MUTEK Montréal

MUTEK Montréal is the date of techno, house and digital drum and bass in the city where it began. Joe Hale, in Clash on 4 September 2026, dates the start in 2000. The note of 12 May 2026 calls the week of Tuesday 25 to Sunday 30 August 2026 the 27th, with about 120 artists from 28 countries across 18 programs and five series. The open air is free on the esplanade Tranquille; Hale writes Esplanade, with a capital. The paid rooms are the SAT, the MTELUS, the Maison symphonique and, for the first time in that note, the Studio-Théâtre des Grands Ballets. The note writes Société des arts et de la technologie. The usual name of the SAT is Société des arts technologiques. Support includes, among others, the Ville de Montréal, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Hôtel Monville and the Brasserie Dieu du Ciel!.

On the square, Hale hears NVST in dark, distorted electronics that build toward techno, and Zora Jones, who moves from house and disco into glitchy, pop-facing ground. The May list puts Zora Jones on the Nocturne series, not on the street. Istanbul Ghetto Club tightens toward techno with live instruments and masks, and the weight does not take the joy away. Kids sit and families stop. The local duo Jump Source tells him that a left turn in a set here is encouraged. By day, the Forum crosses digital art, immersive technology and artificial intelligence. A panel, Whose Music Is It?, brings NVST and Matthew Herbert together, among others, on who owns a sound tied to a place. ELECTRONICOS FANTASTICOS!, from Japan, turn fans, CRT televisions and barcode scanners into instruments. Machines break and get fixed. None of it looks sleek.

At night, at the SAT, red light washes the room while Jump Source plays Fold. The songs are set, they say, and what changes is the path from one to the next and the arrangement of each one. Rhythm sits on one side; melody, harmony and processed voice move around it. gyrofield emerges from industrial textures and lets a warped drum and bass through. They tell Hale it was their first live set and that the festival pushed the show off the ground. On Friday, Honeydrip travels bass and dub under illuminated tentacles. The Nocturne 3 review places Honeydrip at the SAT on 28 August, with Florence-Delphine Roux and A Guy Called Gerald. Mia Koden follows in a dark red. Then Jeff Mills presents Stargate: a cosmic portal across five dimensions, each one a chapter. Friday's Métropolis series places him at the MTELUS, with scenography by BelleyFERRIS. Hale does not name the room.

At the Maison symphonique, Voices From The Lake is left to Neel. Donato Dozzy cannot play because of illness. Friday's program still announces both of them. The bass, the rhythm and the aquatic sound are made on the fly. Neel tells Hale he needs a blank page, because otherwise the emotion does not come, and that he would rather risk an imperfect moment than arrive with everything already built. He recalls a Tokyo show, with Dozzy, of about seven and a half hours, begun in ambient and with no backup. On Saturday, Fennesz and Lillevan unfold the electronics in two stretches, with organic images that dissolve, without a marked climax. The X/Visions 3 page sets Fennesz and Lillevan from 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm and Ah! Kosmos with Hainbach from 8:20 pm to 9:20 pm. The paragraph on that page reverses the order and names Ah! Kosmos first. The header says 45 dollars with taxes included. The breakdown charges 45, plus 6.74 in taxes and 8.50 in service, and the total paid is 60.24.

Upstairs, the Satosphère is a 360-degree projection dome. The public lies down. M. Salaciak and VJ BunBun fill the ceiling with red structures that build and fall in time with house. The May list writes M Salaciak, with no period and no BunBun. Hale hears it almost like anime, a digital city that assembles and collapses. Evicshen, at the SAT, is the inverse of Fennesz: a sound hard to classify and a stage presence it is hard to look away from. Later, Facta and then Ben UFO. Saturday's page puts them at the MTELUS, with Rival Consoles, CUERPOS and Patche. Hale hears them in that order, with geometric forms hung overhead, and the room stays on the dancefloor.

What stays heard is the mask on the square, Neel's blank page, Friday's tentacles and the city that builds itself overhead. The note of 1 September 2026 titles a later edition, Sensitive Waves. That week is not closed in a review.