Jean Grünewald Discusses Montreal Dances Across Borders' New Compilation "Volume 2"

Volume 2 album art courtesy by Thomas Lopez and Elisa Gleize

On September 28th, 2021, Montreal Dances Across Borders  followed-up their 2020 project Volume 1 with another exciting compilation project: Volume 2. This anticipated release from the Montreal collective brings together 10 incredible electronic artists for a more-than-worthy cause; with 100% of Bandcamp going to Solidarity Across Borders, a Montreal-based migrant support network working to combat the unjust realities faced by immigrants and refugees. 

While the compilation’s sound is experimental and eclectic, the participants’ unanimous support for the project’s cause acts as a base for it’s overall sonic unity. Despite its variety, each track inspires dance, movement and energy. 

Volume 2 features tracks from: HRT, LE SERVICE HUMAIN, PULSUM, AN_NA - Red Wine, s.talbot, HUMAN JUNGLE, Inside Blur, K-10, Remote Access and DBY. It was curated by Jean Grünewald and Louis Paulhus with artwork by Thomas Lopez and Elisa Gleize. The entire project was mastered by Elliott Sebag.

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Volume 2 album art courtesy by Thomas Lopez and Elisa Gleize

Jean (AKA ottoman.grüw), one-half of the curatorial duo behind the project, spoke with me about challenging borders in a multitude of ways. 

Simone Tissenbaum for Also Cool Mag: I read in a summary you wrote about the project that music embodied in spaces is inherently political… What does that mean specifically for Montreal Dances Across Borders?

Jean Grünewald: The project was created to remind us that [dance] music, embodied in spaces, is above all political. The idea of ‘dancing across borders’ relates specifically to this kind of music. Underground dance and techno music survives the shared cultural knowledge of marginalized groups that is ongoingly threatened by systemic oppression. The spaces where this music is played, whether it’s a warehouse or a club, allow for moments of togetherness... Moments where you can acknowledge and celebrate different realities. The hope is that this can create more empathy, solidarity and respect between different people.

Also Cool: I understand that the music itself is political, and clearly the spaces in which that music is shared become political as well. What does that mean for digital spaces? How is it the same, or different, when we’re talking about this type of music being experienced in a digital sphere?

Jean Grünewald: There’s a paradox in the way that digital releases are connecting but also fragmenting. If there was a pandemic in an era without digital networks, there would have been no compilation at all. This is certainly connected to the idea of borders, dancing across borders, getting rid of the borders… It’s something that digital methods do.

AC: I’m curious then, not to be harsh on the digital realm, but to consider what might be lost inside of it. Obviously there is a connecting factor, but what is being lost right now in a world where live music and shows and events are harder to come by?

JG: With less [in-person] events, I’m wondering how much our feelings of togetherness and empathy are fed. Because when you’re going to a show, whatever it may be, you have people close to you. If they’re reacting in a certain way... you hear that, you see that. Even though you’ve never seen these people before, spoken to them, and may never see them again, there is a connection that is made. You’re testifying the existence of those other people at this specific moment, while you’re also testifying of your own existence.

AC: Is this project designed to address the lack of connectedness you think we’re collectively experiencing?

JG: Maybe [this compilation] is not a whole solution, but it’s an attempt at remedying the situation. In the same way that it’s directly connecting the artists involved, it’s indirectly connecting the people that are listening to the compilation, with listening to the album acting as a shared experience. 

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With such thoughtful and politically-engaged creation and curation, you can expect nothing less than a moving piece of work, both physically and emotionally.  

The project is available on Bandcamp in a PWYC format with all proceeds being directed to Solidarity Across Borders. 

Montreal Dances Across Borders

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Simone Tissenbaum is a Montreal-based dancer, educator, and writer. 

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Braids Team-Up with DJ Python to Release "Young Buck" Remixed

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Montreal outfit Braids offer a midweek energy boost with the re-release of their bittersweet track “Young Buck,” remixed by NYC’s renowned DJ Python. Hailing from their anticipated comeback album Shadow Offering, “Young Buck” was originally praised for it’s fervorous danceability; enhanced by lead singer Raphaelle Standell-Preston’s blazing performance. In the hands of DJ Python, “Young Buck” is no less commanding and reminisces breathless dancefloors and locking eyes with a handsome stranger. For these Calgary-turned-Montreal art-rockers, we give this pulsing sonic-makeover a 10/10.

