D.Blavatsky’s New Single “FUK” Provides a Jaw-Clenching and Purifying Experience

D.Blavatsky by Feng Ish

Raw, tormenting, and cathartic – just some of the terms one might use when describing Montreal-based DJ, producer, and artist D.Blavatsky’s newest release “FUK.” This single emerges as part of their forthcoming album YOUR CHOICE, which will be released on November 11. Its inception stems from the symbiosis of D’s experience with the Calgary punk scene in their teen years, their active role in the Montreal electronic music scene, and the acute solitary reality of the pandemic years spent in their parents’ basement recording music.

From the fragmentary nature of the music video to the album’s themes of longing and desire, my conversation with D last week provides a glimpse of their complex artistic identity. 

From a Calgary goth-punk band vocalist-drum-machinist to an established Montreal DJ

D’s musical origins are rooted in the Calgary noise-punk scene, which they became part of during their teenage years. They explained that the “...big shifts [happened] when [they] started hosting a show at CJSW,” a local college radio station. From there, their musical interest intensified, and began shifting away from punk, noise, and instrumental productions to more electronic ones.

Another memorable moment stems from when they were 19 and formed a band, Torture Team, with three of their best friends. Torture Team was a goth-punk band, and D played the drum machine and served as the vocalist. They released one self-titled tape. As they spoke about it, D’s eyes were twinkling: “I really, really recommend that everyone is in a band at least once in their life,” they explained. “That was a really special time in my life. I look back on it with a lot of love and gratitude.”

A year later, they would arrive in Montreal with two of their bandmates, a move that would mark a turning point in their artistic and musical career.

D.Blavatsky by Feng Ish

“It was once I created the single “FUK” that I realized everything I had created previously was completely beside the point of what I was trying to do. And I scrapped that entire album.”

D began writing and creating the single “FUK” about three years ago. At that point, they had completed a draft of the whole album, composed of 15 pieces, which they discarded when they finalized the single that changed their vision of the album as a whole. The song, which was “mostly just a mistake,” as they explained, led to profound revelations.  “[I realized] that this is what I’m trying to communicate…I just felt very close to the language I [was] trying to create.”

“But this track really changed everything for me, because so much of this album was a learning curve of me just learning how to use digital production tools.”

This track was a turning point in D’s creative process in making the album. “I just felt inspired in a different way,” they explained. Throughout the album creation process, they began to move away from hardware production to digital, Ableton production. Their intentions also shifted: in the first version of the album, they said they felt that they were catering to some kind of audience or in a way they “had to,” so that it might appear more palatable.

But in creating “FUK,” they ruptured these mental standards. “[It] was a very pivotal moment, because it really showed me that it’s like, ‘okay, you can communicate.’” Going further, they explained that, as an artist, it is generally expected that you are “...reflecting on what perspective [you are] trying to communicate," or asking yourself why you are unique. Yet this kind of thinking doesn’t fit with their artistic process or experience. “This idea of creating a timeless work of art… I never cared about that. If my work doesn't necessarily age well within the broader cultural landscape, that's beside the point for me. I'm just trying to communicate something somehow.”

“Yeah, and “FUK” really just was like, holy shit. ‘I can do it.’ I think it was just really reaffirming…this track just embodies everything…I have something that I want to say and express.”

The creation is representative of a particular time – much of it was developed during the pandemic. The single–and, more broadly speaking, the album–seek to illustrate the complexity of desire, longing, and vulnerability within capitalist structures. On a more personal level, the works represented an exploration of a certain vulnerability they previously struggled to express.

Over a period of two years, D barely saw anyone – they said it was about eight months after they had burrowed themselves in their parents’ basement that they saw someone outside for the first time. And yet, this period of solitude was also a transformative moment for them: “The pandemic and this album was very much a metamorphosis for me, who I was when I made it.”

“[YOUR CHOICE is] about longing,  it's about desires in the most primal sense, like sexual desire, physical desire […] I'm getting my head nailed into the wall.”

D.Blavatsky by Feng Ish

Vocals, digital music, and a stream of consciousness

When listening to “FUK,” one element that grasps the listener are the vocals. Blending into the digital components of the song, one feels drawn into the destabilizing and intimately vulnerable mood that the vocals embellish. When I was preparing my interview questions, one of the things I was curious about was the intentions behind incorporating vocals, something which, unlike other genres, is not so common in experimental electronic music.

To begin, there is the process of creating the very content of the vocals. “FUK,” along with other songs on the album, often involves deciphering gibberish – quite literally. D explained to me that what they often do, including for this single, is “...create scratch vocals where [they] play around with cadence and syllables and tempo” of a digital production. “[I] just say random gibberish. And then I record that and then try to decipher the gibberish itself.”

