English-German outfit Art Brut take their name from a little-used alternate term for outsider art. It’s an appropriate moniker — Art Brut may well have formed in a vacuum, because nobody else sounds quite like them.

To call Art Brut indie rock would be, if not a mistake, then at least inadequate. It’s true that the band’s sound recalls the the crusty low-fi of garage rock and the driving New Wave-redux rhythms of fellow British invaders Franz Ferdinand and Futureheads. But lead throat Eddie Argos‘s thickly English howls are culled straight from vintage punk (even his comedic asides recall the satire of the Stooges or the Dead Milkmen) adding an anarchic, loopily hilarious spirit to a genre often known for its self-seriousness. The band capably complements this off-kilter approach with catchy dance-rock grooves, spiced with the kind of stylistic curveballs that Weezer once offered.

DC Comics and Chocolate Milkshake by art-brut

Ultimately it’s Argos himself who forms Art Brut‘s make-or-break proposition. His lyrics, like the better brand of stand-up comedy, are both universal observations and private revelations — albeit couched in non-sequiteur rambling and energetic catchphrase slinging. Argos’s stream-of-lyricism style spans everything from terrible sex to music industry woes to DC Comics and chocolate milkshakes, at least in the song of that name.

At times Art Brut resemble nothing so much as Bloc Party being joyfully waled upon with a cricket bat by Wesley Willis. It’s an engaging and often gut-busting balance of the amusingly dumb, the archly self-aware, and the painfully sincere.

Supporting the release of their fourth album Brilliant! Tragic!, Art Brut has been on a North American junket, and they’re hitting up Montreal this Saturday (June 18th) at one of our favourite venues, Il Motore, brought to you by Greenland, BSTB & Evenko. You are cordially invited to come shake your ass — and maybe laugh it right off.

Samedi 18 juin(Greenland, BSTB & Evenko présentent)
ART BRUT + INVITÉ
IL MOTORE – 179 JEAN-TALON O.

15$ + f.s. à l’avance et 16.50$ + f.s. à la porte

Billets en vente chez CHEAP THRILLS et sur le réseau ADMISSION.

At first, I was confused and was wondering if the opening shows (WOMEN WITH KITCHENS & TRISTAN PERICH) were part of MUTEK’S sort of perma installations in @ the S.A.T?! Nothing to write home about here :/ (no offense to the artists) but this pretentious overly minimal hipster shizit is really not my thing and I honestly didn’t see too many happy faces (many stoned ones) in the crowds of those who truly appreciate this “genre”! I mayhave had had a more meaningful experience, hitting my iphone on the side of my head to traffic lights!

I’m no expert in what I think is called: Glitch, Noise or industrial sound collages, but I do know it was hard to tell the difference between those first 2 acts which is probably a sign that the productions were not very unique..  I have no idea what I was experiencing in terms of mediums but I can tell you how it felt! It felt like I was staring at a broken TV looping between it’s half channels and hearing a screwed up radio signal on a country road.  I would have had to be high out of my tree to enjoy this realistically and even then I may have had a more meaningful time hitting my iphone on the side of my head to the  traffic light tempo outside!

So that’s the bad part of my night. I don’t think my business partner who is VERY into electronic music was happy either.. judging from his immediate solution to go get a drink at the bar within seconds of the show! There, so now that I got that out of the way, let’s get to the good stuff…  In this case, the hard work of enduring the opening acts came with a very fruitful reward called SCULPTURE

Since Amon Tobin was nothing new for me, I wanted to check out a show that was. SCULPTURE was all that MUTEK promises to be. Original, cutting edge, mind warping multi-media. The synchronization of visual medium to audio was nothing short of genius. The technique alone was this, best described below in this MUTEK showcase:

home-made zoetropic discs – slabs of vinyl illustrated with otherworldly patterns that they play at various speeds and film to create simultaneous cycles of analogue sound and looping, mind-melting imagery.

Every single audio piece was a match made in heaven for the multi-screen visual. The most enjoyable example of this, I felt, was when very basic star shapes were slowly appearing on the screens (The ones made with 1 solid line which have very wide points, typical of star tats) as soon as we started seeing these slowly spin into frame, a super pleasant and lullabye-esque chime was being mixed into very hard beats. Almost like Tinkerbelle meets drum & bass. Very cool. VERY. COOL.