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Braids by Mélissa Gamache

On the remix, Braids commented:

“Upon receiving DJ Python’s remix of our track ‘Young Buck,’ my pining for the dance floor kicked in. I pulled my car over to an empty parking lot and turned the volume up as far as it could go. Alone beside the concrete barriers of a now desolate shopping mall, I was reminded of bodies beside bodies, of a night that you never want to end, of sweat, of joy. For a moment I was transported from my new and uncomfortable reality: distanced, living through a pandemic, to memories streaming behind my closed eyes, of a life lived prior, and one that will be lived again. This track offers the fuel needed to keep going, the energy needed to stay hopeful. When I close my eyes and dance to it in my living room, I am at the club and the club is with me.”

Stream “Young Buck” remixed by DJ Python below

Braids

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DJ Python

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Zoë Argiropulos-Hunter (She/Her) is the Co-Founder and Editor of Also Cool Mag. Aside from the mag, she is a music promoter & booker, radio host & DJ, and a musician.

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Music Creating Its Own Universe: Dileta Cultivates Eclectic Energy in the Electronic Music World

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Dileta by Moussa Fellahi

From screamo band member to popular Montreal techno DJ, Pascal Rivard, better known as Dileta, is nothing short of a unique and remarkable artist. Prior to meeting them in person for the first time in July, I had seen Rivard perform several times at parties and at raves; their eccentric energy enlivening the room still fresh in my memory. Last month, I had the opportunity to interview Rivard over Zoom, and we discussed music, COVID, and the Montreal electronic music scene.

Born and raised in Ahunstic, Rivard has always been close to Montreal and its dynamic artistic community. They began their musical career in heavy metal and screamo bands during high school, playing bass, guitar, and – you guessed it – as a screamer. During this time, the most popular form of electronic music in Montreal was psytrance, which Rivard would not come to enjoy until much later: “At the time I was too stuck up in my idea of what music was,” they explain. Their musical beginnings still linger as remnants in their electronic music many years later: “Looking back on it I was looking for the same characteristics in the music I was listening as what I enjoy in dance music now. I was always more into the textures and moods, and rhythm play and angularness of the music, more than technical prowess, which is a lot of metal.”

What first initiated their transition into electronic music was their encounter with the coldwave scene in Montreal, a genre they describe as “dark, 80s-inspired, minimal synth music.” Going to coldwave shows was their first “real experience with dance music,” and soon became a full-time passion. While they were living in Sherbrooke studying electrical engineering, they became friends with a Montrealer who showed them “everything about UK bass music, jungle, hardcore, garage, all of that;” genres still very much present in their newer music. “And that’s when it kind of exploded in my brain,” they explain.

The first parties they organized were small ones in the basement of their Hochelaga apartment, after finishing their degree and moving back to Montreal. “Me and a few friends of mine were all taking turns trying to learn.” Their first event, “Bad Timing,” was at La Sotterenea in the Plateau, and presented in collaboration with Lésions. “It was pretty full, and people were dancing… We didn’t know where we were going with all these styles of music, but it was really fun.”

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Dileta by Moussa Fellahi

Rivard has since become a staple in the underground Montreal DIY techno scene. Before the pandemic put a halt to all cultural and musical public phenomena, Rivard was achieving what they describe as their “dream life, which was a bit crazy.” As a musical performer, they had never been so busy. They had their music and event platform, Coolground, busy with projects, and were also doing shows as a resident for Homegrown Harvest, a prominent rave-organizing collective in Montreal. “It was so fulfilling and so fun and I got to meet all these amazing new people in the scene all the time,” they said. “Until that all stopped… It was a bit demoralizing.” They now focus on guest and radio mixes, such as with Montreal-based radio n10.as. “I rent a studio and I can still go play loud music, that’s what’s been saving me I think.”