When creating the song in their parents’ basement, they could never sing the vocals as loudly as would be featured in the final version. The final recording ended up happening in the studio of their good friend Keïta Saint, a producer and voice engineer, living in NDG. In a single, last-minute take before the curfew of noise complaints, the vocals were recorded: describing the moment of the recording, they explained that “...you could feel the static in the room.” D offered to do another take, but “...Keïta was just like ‘no, this is fucking it, you will never get a better take.’”

The music video accompanying “FUK” has its own story. D’s vision of the video was first situated in a cave: running through a cave, feeling claustrophobic, with a light constantly out of reach. Yet as they needed to adapt to the environment they were in, director Axel Zavala helped create a video that translated D’s vision with the single.

The creation itself went by fast. Axel, who had been working on other projects, connected with D right before they headed back to Montreal. In just two days, they went into the woods in the night, armed with a GoPro and camcorder. With ten hours of footage, they were able to create a visual embodiment of the disorienting and stimulating nature of the piece.

Montreal, the rave scene, and moving forward

Throughout our conversation, it was clear that the Montreal electronic music scene continues to significantly influence D’s art – both as a producer and DJ. Being a raver has been a consistent and essential part of who they are. “[Raving] has pretty much been my life for the last five years… it is the primary way that I develop social relationships with people, and that I maintain the social relationships I have… [it’s] a sense of connection and expression.”

Once D arrived in Montreal and became involved with the collective Cyberia, something of a community became evident to them. Whereas a mix of social anxiety and dysphoria had made their teen years unstable and difficult, the engagement they have found in Montreal’s rave scene has been a way to come to appreciate and validate themself. “I learned how to celebrate my body. And I learned all of the beautiful things that my body could do for me and how to express [myself] and be present. I think that was [about] being present in my body in a positive way, in a way of celebration.”

YOUR CHOICE by D.Blavatsky

Moving forward, they look forward to continuing as a DJ, producer, and organizer in the Montreal electronic music scene. After living through the metamorphosis of the pandemic as well as visiting some Europe’s techno hotspots, D explained that they came to understand that Montreal has something special that they hadn’t seen elsewhere. “I think one of the biggest faults of our creative realms here is just how much people take it for granted.”

This upcoming album release is far from being their only project in the works. In just one week, they are hosting RIP VAULT for Halloween weekend, which will feature a myriad of local DJs. After releasing YOUR CHOICE on November 11, they hope to get working on the next one right away, which would ideally be released by next summer. 

Although the Montreal electronic music scene was deeply rocked by the pandemic, it is coming out of it in new and unpredictable ways – and D.Blavatsky is sure to have a role in the way it will transform itself. Whether in terms of the music they release or the infamous raves they organize, their impact on the community is here to stay.

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D.BLAVATSKY

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Soline Van de Moortele is a tenant rights advocate, insatiable raver, and full-time griever.

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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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Montreal-based Molyness brings Berlin, and Moroccan fusion to the techno scene

Photo of Molyness by Moussa Fellahi

This interview was initially recorded in French, translated by the author.

Having moved to Montreal from Morocco three years ago to pursue her passion for electronic music, Ines Mouline – better known as Molyness – brings a fusion of Gnawa, Sub-Saharan, Berlinesque, and orchestral influences into the scene, and her art.

I first met Mouline last summer at a techno afternoon party in the Mile-End. My friend introduced me to her, and I got to see her mix a set for the first time at the Newhaus, a club downtown where she has often played. It was back in Winter, we took a taxi down to the club lit with blue lights, behind a hidden door in the Dirty Dogs on de Maisonneuve. From there on I got to see Mouline frequently play, either at house parties, outdoor raves or larger venues.

Nestled in the back room of Le Café Depanneur, Mouline and I discussed her upbringing, her influences, the beginnings of her musical path, and her positionality in the electronic scene of Montreal.

Photo of Molyness by Soline Van de Moortele

The style of her music is rooted in her attachment to her native Moroccan culture. She describes her style as “melodic-techno.” Mouline was born in Casablanca, but spent most of her childhood and teen years in the capital, Rabat. It was here that Mouline began her musical career. She grew up seeped in music, her mother pushing her to play piano, and gave her rock & roll influences – particularly, Pink Floyd, whose long intros and sound design have inspired Mouline in her musical production.

At a young age, her mother, a musician, had her playing piano, guitar, and later the bass. “My mother is one of the people who enriches me the most,” she said, “in what I do, in the sense that she encouraged me from the beginning. She let me leave so I could pursue something that I love and that impassions me.”

She began playing electronic music in highschool, as it became “la tendance,” the trend. New electronic music gear was hard to come by in Morocco – when she visited Medina with her mom, Mouline bought her first used production material, and eventually her dad would bring her back a Pioneer from France. Finally, her first year in Montreal, she purchased her first controller and her Traktor S4 which she continues to use for her live sets.

