Why Mutek is the perfect festival for music producers with an audiovisual edge
Mutek festival now has events in Mexico City, Tokyo, Barcelona, Dubai, Buenos Aires and Santiago, but its true home is Montreal. Not only was the celebration of electronic music and digital arts founded in the Canadian city in 2000, but Montreal has since become an internationally-renowned hub for the production and export of emerging cultural experiences, bringing together live performance and audio-visual tech.
Unsurprisingly, then, the 25th anniversary of Mutek Montreal is no small affair. Heavy on Canadian artists, and artists from Quebec in particular, there is also an international presence from the US and Europe. The likes of Aïsha Devi, Colin Stetson, Marie Davidson, Ela Minus, Factory Floor and Fred Everything are spread across five days of after-dark performances that make the most of the Quartier des Spectacles cultural district.
Largely held across multiple venues within this one area of the city, Mutek is open to passholders but there's also the free outdoor stage at Esplanade Tranquille. This is an impressive bit of public realm with a wild but well-behaved crowd dancing until close every night of the festival to headliners Octo Octa, Steffi, Virginia, Kode9 and Roman Flügel, with support from AV treats like homegrown highlight [indistinct voices over PA].
Over at the Society of Arts and Technology (SAT) there are multiple levels of experimentation and performance. A spectrum of artists from Daito Manabe to Cobblestone Jazz commands the stage and screens in the concrete warehouse of the ground floor, while upstairs in the dome venue there are eye-popping 360-degree visuals featuring DJs and live motion-tracked dancers, alongside experimental art films made for the immersive screen.
Amnesia Scanner & Freeka Tet fill the room with strobes and smoke, seeking out the audience with flashlights as part of a visceral performance at mid-sized venue MTELUS. It's a set as memorable as that of Montreal composer Myriam Bleau and Taiwanese-Canadian artist Nien-Tzu Weng over at the largest venue Théatre Maisonneuve de la Place des Arts, who play with screens, masks and movement in a gripping piece of theatrical dance.
The only outlying venue, the charismatic New City Gas, hosts a special event featuring the world premiere of Patrick Watson's Film Scores for No One. With surprise guests including virtuoso saxophonist Colin Stetson it is, unsurprisingly, oversubscribed immediately.
Alongside the performance is a free arts trail which lights up around the Quartier des Spectacles district each evening throughout the festival, and for some time either side. Village Numérique (or Digital Village) features 23 installations which use audiovisual technology, and in some cases interactivity, to give audiences a range of experiences. Courtesy of individual artists, collectives, and mammoth local companies like Moment Factory, there's the chance to make music with a playground, explore a laser forest, and experience live music with visuals from a VR headset.
Mutek Montreal is currently on a kind of tour, having taken a selection of artists to Transart festival Bolzano Italy, Sonica festival in Glasgow and Lunchmeat festival in Prague. In October alone, Mutek has celebrated other anniversaries in Mexico City, Buenos Aires and Santiago.
Mutek Montreal 2026 is already being billed as A New Cycle but, whatever it has in store, we can expect more of the same bold human-meets-machine experimentation that is its speciality.