 Another online music-sharing platform they have been playing for is Music Is My Sanctuary, or MIMS. Rivard and one of the platform’s founders had been in touch, and “the two of us hit is off because we’re two ridiculous music dorks, like we enjoy finding music and digging in rabbit holes.” Shortly after the pandemic began, one of the founders asked Rivard to record a mix for MIMS. Now, Rivard makes a seasonal mix every three months for MIMS and is part of the new-release picks team, which chooses new records every week to promote. Alongside these projects and their full-time job as a software developer, they explain they are “still practicing multiple times a week, and trying to perfect vinyl mixing, which is really hard.”

At the time of the interview, their then-latest mix was their favorite they had ever recorded (since then they have released their newest mix dimlit). The mix, titled Skyway Uplink, is a rollercoaster - not only in terms of BPM changes, but in also  track genres, equalization, layering, fading, blending, and grooves. It has enough variation to satisfy any musical taste, literally. According to the Soundcloud description, there’s “IDM, tech house, broken beat, wonky techno, speed garage, club, nu-disco, hardgroove techno, grime/RnG, ghetto house, hardcore, some hard to classify stuff.”

Presented by coolground founder dileta, SKYWAY UPLINK wires you out of routine and into a new simulation every season. You'll find yourself whirling through winding lanes lit by all kinds of coloured gleams and glares. This first installment is deeply inspired by the works of composer Hideki Naganuma and the Japanese bass scene, with a focus on pitched vocal chops, processed funk elements, video game nods, and ultra-electronic speed - let's call it CYBERFUNK. Actual genres included: IDM, tech house, broken beat, wonky techno, speed garage, club, nu-disco, hardgroove techno, grime/RnG, ghetto house, hardcore, some hard to classify stuff.

It includes a lot of influence from cyberfunk, a genre “I’m kind of obsessed with right now,” says Dileta. “It’s really high speed, really synthetic, with really bright synth, really processed, and with video game music influences.” The mix perfectly captures what Rivard searches for in their music: spontaneity and unpredictability. Rivard did about twenty different takes for the first five minutes of the set, and the rest of the two hours in just one. “I felt like I had run a marathon,” they said, chuckling. “I was so concentrated while I was doing it… I was drenched in sweat by the end.”

There is no clear categorization Dileta identifies with in terms of a musical genre or style: “I go everywhere…. If you listen to my mixes it’s going to be all over the place.” BPM is one of the many techniques they like to play around with, but their intent is to stay unpredictable with it. “The instinctual way is to start at 120 and to go up to 170 or 180 or something, but I’ve been trying to do other stuff recently because it gets too predictable and my little teenage angst rebel spirit wants to be unpredictable,” they explain.

They have done sets before which stayed at a steady 115 BPM before suddenly going up to 175 at the end. “You need to feel it, but it can be a powerful too.” For those less familiar with this kind of terminology, imagine listening to Kelly Clarkson’s “What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger” all the way through until the last 30 seconds, and suddenly switching to Iron Maiden’s “Run to the Hills.” Rivard is also keen on practicing cuts with the faders, “less common with the Berlin techno way of doing things, or the house way or the UK bass way, it’s really from Detroit, like from the old school electro-DJs from Detroit, they always have two tracks, [flipping] them with the faders.”

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Dileta by Moussa Fellahi

One way to better understand Rivard’s music is through their description of the meaning behind the title of the mix Skyward Uplink: it means nothing. “I like to put words together that make you think of things, but don’t really mean the things they mean,” they explain. “If you read them together they don’t mean anything, but they make you feel things. It’s a bit how I approach DJing, too.”

The variation and diversity within Dileta’s sets are due in large part to the sheer amount of time and effort they regularly spend digging and searching for music. On average, for a 60-minute set, they will have 1,000 songs on their playlist to choose from and will have planned one or two tracks as the anchor of the rest of the set. On their Recordbox alone, they have around 30,000 tracks: “It’s getting out of proportion, but it’s well tagged so I can find what I want.” In terms of technique, Rivard focuses on different blending methods and layering: “It’s a lot of chemistry experiments, like layering things on top of each other and in front of each other in a temporal way.” They describe staying up until 5 am just to discover new music: “My hunger for musical discoveries is a bottomless pit.”