Photo of Molyness by Moussa Fellahi

Mouline arrived in Montreal three years ago first to complete a certificate at Musictechnic, and after discovering electronic music as an immutable passion during this time, she took the next year off from school to build networks and perform around the city. Last year she began a Bachelors degree at Concordia in electronic music.

Most of Mouline’s evolution as an artist has come from each of her live performances – learning to gauge the public and space is something which demands an interaction with the energy given to her from her audience. “When I compare my first live sets, my first playlists, even people’s reactions, I’m told more and more that in my live sets people are able to better recognize my signature [as an artist]… More and more I let myself go, I let myself experiment a lot more.”

“Each time I perform a live set, it’s an experience, and I learn so much from each one.”

Photo of Molyness by Soline Van de Moortele

The first set she played was in Morocco, at a hotel party with a beautiful view her friend from school invited her to perform at back-to-back. “It was the best way for me to throw myself in front of an audience,” she explained. “It gave me a sense of confidence and that’s what we want.”

Her professional performances in Montreal kick-started when she met Abdel – stage name DJ Adverb – who plugged her for gigs across the city. He connected with her through his cousin who knew Mouline back in Morocco, and invited her to play an opening set for a party he was organizing at the downtown Montreal club the Newhaus: “He told me ‘You’re going to play at the Newhaus, it’s now that I need you.’ He had never heard a set of mine, nothing. He just trusted me.”

Mouline did the opening set for the night, and she recalled the experience as being “totally sick, it was just do dope.” From there on, Abdel became a kind of manager for her, booking her frequent shows at the Newhaus and the Velvet club in Old Port. She’s also played underground parties, in hidden indoor spots with more industrial techno. “I like the underground side, I like the intense side of it, but I think I’m someone who always prefers playing in nature.” In general, Mouline isn’t one to go out a lot in clubs or in raves that she might play in. “I don’t really go out in those places, I’ve never been the clubbing type…It’s an intense lifestyle to go out all the time.”

Photo of Molyness by Moussa Fellahi

I asked Mouline about her biggest influences. “The first, the biggest, is David August.” David August’s Boiler Room set from 2014 was the first set she ever watched. “Honestly, there were no mistakes. His live set was perfect.”

“His album from beginning to end… that’s the kind of thing I want to do. The essence is very different from what I do, but in everything relating to [his] sound design, the way he interacts with the sound, how precise it is.” Him and Nicolas Jaar were the first DJs she followed.

“In music a bit more Arab there’s Shame who’s really good, and Monsieur ID. They play around a lot with Gnawian music.”

Mouline also described to me with passion one of her all-time favorite collaborative albums, “Marhab” by Maalem Mahmoud Guinia, Floating Points, and James Holden. A friend in Morocco showed her the album before she arrived in Canada. The album was done in a town near Marrakech, in Guinia’s home. They spent two-weeks in his home recording the album. “It was just recorded jamming…[I love] that alchemy, and that mixture.”

“[The album] is a good reference to what I want to create,” but with her own, less intense style.

Photo of Molyness by Soline Van de Moortele

As a full-time student whose courses went online, Mouline lost most of her routine structure when the pandemic began raging in Montreal. That said, she was able to be productive, in part in her musical production, and in part in the places she was able to play at. It was the first summer she spent away from Morocco.

“Honestly, it had a more positive than negative impact for me. I recognize we were really lucky to be in Montreal, we weren’t completely restrained, there was trust in the population... There are always phases, moments that are easier than others, moments of putting yourself in question, but I took time for myself.”

“What I loved was that it gave space for newer artists.” Mouline had a chance to play in and organize smaller events at a more local level, rather than going through large, established organizations and collectives.

Photo of Molyness by Moussa Fellahi

With the pandemic raging on and limited access to large events, Mouline believes more local artists will be brought forth. For the Montreal scene, Mouline said she’d “encourage…the push for outdoor parties.”

There are some, including Piknic Electronik and Igloofest. “But the prices keep going up…. I’d want to keep the spirit of Montreal…Everyone must feel good. We gotta stop increasing festival prices every year, [and] play more with the local scene. There’s tons of choices here for local talent, and diversity. No need to go far.”

UTOPIA · Utopia x Electroftours presents Molyness

Right as our interview was finishing up and Mouline was getting ready to leave, I wanted to ask her one last question that, as a techno-lover but not a techno-player, I wanted to know: how do you choose your songs?

“This is what I really learned through live performance… Between my first lives and the ones I do now there’s a huge difference. I now realize that the pieces I listen to alone, those that really get me vibing, aren’t necessarily the best for performing. It’s a different approach… I couldn’t give you the exact words to describe which songs I perform live.”

“It’s about the rhythms, and how you bring [the different songs] in. I play around, it takes time, it’s frustrating, you have to listen to a lot of bullshit… it always takes several steps. Some days I go check stuff on Beatport, Bandcamp, a bit of anything, and I transfer them onto my YouTube playlists.”

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