There are more than a few things that I love about MUTEK. The first is its host city, Montreal, which I happily continue to visit in the warm month of May. Its multilingual crowd, eclectic boutiques, diverse cuisine and beautiful architecture offer plenty of opportunities to explore the grounds during the daytime. The festival itself is sponsored by multiple Canadian government entities, and this association breaks down many financial barriers, allowing the festival to bloom to its full potential. Many of the events this year (just like the year before) will be held at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (MAC) which is an absolutely incredible venue, elevating the prestige of the programming well above the rest. And finally it is, of course, the audio-visual performances, showcasing many of the world renown artists, as well as a fantastic roster of Canadian musicians awaiting to be discovered by you!

https://vimeo.com/122652796

I recall my experience from…

Red. A colour of extremes …

In this, the final episode of the primary colour series, we listen to the story of Russian composer and synaesthete Alexander Scriabin. Scriabin claimed to hear colour as different tones on the chromatic scale. He heard the colour deep red as “F” on the keyboard.

Over the next few months I will be working on the other colours in the ROYGBIV spectrum. Until then please visit Radio National to listen to Red, Yellow, and Blue.

Yellow, a colour that can provoke joy and nausea. Artists have used its binary shades to reflect summer’s vitality and our gradual decay. The negative connotations of yellow are quite strong in the English language. Consider: yellow-bellied, yellow-streak, yellow-journalism, yellow-fever.

If we were to imagine the sound of yellow, what would we hear? Viewing fields of sunflowers we might connect them with pleasant high pulses of energy; yet as their petals begin to fade their former sound could be replaced with low murky drones.

“Yellow” is the latest colour to be heard in my “Sound of Colour” series on ABC Radio National’s Soundproof. To listen or to download this piece please click here.

Next week, the colour red.