What I really liked about this show, was that even though the music was by proper definition probably Experimental, there was method in this madness, some kind of journey in this chaos. If you missed this truly brilliant display of mesmerizing multimedia , I invite you to experience a small taste of it here:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Hebden credits everything from Motown funk to ’90s horrorcore rap as influences, making him impossible to pin down. One thing is consistent: In contrast to the often chilly and downbeat style of his electronic post-rock peers, Hebden’s work as Four Tet is known for its upbeat, warm and even euphoric qualities – qualities which are much enhanced by the joy-charged atmosphere of his live show. MUTEK Montreal is going to be all sexy smiles, we predict.

Hebden has been purveying his brand of soulful dance rhythms as Four Tet since 1998, when he was still playing guitar in his post-rock band Fridge. Four Tet’s early output attracted significant buzz and soon Hebden was leading a musical double life, touring with Fridge by day and remixing the likes of Aphex Twin by night – or perhaps vice versa.

Hebden’s 2001 album Pause under the Four Tet name was critically acclaimed, and so unique that a new genre name – folktronica – was coined by music media to describe it. Since then, Four Tet has been Hebden’s dominant project, with a smattering of Fridge releases throughout the 2000s. Hebden’s many talents and have made him a hotly demanded remix artist from a wide variety of artists; he’s worked with artists as disparate as Madvillain, Tegan and Sara and Radiohead, among others.

Were not able to catch his show at MUTEK? This is a good video showing some of his previous work…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Tobin is one of those names, like Aphex Twin and Plastikman (the latter also appearing at this year’s MUTEK) that’s known well beyond the inner circle of electronic music devotees, having achieved a brand of mainstream recognition in a traditionally underground scene.

Born Amon Adonai Santos de Araujo Tobin, the Brazilian genius was releasing music from his bedroom studio as a teenager, which eventually led to some notoriety via his debut album Adventures in Foam under his artist name, Cujo. An underground sensation, Adventures in Foam attracted attention from the likes of Funki Porcini, which led to Tobin being signed to infamous London label Ninja Tune. 1997 saw the release of Tobin’s breakthrough album Bricolage, which attracted significant critical attention – and the rest is, if not history, then legend at the least.

Tobin is known for his deep, layered production, which fuses samples of acoustic instruments with hard-hitting breakbeats and drum and bass rhythms. Tobin’s work is varied and genre-sweeping – at times frenetic and claustrophobic, at times relaxed and subtle. Orchestral and jazz instruments figure prominently in much of his work. The cinematic richness of Tobin’s sound has given him the opportunity to work in film and video games as a soundtrack artist, and he’s been lauded by gamers and music lovers alike for his work on the Splinter Cell series and the recent Infamous.

Since 2002 Tobin has resided in Montreal courtesy of his association with Ninja Tune’s Montreal offices, which means MUTEK wasn’t much of a commute. Tobin’s June 1^st spectacular brought the house down with wild projections of 3D abstract visions upon a massive sculptural form, courtesy of several fabricating and engineering companies who collaborated on the huge project. Of course, this kind of collaborative fusion has defined Tobin’s career all along. The only question remaining in the aftermath of MUTEK is, how can Tobin possibly top himself now?

We can’t wait to find out!

A no-frills bar and venue which makes its token number of tables magically disappear when it’s time to get a floor moving, Il Motore boasts ample stage space and a sound system that’s powerful but not overwhelming when you’re slurring at the bartender for your eighth pint. It’s very nearly ideal. First onstage was Montreal’s own Solar Year, a duo who played to a growing, pensive crowd. As Solar Year plays havoc with looping, reverb and choral vocals by way of doubling and re-doubling, their sonic similarities to a certain Pitchfork-famous indie group will not go unnoticed, but Solar Year differentiate themselves from the Collective with an icier, introspective approach that’s hard to pin down. Based in synths and ethereally distorted male vocals, Solar Year’s sound hints at Enya, darkwave groups such as Lycia, and the black-clad dream-pop of M83. And you thought Solar Year‘s ‘gothic’ label on MySpace was just being droll? At any rate, these guys displayed a minimalist act with a polished sound, serving as poster-boys for the wild talent bubbling up from the Montreal underground. It’s hard enough to get a crowd of urban hipsters moving (even if you pull a fire alarm or a gun, both of which have occurred to me), but getting people moving isn’t the aim of Solar Year. They want you to listen and think, and maybe brood if the mood takes you. And it might.

