>>PREVIEW
SIXTOO
Saturday, April 1
The Hifi
For most DJs, the tools of the trade are simple – two turntables, a mixer and a microphone. But if you’re Montreal’s Sixtoo, you’ve graduated to a much more elaborate itinerary – keyboards and synthesizers, turntables, drum machines, mixers, pedals and a huge A-100 Analog Modular synthesizer lovingly named the "weaponface-speakerbruiser."
It’s been many years since Sixtoo first cut his teeth producing beats as an MC and underground hip hop DJ in Toronto and Halifax, but as his sets evolved from hip hop-based sampling to glitchy breakbeat meanderings, a monster started brewing within the swirling soundscape of patch chords, signal outputs and oscillators.
For the last while, Sixtoo has been fine-tuning his live P.A. sets that integrate traditional DJ sampling, noise, loops, drums programs and improvisation into a mélange of groove-driven noise. For those of us not cool to the more experimental side of electronic music, "Live P.A." basically refers to any "performing artist" composing, recording and performing live electronic music using any number of synth or loop-based instruments. According to Sixtoo, it’s a direction that was inevitable the moment he decided to build an eight input analog modular mixer.
"It’s a system that is specifically used for improvisational material that gives me a lot of freedom to experiment," explains Sixtoo. "I know no one else is doing this in the genre – not only building but using a huge processing mixer for live shit – and to be honest, the whole thing is kind of an absurd notion. But as I started experimenting and improvising more, I realized I have this ability now to combine pre-programmed drum loops and sequences with the ability to completely strip down those samples to nothing and build it up from scratch onstage. It’s like if something’s working I can make it a 20-minute song, and if it’s not working, I can move onto something else."
Though Sixtoo has for the most part left the land of beat-matching and scratching for the surreal reality of microtonal tunings, chaotic systems and feedback networks, he hasn’t totally shaken off the last frays of the traditional DJ set. He’s still willing to throw in the odd hip hop sample, and as his sampler is still his first and foremost instrument, those wanting beat- driven grooves will still be nodding their heads in his one-man shows.
"I’ll come with a bunch of beats so that people that expect that kind of thing are gonna get it. It’s the kind of thing where I can keep an engaged, experimental performance, but still be able to throw in elements of rap or hip hop depending on what the vibe is. I’m just trying to figure out a really solid one-man show and use what I’ve created and make it into some kind of, well, disaster of sorts."
Disaster indeed. His 2004 Ninja Tune release Chewing Glass & Other Miracle Cures both crippled and cured the more discerning electronica music listener, incorporating live instruments to an amazing effect. With the help of Godspeed You! Black Emperor cellist Norsola Johnson and bassist Thierry Amar, and Can's Damo Suzuki, Chewing Glass hit home for those immersing themselves in the atmospheric glitchy-post-electronica of Fourtet, DJ Shadow or Blockhead.
Live instrumentation does seem to be the way of the future for the survival of the DJ, and Sixtoo may be leading the charge along with his compatriots from Ninja Tune. If anything, the DJ culture isn’t dead, it’s just quietly working on new ways to take over the world.
"It took me a long time to get to this point," admits Sixtoo. "It takes a lot of confidence to realize that you don’t have to rock the crowd at every moment, but I also don’t just want to get up there with a laptop and have my head down for 45 minutes. I want to be able to interact with the audience."
If anything, the Hifi show will be catching Sixtoo at an elemental juncture in his recording process. By planning to record all of his one-man live P.A. shows and then editing, cutting, looping and processing that raw material into his next album, Calgary audiences may be party to material that won’t be publicly available until his next album is officially released. That’s an enticing notion for those of us looking to see where the future of electronica music lies. |
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