get a hold of, and with good reason. Aside from applying his signature, genre-garbling house style to remixes for the upper crust of the dance music scene, from Lady Sovereign to Futureheads and Chemical Brothers to Spank Rock, and a residency at London's infamous Fabric nightclub, he's also holding down production duties on M.I.A.'s awaited new album, Power Power, as well as a hectic touring roster. Before he flew off to Austin, Texas to DJ Diplo's SXSW party, The Mirror tracked Switch down for a highway-side phone conversation about working with M.I.A. (Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam), partying and jumping around like a loon.

"I actually got involved right at the end of Maya's last album and worked on 'Bucky Done Gun' and 'Pull up the People'," says Taylor. "I kept in touch with her and when she decided to do this new album, she had the idea to go and source underground music from far flung corners of the world. She grew up in a place called Chennai in India, so we went out there and met all these amazing musicians. We formed the basis of the album there and then we basically just went to all these mad crazy places to hear different underground club sounds. Then we took it all back to New York and worked on it there."

The idea of Dave Taylor compressing club sounds from multiple continents shouldn't come as a surprise to those who have heard his recent tracks, which jam elements of just about any genre you can bother to name on top of a dance beat to form jilted, staccato club ragers that command attention.

"I suppose that's why (M.I.A. and I) managed to find a good working relationship, because I like to switch from genre to genre and I incorporate different styles into a club sound." Which is a formula that Taylor says is quickly gaining momentum.

"There are more people whose ears have opened up to it. At the clubs and gigs I play, it feels really fresh, the reaction. It's not the traditional house club where the beat stays the same for six hours and everyone plods along. Mix it up a little bit, you know?"

Taylor explains that the ability to combine many styles is largely related to the availability of modern equipment.

"It's just a result of the technology really. I'm currently switching from Ableton to Serato because you get all of the advantages that a laptop setup can add, but you still have that physical presence as a DJ. I found using a laptop sort of awkward because I'd always end up setting the computer to one side of the decks or under a monitor. Also, using MIDI controllers can sometimes be a bit fiddly when you're jumping around like a loon to house music."

Taylor refers to behaviour which is reputedly a regular feature of his DJ sets.

"I just did a tour of the States where I managed to miss eleven flights, because I like to get involved. If people are coming out for a night out, I like to come out for a night out as well. I'm definitely not one of these studious DJs who show up, play their records and orders a cab for five minutes after their set. That's definitely not me."

Made in the Shade

As I am often inclined to do, dear readers, this weekend I present you with a conundrum of choice. In a booking coincidence that promises to split the city's dance music obsessed right down the middle, there is an alternative to the Switch show that threatens to doom my Saturday night to drunkenly stumbling back and forth between two venues like a rabid and confused bastard child of Garth Turner and Belinda Stronach.

Get Physical Recordings co-founders Booka Shade will be at the lovely Just For Laughs Museum. Booka Shade's long-running discography shows that left-field synthesizing and sterile techno beats can have great accessibility and appeal to the uninitiated, culminating in their moody, driving, second full-length, Movements, which is one of the most humanized experiments in fully electronic songwriting that I have encountered. In the midst of a million other things, I spoke to Berlin's mild-mannered Arno Kammermeier about his musical aspirations and live performances.

"People probably imagine that we'll just have one laptop onstage and that's all," explains Kammermeier, "but the show is between a rock show and an electronic DJ set. We have a lot of equipment onstage. I have an electronic drum set and Walther has a keyboard, a mixing desk and a vocoder as well as some effects boards to tweak the sequencers that we have. We have four laptops onstage to control the equipment, but people don't really see them because we want the physical presence to seen instead of the computers. We have one laptop for visuals as well, because we always have our own visuals with us which run in synch with the music. We move a lot and work with our instruments and try to bring some energy across."

I found it fitting that he described Booka Shade's shows in this way, because the striking thing about their albums (which you may not own, but you've likely heard tracks from if you've been to many clubs lately) is that the bewildering emotions that spring from the discs belie the music's synthetic production and inhuman media. Arno tried to explain.

"We are quite natural people and the reason why we called the label 'Get Physical' is because we love moving and dancing and all the positive aspects of the party scene: bringing energy out and just going crazy for fun. The thing we always care about is the songwriting. In club music some people value the production more than the songwriting, and that's because those people aren't musicians. What makes the difference therefore is the song and the emotion that you bring across. It is electronic, but we'd hopefully like to tell a little bit of a story or give a feeling."

Kammermeier also explained where the prolific label was aiming in the future.

"The biggest thing for Get Physical is the 5 year compilation for our anniversary. CD one is going to be new tracks from many artists in the Get Physical family and CD two will be remixes of the Get Physical catalogue. There are some people on it that you wouldn't expect when you think about Get Physical. Hot Chip did a mix for it, and they've already done one for Booka Shade, and the Rapture and somebody who works as a conductor and arranger for big Hollywood names, like Justin Timberlake and these people. He's doing a string arrangement for 'Nightfalls' from Booka Shade. That comes out in May."

Choose Wisely. jack.oatmon@gmail.com

***Okay, I panicked at the last minute when neither Switch, nor Booka Shade had gotten back to me about interviews. It won't be published in the magazine, so get the exclusive, non-existant Disco Volante vol. 49 here. When I'm super famous in Korea, you'll be able to say you read this before it never even came out!

Boozing and Musing

Iwas sitting in the corner of a dilapidated, spacious, colourfully-lit loft a few nights ago, watching several dozen revelers in Hawaiian shirts sock-hopping on the hardwood to 50's doo-wop tunes translated into French, when I began to wonder, as I often do, just what it was that was being toasted. My nighttime forays, once again, brought me to quite a few different celebratory microclimates last weekend. This particular soirée was one of those times when I was tagging along with some friends who coaxed me out of my room at 1:30am, so as I sipped a lonely beer I pondered the excesses of my situation, detached from the crowd, of which I knew no one. It felt a bit voyeuristic, like I was an intruder analyzing the partygoers in their native habitat. Who are these people? What do they do here?

Further along in the weekend I found myself wallflowered at another dark, swanky den, full of crisply dressed dancers with wry smiles, in the upper reaches of some hideous condo complex in the old port. They were laughing and making advances at each other with the confident demeanors that are so troublingly common at such events. No more than a passing glance would tell you that most of these people probably party like that nearly every weekend. But why?

I was likewise situated in another little cultural diorama this weekend, peering into a cozy nest of mild mannered twenty-somethings whose tastes and fashion sense seemed so esoteric and eclectic as to be a visual representation of a google search of the word kitsch. They, too, were merrily entrenched in their tree-house-like vision of paradise, crammed into the creaking corner of a warehouse that had probably seen occupants both stranger and more mundane in its time.

After a while it starts to seem like there are a thousand little compartmentalized ideas of hedonistic perfection in Montreal every weekend, each one with its own quirky tribe of thrill seekers, sousing themselves without a thought of the thinning Somalians, crumbling stock markets, melting icebergs or rampant viruses that seem so pertinent during office hours. The best I can figure is that the night is our cultural oubliette, where we dispose of the venom of the day, like so many mines full of uranium, and postpone thoughts about age, discretion and finding a productive place in the urban community.

Whether you're out for fun or sociology, I can certainly predict a few good bets for excess this weekend. Tonight, Thursday March 15, Parking will be graced by the respectable founder of German record label Poker Flat and purveyor of funky and sophisticated tech house grooves, Steve Bug.

On Saturday night a rather unlikely double-booking will see Montreal's techno elite divided right down the middle. Eclectic house producer cum genre-bending icon Switch hit les Saints along with Jordan Dare, Sean Kosa and DJ Bind. Switches more recent exploits include a fabulous catalog of remixes for the upper crust of the electro scene's darlings, as well production on M.I.A.'s anticipated, forthcoming album, Power Power.

That same night, Get Physical Recordings co-founders Booka Shade will be at the lovely Just For Laughs Museum. Booka Shade's long-running discography shows that left-field minimal house and sterile techno beats can have great accessibility and appeal to the uninitiated, culminating in their moody, driving, second full-length, Movements, which is one of the most humanized experiments in fully electronic songwriting that I have encountered.

Choose wisely. Jack.oatmon@gmail.com

Ladies, ladies…

It's International Womens' Day today, a day when all us mouthy, leery-eyed, chauvinist jerks have to go stand in the corner, think about what we've done and remember that we're not too old for soap in our mouths, no-sir-ee-Bob. It's also a day to remember that the some of the best DJs in town are chicks. So whether you get out to Parking for Mini or go to Saphir for a wild blend of house, electro and drum and bass by Maus, Rue and Miss Bijoux, keep in mind how boring life must have been just 50 years ago when women couldn't even go to the bar.

On Friday, March 9 you'll have two great options for all-night debauchery. Eddy Jasmin will be at Stereo dealing out a funky, soulful helping of house and electro beats, with Mini also on the bill to satisfy those in need of noise. With Eloi Brunelle and The Autist holding down Stereobar that same night, this is an excellent excuse to take advantage of the venerable afterhours. The trick there is to email Eloi at guestlist@eloibrunelle.com to get guestlisted, providing you show up before 1:30am. Then, once you're on the list, get there before 12:00am and hunt down the $25 pre-midnight ticket that gets you 10 drinks and free entry to the afterhours section. Bang! Wasted and dancing all night for $25.

The big lookout for Friday is, however, the Trigger Recording all-night rager at 20 Queen in Old Montreal. Seattle's Bob Hansen and Dave Pezzner, AKA Jacob London, will be seen alongside a slew of other quality DJs rockin' till 8:30am. The irony about dance music is that, while it's supposed to be all about partying and having a laugh, it's next to impossible to find well-produced tunes that retain a sense of humour and humility. These west-coast purveyors of freaky, silly house, however, manage to make seriously chopped-up, groovy, analog-laden tracks that don't take themselves too seriously. That, as well as the fact that this party is happening in a venue I've never visited and the reasonable price tag of $15-advance (available at InBeat Records on St. Laurent) make this the most promising party of the weekend.

While the phrase 'New Rave' may just make you want to puke, it might interest you to know what this flash-in-the-pan terminology represents. There's a dance-punk band from London called Klaxons. These young cats, came up with the name 'New Rave' jokingly, to describe their sound. New Music Express poster-boys that they are, the term has, for better or worse, spread, despite the fact that there is literally only one band in the "genre", and members of Klaxons have vehemently dismissed the term. There's even a bar night in homage to it in Montreal. See Klaxons on April 8^th at Lee's Palace in Toronto, and go to Vinyl for Nu-Ravers on the Block this Saturday, March 10 to hear tunes by their electro-rock ilk.

What's more, the latest Moondata LabProjects is at O Patro Vys on Saturday, featuring members of Bell Orchestre and Godspeed! You Black Emperor, as well as Bleubird, special guest star Amon Tobin, and a handful of other noteworthy musicians and visual technicians. Sweet!

Rounding up the weekend's fun, the SAT is, as usual, a good bet, with Peer Pressure and Team Canada hooking up on Friday, March 9, while Voyeur's 13^th edition features Bliss, Romeo Kardec, and Jordan Dare on Saturday, March 10.

Tell it like it is. jack.oatmon@gmail.com