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Mutek To My Ears | The visuals at Mutek 10 promise to be every bit as spectacular as the techno.

MUTEK 10
Featuring The Mole, Inkwell, Forafee, Clinker & DJ Wijit, Nik 7 & Jaycie Jayce. Avenue Theatre (9030-118 Ave). Tickets: $20, available through Foosh and Blackbyrd.

House is spiritual, trance is mind-expanding, but techno is the genre of electronic music that possesses the most geek cachet. High-minded early iterations by Detroit pioneers Juan Atkins and Rick Davis were inspired by the writings of Alvin Toffler, who predicted a postindustrial future where information was the main currency. Germany’s Kraftwerk merely dressed up as (and sang songs about) robots.

Today, Canada’s biggest techno showcase is Montreal’s annual Mutek festival (it’s as cosmopolitan as the Festival International de Jazz, only more bleepity-bloopity), which will be marking its 10th anniversary this May. To celebrate, Mutek is mounting its first-ever cross-Canada tour. The Edmonton leg will feature live PA sets from The Mole, Inkwell, and Clinker, and DJ sets from Forafee and Shout Out Out Out Out’s Nik 7 and Jaycie Jayce. Organizers say Mutek 10 will act as a reminder that good techno can work both your hips and your head.

“Techno isn’t as austere or snooty as people might think,” says Mutek content manager Dimitri Nasrallah. “In the past, the people who liked techno tended to have more of an academic background or sensibility, and that reputation really hung around to almost overshadow it. But Mutek is really about breaking down stereotypes about ‘techno’ and making it more inclusive. A producer like The Mole is a good example; he’s really influenced by soul and disco and is one of the funkier guys going. I think people will be surprised by how accessible it is.”

Well, people from around here anyway. Aside from a few pockets of resistance, like the Danksoul crew out of Edmonton/Vancouver and Winnipeg’s send + receive festival, techno remains a relatively unknown quantity in Western Canada. (Mutek has a bigger following in places like Boston and New York, as well as techno epicentres like Berlin.) The tour, Nasrallah says, is as much a promotional tool as a fact-finding mission for festival organizers about the evolution of techno in parts elsewhere.

True to its roots, Mutek has undergone changes of its own over the years. After he joined Mutek in 2003, Nasrallah and the festival’s small team of organizers soon found themselves at a pivotal juncture. “It was a dilemma,” Nasrallah says. “In 2005, all of electronic music sort of hit a wall creatively. It was the post-rave era, when the scene was still shrugging off its adolescence and the idea that it was all about drugs, so I think it was an identity issue. Mostly, we didn’t want to mindlessly fill a venue and draw a crowd at the expense of losing our critical reputation.

“But by 2007 we had new blood, a stronger team and new direction. That year, we also introduced abstract hip hop and dubstep to the lineup with acts like Kode 9, Space Ape, and Shackleton, who made his Canadian debut. It was a big leap for us, but they’re quality acts and we’re mindful of taking baby steps. You may never see a superstar like Carl Cox at Mutek, for example, but you will see innovators like Carl Craig.”

Nasrallah is also happy to report that some of techno’s biggest pushers have come to embrace Mutek’s visual arts component. A strong example is Germany’s Monolake (Robert Henke), who is returning to the festival this year. For three showings, he and Christopher Bauer will be presenting the ATOM installation, which features a series of compositions played on a matrix of 64 illuminated helium balloons at the swanky Maisonneuve at Place des Arts.

For their part, house and trance aficionados may simply want to show up to thank Henke for helping their careers along — he’s the co-inventor of the widely used Ableton Live music mixing and creation software. “Praises for Robert never really get sung,” Nasrallah says. “There are a lot of DJs and producers who use Ableton now and they’re really a dime a dozen, working from a template that he helped create. But Monolake, and techno, have moved on.”