Rivard identifies with what they call the “Mile-End core, queer scene” of the larger Montreal electronic music community. “Montreal is divided into so many scenes, it’s a lot of microcosms of genres of dance music,” they explain. “There’s an industrial techno scene, there’s a minimal house scene, the psytrance scene.” The DIY scene they are a part of organizes underground (sometimes literally, for those who know) dance parties, but also tries to stay politically engaged and community oriented. “I think I love my scene honestly… There’s a lot of concern of safety, always touching upon subjects, [and] trying to do better,” they explain.

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Dileta by Moussa Fellahi

Organizing these parties is easier said than done – and for rave collectives in Montreal, the process of finding and being able to pay for venues is not a simple task. “We don’t have many clubs in Montreal which are open to, let’s say, left-field dance music,” says Dileta “A lot of it is done in DIY venues… Sadly most owners don’t really align with our values, it’s always about having to make a compromise to get in some spaces that are [in] more of a capitalist mindset.” The best solution, they argue, would be for the organizers to own venues themselves. “We’re in our little queer political bubble where we think we’ve got our values, and it’s all set and all understood by the scene but you get out… It gets more tense.”

One of their favorite aspects of the scene is the interconnectedness and support found between the organizers, DJs, and participants during raves. “You always feel close to the performers,” they reminisce. “Rave is a feeling when you can lose your body and forget your bodily restraints… I love playing when people are ready to go wild like that.” The conversation with Dileta reminded me of just how much artists and people in DIY communities have always found alternatives to produce and share art in the face of barriers, and with this pandemic it has become clear.

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Dileta by Moussa Fellahi

Dileta

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Soline Van de Moortele is a Philosophy student at Concordia/insatiable feminist, raver, and writer. 

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Introducing Messkina: The Montreal DJ Setting Herself Apart With Unapologetic Self-Acceptance

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Messkina by Victoria Gravel

Picture yourself on a hot and unfamiliar beach, dancing to your escape from a busy routine towards an enchanting adventure. This scene describes DJ Messkina’s perfect setting to have her music pumping. 

After only a year of taking up DJing, the 21-year-old Montreal-based performer of Cameroon and Congolese descent has played in Montreal’s most popular clubs, such as Apt.200, SuWu, Datcha, Le Salon Daomé and Ti-Agrikol, to name a few. She’s even produced mixes for Moonshine and the major Brooklyn-based art collective Papi Juice, which celebrates the lives of the LGBTQ+ community.

Messkina’s unapologetic self-acceptance is what led to her DJ alias Messkina. It is the playful combination between her first name, “messy,” and the Arabic word miskeena for “unfortunate”  — a moniker she says echoes her character. 

Set apart by her contagious confidence and bold charm, Messkina’s presence behind the DJ booth encourages you to be yourself and dance to her carefully-selected house tracks influenced by the sounds of afro-fusion. 

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Messkina by Victoria Gravel

Dressed in a cropped pink velour jacket coupled with matching sparkly velour flared pants, Messkina met up with me in her Saint-Henri apartment to discuss her unusual journey as an emerging talent, and her newest mix “Philantropute.”

“I started producing mixes at a really dark period in my life,” says Messkina. “It was right when I dropped out of college and got temporarily fired from the strip club where I was dancing,” she says before she pauses briefly. 

“Who knew you could get fired from a strip club?” she laughs.

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Messkina by Victoria Gravel

The artist shares dealing with social anxiety starting at an early age, which kept her from staying motivated and performing academically. 

“Going to school was very demanding for me, and I smoked a lot of weed to get by,” she explains.

It was at this moment that she decided to pursue something new. 

It was shortly after that she responded to a call-out on social media looking for DJs. This led to her very first gig which was at the Mme Lee nightclub in Montreal’s Latin Quarter.

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Messkina by Victoria Gravel

“It was packed. I was shaking because I was so nervous, but I did it.” she says.