Bad Tits, besides having the best band name of the night and perhaps of all time, also had an excellent act. Also a duo, Bad Tits comprises Sebastien Grainger and Josh Reichmann (of Death From Above 1979 and Tangiers, respectively), and with that kind of pedigree I’m surprised there isn’t more buzz on these guys and their brand of garage-band power-pop. Above all, Bad Tits offers groove, either hypnotic or repetitive at your preference, with occasional vocals (quite capable) and a wide variety of sounds via guitars, effects, keyboards, mixers and a wonderfully ’80s electronic drum kit. Bad Tits‘ thundering beats are simple and seemingly ideal for four-on-the-floor flailing — but the crowd didn’t seem to agree. At a dance-rock show, Bad Tits would’ve torn the house down doing the exact same act, but the crowd, sadly, gave them the gargoyle stare, save for a front row of wildmen who shamed us all with their energy.

That energy seemed to spread only during the cheering adulation that greeted Phantogram‘s ascent to the stage. Phantogram – whose name is also excellent for a reason I can’t quite pin down — call themselves “street beat, psych pop”. What this actually means is trip-hop in the manner of Massive Attack and Portishead, inflected with a bit of experimental grit. Phantogram is yet another duo, comprising Sarah Barthel and Joshua Carter, with a live act featuring a drummer and an intriguing melange of organic and synthetic elements. I have an affection for the genre, though I get the feeling that as with most trip-hop, Phantogram really shines when you let their deep dark atmosphere wash over you undisturbed on album. When it comes to achieving that Zen state at a venue like Il Motore your mileage may vary. In any case, Phantogram played more than capably and Barthel’s voice was angelic, playing the crowd like a snake charmer. Phantogram‘s BPM rarely exceeded those of a coma patient’s heart monitor, but you wouldn’t know it from the hopping, howling crowd. For lush atmosphere and hard beats, Il Motore was the only game in town, and everyone knew it.

Priestess at M for Montreal, November 20, 2010

Montreal’s own Priestess might have been a confusing addition to the lineup for some of the audience at Saturday’s M for Montreal. Sandwiched between local indie rockers The Dears and boisterous showmen Misteur Valaire, Priestess repped the metal contingent, and though they sounded like nothing else on the menu, they kept the energy high and the volume higher. Certainly the heaviest set to hit an M for Montreal show since they and Voivod rocked M on the Quays in September.

Not to be confused with American drone-metal purveyors Baroness (or Dutch black metal nightmare Countess), Priestess has a weed-fueled sound that’s firmly rooted in Black Sabbath, Motörhead, Deep Purple and other bands your parents listened to in dank, wood-paneled basements long ago. But Priestess aren’t content to ape the past; they’re also aiming for the same metal crowd who groove on the prog-inspired brutality of latter-day greats like Mastodon and Opeth.

Lead throat Mikey Heppner is capable, but it’s the increasingly virtuoso playing that really sells Priestess. Their 2009 album ‘Prior to the Fire’ gave us the first hints of reaching in a prog-influenced direction, and their set at M for Montreal showboated this love for dazzling guitar solos and complex rock rhythms building into songs of cosmic proportions.

Did the crowd buy it? I know I did. If the impromptu mosh pit was any indication, bursting from the relatively sedate crowd like agents of a sleeper cell, then Priestess did their dark job and more. You could almost hear the snapping of synapses as indie-kids’ minds were blown.

It’s always great to see a metal act on the bill at a show like M for Montreal. It’s a genre often shafted by festivals, despite its pedigree in the province (in addition to Priestess and the aforementioned Voivod, this region also gave us Cryptopsy, Martyr and many more excellent acts). You don’t even have to be high to enjoy Priestess, although the smell of the smoke will dull the scent of the beer in your hair and the pain of your bloody nose. Raise the horns.

Misteur Valaire at M for Montreal, November 20, 2010

Montréal’s own Misteur Valaire played M for Montreal at the Saturday night event at Metropolis, and now let’s get one cliché out of the way: If you haven’t heard Mister Valaire live, then you haven’t heard them at all. As good as their albums are, successfully fusing electro-rock (reminiscent of Justice and Hot Chip) with hip-hop and jazz notes, no recording can prepare you for their live show with all of its brain-hammering bass and infectious youthful energy. This multi-instrumentalist, five-man group comes on identically costumed like something from “A Clockwork Orange”, and their approach is just as explosively theatrical as anything you’ll see in a movie.

Misteur Valaire aren’t out to convey a message. They’re all about fun, and everything they bring onstage, from projections of cheesy ’60s beach movies to mid-set costume changes to impromptu synchronized dance routines, is intended to keep the energy high. But it’s not all glitz — their antics support and enhance the music, which, to the band’s great credit, keeps both the body moving and the brain sparking. In contrast to the sampled iMac sterility that often hamstrings such dance-rock efforts, Misteur Valaire‘s tunes are alive — sonically layered and complex, bursting with live trumpet and saxophone and a wonderfully grimy bass guitar / keyboard combo. You can dance to this music, hell yes you can, but you can also listen to it.

Misteur Valaire‘s press credits an “academic jazz” background as the foundation for their music, and you can hear the organic flow of jazz, if not jazz instruments, in every song. Their infrequent hip-hop stylings (complete with perhaps-ironic costumes including sunglasses and sleazy Trilby hats) are an easy meld with the powerful percussion of their mostly midtempo melodies. Their bilingual lyrics are limited to the usual self-aggrandizing party themes, but what else would you expect from a band that’s redefining party music with every blast of bass?

Pascale Picard at M for Montreal, November 20, 2010

M for/pour Montreal: Pascale Picard

With a platinum-selling album and opening slots for Paul McCartney behind them, Québec City’s Pascale Picard Band is already a name brand to Canadian listeners. Both critics and audiences agree that Pascale and her sound both captivate the mainstream and transcend it.

Pascale Picard‘s smooth voice combines with catchy pop-folk hooks and lyrics focused upon frank dissections of life events and relationship drama. Undertones of blues and electronic and occasional explosions of rock help to fill out Picard’s sound, keeping the group from being easily pigeonholed despite their conventional pop structures. There’s just a lot of plain old good songwriting going on from the band, not to mention a hell of a lot of charisma from Pascale herself.

The title of Pascale’s 2007 album, “Me, Myself & Us”, conveys the introspective themes of her music. While at times still falling prey to the same kind of banal metaphor that drags down so much radio pop, Pascale manages to keep her lyrics personal, detailing specific instances from her life, or at least the life of the song’s persona. It’s occasionally awkward — as awkward as our own interior monologues — and that’s the whole appeal. A diversity of emotions and conflicts haunts every song, as layered and finely-shaded as the melodies behind them.

On album, Pascale occasionally lets rip with foul-mouthed invective that would impress Alanis Morrissette at her meanest, but onstage at M for Montreal last night, she and her band were all smiles and positive energy. Her brief stage banter pleased the Francophone audience while her lyrics, as on album, were in English. She and her band pulled off the performance without a hitch. Pascale’s voice sounded as rich and sweet as ever, though, at least to this listener’s ears, curiously more girlish and bubblegum than the mature alt-rocker voice she employs on album. The group brought energy and warmth to even the more sedate songs in their repertoire and, like so many acts at M for Montreal, left us howling for more after their short set was complete.
It’s been three years since “Me, Myself & Us” — we can only hope they’ve got another one on the way, and soon.

At the 5th edition of M for Montreal with Gene Simmons vs Sid Lee was a friendly debate about bands and brands and the importance of image positioning, trademark, copyright and everything you could imagine in a “The band IS the brand”" style forum. Gene Simmons, who admittedly likes the sound of his own voice, was definitely on a roll in terms of listen to me… I’m a dinosaur monologues… KISS promotions and clever come-backs. He was even so bold as to edit the M for Montreal logo with a sharpie as we can see here in our short best of Gene Simmons @ M for Montreal segment.

He was very presentable and very funny and he held our attention for what seemed like the duration of a typical movie and it was a movie…a movie about him! Some dude from Sid Lee whose name escapes me got in his 2 cents too in between Gene’s amazing bragathon. Gene Simmons is a very interesting ego monster and a total fame whore.  He is the ultimate macho alpha-male superstar. Women are at his feet, when he isn’t a classical beauty. Men KISS his ass, especially aspiring musicians and nerds who will never see the the other side of the playboy mansion’s front door. On one hand, a true softy and we can see this when we see him with his kids or his new bands, who he treats and protects like family. On the other hand, if you made a YouTube video and grabbed one of his songs for promotional material, expect a law suit in the mail as he mentioned more than once… he loves to sue and yes even the little people!

Gene Simmons is a branding and image management king and we know this already because according to marketing specialists, the 4 KISS faces are the most recognized faces in the world. The rock & roll pinky and index finger symbol we often see at rock concerts is HIS. He emphasized it so much playing guitar it became the lighter that people held up during his shows and all other shows.

A sometimes radically independent and stubborn thinker, he is known to rebel against common sense to stand out of the crowd. We learned this on live TV during an episode of Donald Trump’s show where he actually gets fired for being difficult! Love him or hate him, he is brilliant, extremely wealthy and has certainly made a name for himself  in this life and perhaps even in the afterlife! Apparently, KISS has branded themselves both condoms and caskets! The informal slogan “We want to get you when you’re coming or going”".  I have been impressed with 2 famous people in the past 5 years and Gene was one of them. Patti Smith at the Pop Montreal showcase is the other. Ironically they probably hate each other lol.

Some speculate that Gene’s ego is already so big, he would simply combust if KISS was been inaugurated into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, what seems to be an automatic win? I mean, bands that KISS has influenced are there! KISS should have been inaugurated 10 years ago… but strangely they have not. Popular vote wants them in as we can see in one of many crowd sourced surveys:

KISS ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME? VOTE ON SODAHEAD!

Gene please don’t sue us for unauthorized use of your band pics

KISS my ass!

For the first time in almost a decade, it’s almost better to be starting your database now because of all the ground-up social tools in place to track web identities and social engagement.

The cost of turning an existing database into social friendly data for large fortune 500 companies can cost in the hundreds of thousands – no joke because of the amount of bandwidth and processing needed to extract this data from years of emails. Typically what these companies do is they go social as of now, meaning they don’t bother tracking their old mailers but they do so in their new ones, or they just bite the bullet and pay for the data mine only to learn in a few months, there is even better and nore accurate tools to do so for less!

This is the problem. Social data and engagement software is on the rise and there is so much new stuff no one knows what to use and for how long. Thankfully, review sites and experts in the field have narrowed down a few of them and I have found my faves (at least for a few months!)

Introducing MailChimp’s Social Pro – My favorite web monkey has gone social yey! Social Pro is sick sick awesome. It allows you to do the following:

• View your subscribers in a visual way with little Avatar pics
• Allow you to see who is on what (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) and most importantly who is most connected
• Create campaigns based on communicating, up-selling or rewarding the social ambassadors (those with many connections)

O.k so that’s great for someone using MailChimp or for those who haven’t built a newsletter yet but what about those who have mailers from other Newsletter providers like Constant Contact, Worldcast, In-house software? What if all you have is the list? No problem, introducing: Flotown

What is flotown asside from a cool web 3.0 name? Dylan Boyd, Vice President of  eRoi  said it best “If social and email had a baby, it would be called Flotown”  Flowtown allows you to within minutes, import your existing mailer and extract social data from it. The more people you have, the more your wallet will suffer but the cost of not doing this in the long run is what will hurt your company the most.  A lot of businesses who have not subscribed yet to the true power of social media and interactive marketing, do not know why this would be such a valuable thing to do.

For example, we have many clients who often say “So what if I know that most of my mailer has a Twitter?”  Then we explain that this means a few things… there is a huge correlation between Twitter usage and mobile technology, just seems to be the same types. That person you know who refuses to get a cel phone and so you have to make sure to always be on time to meet their damn ass, likely is not super  webby and doesn’t use Twitter. This makes mobile advertising an option for you if you see that your mailer is very tweety. Another thing we can extract from Twitter statistics is Time spent on-line, demographics like location, psychographics like user behavior. So that’s just from finding out a lot of people on your mailer use Twitter. Imagine the power of knowing that there are also a lot of people on Linked in, Facebook, Tumblr, Foursquare, Yelp, Dailybooth… and which people are on most of the networks and have a lot of firends? Imagine the real life equivalent. It would be like knowing that someone in your mailer hangs out at various places in the world and has a lot of friends in those places, almost like a jetset status. Valuable to advertisers and incredibly valuable to you.

Another thing this tells us is how much money to spend on our own on-line vehicles. For example, if everyone in your mailer is on Facebook but not so much on Twitter, well then you should be spending a directly relational amounts of time marketing your Facebook to your fans and also working on getting your existing fans from other networks to know that they CAN follow you on Twitter by making sure to stick Twitter icons on your site, Tweeter feeds in your blogs etc…

Social media is like Lite Brite. (and I’m determined to one day soon make a really cool animation with Lite Brite) to show you. You have many different colors (networks) and you generally need a few pegs and colors to really make a difference.  There are the kids who tend to use a few green ones to make the tree template that came in the box (typical web marketer) and there are those who are able to create incredibly intricate multi-colored worlds (web marketer who thinks outside the box).