- Depending on your point of view, it may seem either a bold or foolish move for an established brand like Canada's Mutek to muscle in on Sónar's turf and threaten their domination of the electronic music scene in Barcelona. Sure, one Wednesday night event won't cause Sónar to lose much sleep, but if Mutek's plans for a regular sequence of nights comes together—and if the nights all turn out even half as good as this—then the Catalan giants might just yet get the kick in the pants that they deserve.
Mutek, like many others at the grass roots level in Barcelona, have realised that there is a growing gulf between the techno tourists and the big stage sounds of the yearly festival and the so-called "advanced electronic music" they claim to represent. The mood away from the festival is also growing disillusioned as well, with few places for local talent to tout their wares at the bigger clubs that are neither aware enough nor brave enough to consistently push a more "advanced" electronic agenda, bar the occasional night.
Perhaps the greatest testament to the success of the night was just how packed the wonderfully intimate Moog Club became early on. No mean feat for Spain, where everything is always notoriously late or mañana, but even more surprising given that it was a humble Wednesday night away from the student breaks. Counting the heads just before the end at 5 AM, it seemed that everyone who arrived had refused to leave.
And why would you? Arriving early to the throb of Nerone's set was like landing at the beginning of a long, sustained peak, with the swirl of guests getting sucked straight in from the street and down to the floor beneath the DJ box. Nerone is renowned for unashamedly enjoying his sets, but his attitude is refreshing for its lack of pretension in both body language in the booth and the patient layering of tracks to give them the freedom to run. The opening half of the set fell more on the side of deep techno and the occasional foray into deep house to smooth out the pacing, but built steadily to a climax with a long, urgent run of driven techno.
Canadian-born and Berlin-based Scott Monteith, AKA Deadbeat, and Chilean-born and Berlin-based Andrés Bucci of the infamous Bucci brothers clan finished off the night with a series of laptop shows that ended with the two going back-to-back with great gusto. While immediately unique in style, both artists shaped their sets on similar strategic lines. Both began hard and with masterly discipline, unleashing only tight chains of beats with patiently controlled changes and, like Nerone, refusing to be drawn into pointless extravagance. However, with time, both slowly unwound and fed more noise and psychedelia into the system, breaking down and building up with increasingly more abandon and recklessness.
Deadbeat was on first and played plenty of new material with a more forceful structure than his previous albums, suggesting his new Teutonic surroundings were rubbing off. Taking the new tracks as a beginning, he then wound his way backwards through 2007's Journeyman's Annual to finish up with "Berghain Drumjack" and the dulcet skank of "Babylon Correction" from last year's Roots and Wire.
Bucci's set was texturally tighter and pressured to the point of exploding. Where Deadbeat's palette had been rougher and fuzzier, Bucci's sound was much more digital and coldly pure. The bass kicks were narrower and more highly strung and sent off reams of magnesium-bright hats. Initially he reined-in the controls, carving out some brilliantly wrought tunnels of flickering rhythm, but slowly loosened his grip to descend in and out of mercurial pools of steely noise.
Back to back they dropped a gear, but it didn't matter as everyone was hooked by then and with Nerone waiting on the side to bookended the show, there was no need to be anywhere else.