Leaving school and her job as a sex worker ended up being a blessing in disguise as it pushed her to get back in touch with her creative side, and discover making music as a new-found passion.

Messkina quickly found her distinctive and diverse sound; which pulls together melancholic melodies, hip-hop, African drums and house music. 

“I make music that makes you want to dance. Not to bang your head to, but just vibe to the rhythm,” says the DJ. “Although, I still consider myself new to the scene, and I still have a long road ahead of me in terms of experimentation,” she says. 

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Messkina by Victoria Gravel

Social distancing and other public health restrictions amid the COVID-19 pandemic have inherently changed the way DJs perform. At the beginning of the lockdown, Messkina tried live-streaming her sets and felt disappointed by the lack of connection with her audience.  

“I don’t like Zoom parties. It’s boring to me,” she says. “It’s not the same without an audience, as you don’t really know how it sounds and you miss out on instant feedback.”

“It was really nice to be able to perform again in person when bars were reopened. People were tired of being inside and wanted to go to the club. Although dancing was prohibited, they seemed to just enjoy their time out and socializing.”

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Messkina by Victoria Gravel

Messkina shares that despite the mental toll the lockdown has had on her, she’s used her free time to think about the style and aesthetics she wishes to pursue in her musical career.

“I have broadened my horizons musically and discovered several musical genres that I wouldn't necessarily have appreciated a few months ago,” she explains. 

Her newest mix, “Philantropute,” is quite different from her previous mixes, featuring a higher-energy and dazzling tempo.

“It is more upbeat, hectic, and chaotic. It represents where I am mentally at the moment,” says Messkina.

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Messkina by Victoria Gravel

Listen to Messkina’s latest mix “Philantropute” out now

Keep up with Messkina

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Written by Stéphanie Ricci

Stéphanie Ricci is a Montreal-based freelance multimedia journalist. Currently completing a journalism major coupled with a sociology minor at Concordia University, she is passionate about storytelling in all forms, but is particularly invested investigative work, writing about arts and culture, and creating original content.

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Premiere: These Things Take Time Vol. 002 - "In My Dreams, All Night Long"

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A chaotic full moon, another lockdown, and an endless deluge of shocking news call for a much-needed break. It’s Bandcamp Friday after all, so another great opportunity to stock up on some dreamy dance tunes. Support Black artists, support your friends, support your community.

The LA-based label, These Things Take Time, is releasing their second compilation album today, featuring several track by familiar faces - Martyn Bootyspoon, Farren Laen, Unknown Mobile, and Regularfantasy. It seems like everything takes ~ a lot ~ more time these days, but as we’re all learning, you have to be patient with yourself - this album acknowledges that the time you invest pays off.

Press release below:

Title track, “Caress,” is the latest work by the talented flora resident, Sweater, from our old home in Philadelphia. Following is Vancouver's Livy Lou’s masterful “Running Around,” ideal for the escapism world we need so desperately right now. Next up fellow Canadian, Martyn Bootyspoon, comes with the highway go to, “Throw It In Reverse.” We are very happy to welcome Martyn and more Montreal greats to the label. Farren Laen is one of these greats. Running a label with Martyn in Montreal, and delivering the graceful “Sydney.” Our lovely and familiar label mate, DJ Dre continues with a new touch to his sound resume with “LVR.” Unknown Mobile stays on beat with “Tired,” a true gem waiting for the dancefloor in the future. Switching up is production duo Blue Island Ave from the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago; much more to come from them. The head, B. Hayes, and highly illusive Flourene then conclude in relaxed, downtempo energy. Thank you for listening.

“In my dreams, all night long”

THESE THINGS TAKE TIME 2020

releases October 9, 2020

Compilation: Vol. 002 by These Things Take Time / In Passing, releases 09 October 2020 1. Sweater - Caress 2. Regularfantasy - Running Around 3. Martyn Bootyspoon - Throw It In Reverse 4. Farren Laen - Sydney 5. DJ Dre - LVR 6. Unknown Mobile - Tired 7.

Check out a sneak peak of “Running Around” at this summer’s online Refraction Festival, featuring a Regularfantasy performance filmed by Ariana Molly: