Encounters up to the first strata of space

Review and account of the weekend of Sept 16-17, 2023 at Stereo, Piknic and Stereobar.

The DJs of the weekend: STEREO Soul of Zoo, Husa&Zeyada, Guy Laliberté, PIKNIC DJ ELLES & U CRESCENZO FIDELES and STEREOBAR Elio Elia & Farouk

Every night is different and has its own ingredients of success, in the moment and the conditions offered. That’s why everyone has their own opinions on their personal experience with the music, according to their expectations or other parameters tied to the success of a night.

Sharing my experience is therefore very personal to my own experience, but it may also convey a little of what you lived so intimately that you don’t even realize it… And that’s the magic of sharing, sometimes realizing that what we thought was SO personal is in fact very universal.

So here is the story of a night of international encounters from all over the globe, up to the first strata of space…

SOUL OF ZOO – AKA BEN EAGER / 00:00 to 03:00

For my part, starting at Stereo, I really liked each of the DJs or artistic performances for what they were, and across the night as a whole. Not every night deserves a big debriefing, but this one inspired a real novel in my head over the hours… so I’m extracting a small part of consciousness for you…

First of all, do you know @soul of zoo? I’ll admit he’s my favourite of the month, having also heard him at Burning Terrace two weeks ago, and Damn! the guy is solid! He gave, in my opinion, a very energetic and well-structured kick-off that let you dive into the dance without waiting too long into the night. In other words, at 2 AM we were already fully into the energy and the wide-amplitude dance. Excellent force and very heavy kicks, not too fast, bathed in the sounds of the jungle and of… a ZOO! Superb texture and good structural mastery.

To discover on soundcloud:

SOUL OF ZOO

HUSA & ZEYADA / 03:00 to 04:30

As for the live performance by @HUSA & ZEYADA, you must know how to appreciate all the beauty and the dangers of Live, whatever it may be, and I salute the courage of any artist who dares to launch into such an adventure in front of hundreds of people.

The Montrealer @adam Hussa and his partner @rolla Zeyade were not at their first performance in the world, in front of the world, and as in any good story, there are sometimes little problems to get around to reach the desired result, but it’s the artists’ reaction to a technical surprise that determines whether it’s a problem or not, isn’t it?

And it’s in that sense that DJ Hussa proved also to be a good technician, having solved the unexpected short-circuit a third of the way through his set in less than 1 min/1 min 30.

That settled, as for their joint performance, I was blown away by the sound on the dance floor: a super good, fat techno groove, on sequenced loops on Ableton, over which Zeyada sang live, which gave a full soul&K effect…

The added voices syncopated over the music in a very ghostly and electronic way were for me in perfect balance, good deep music with a hypnotic and organic side from a human voice singing live. The strength of their ability to improvise is the flexibility to adapt and to jam on all the melodic structures in fact.

Think about what the two of them as artists must master to manage to perform here in front of us. I salute their audacity and love of music. Knowing they went back to their home in Egypt this week, I’m taking the time in my own name to thank them for sharing their talent with us and for having us discover their rhythms of the Middle East

In the excellent interview with them by our friend and writer of the night @fadi moha, available on the Fabulous Fadi’s Blog, you can better discover the artists Husa & Zeyada in a very well put together and intimate article. It’s also a story of international creation with Maestro Hernan Cattaneo, thanks to friendly and so respectful relationships from here in Montréal, among others thanks to our friend @cesar Romero and other twists of life.

To Fadi’s question “What does this concert represent for you, knowing that you have a long love story with Montréal?”, I really liked Adam’s answer:

“I have always imagined a show that would use this magnificent room as a stage. We think that with a concentrated room, we can really show people what our world is, and thanks to STEREO’s impeccable sound, we can really take the crowd on a sonic journey.”

Interview available here https://fabulousfadi.com/f/husa-zeyada—an-exclusive-interview-and-a-montreal-love-story

(I use https://www.deepl.com/fr/translator to translate)

bravo Fadi, it’s worth reading, because the story of their meeting and their love in Egypt is really superb.

To discover them musically, I invite you to hear them on the following music links.

HUSA & ZEYADA

premiere | Husa & Zeyada – Wicked Self (Made By Pete Remix)

Husa & Zeyada – CIty Freak (Robert Babicz Remix)

premiere | Husa & Zeyada – Make It Hot (Miyagi Remix)

Husa & Zeyada – Long Way Home Album

GUY LALIBERTÉ / 04:30 to 09:30

Here we are at the moment of the night everyone was waiting for, the stage entrance of the master of the circus and of space.

The incredible meeting of destinies means we had a privileged mix of all cultures here at home, at the energy centre of the world, while these were so-called Montreal DJs, and in that capacity the aggregates of all times met on Saturday Sept 16, 2023 at the temple of sound.

When you think about it,

• Soul of Zoo, aka Ben Eager aka Benjamin, a Frenchman
• Husa & Zeyada: Egypt and Caucasian
• Guy Laliberté: Québécois – but this human has touched billions of humans through his audacity, his creativity, his love.

The meeting here at home of DJs from here, who have travelled all continents, was privileged and extremely rare it seems to me. I felt I was in the hands of great know-how and great experience of staging.

Over the night, through the rhythms, a coherent story unfolded, one that went beyond our physical presence in the moment.

The tribal sounds and rhythms wrapping us had the property of drawing us into the imaginary of the jungle, of ceremony… It may be only me of course, but at certain moments, I felt we had the connections of all the souls of the world on the floor! It was theatrical, with the appearance of animal sounds and roars, a hypnotic journey through the ages with the LIVE vocals of Zeyada from Egypt, followed by the magic and spirit of the circus with the master of effects who took us very deep on a Gypsy Prog touch…

I feel that during his set, Guy Laliberté does more than play music, with his intuition and his vision of matter..

While the artist and the system took us into abyssal depths of frequencies, I told myself this was surely the only time we’d be taken into the other dimension by a real cosmonaut… And above all, I believe Laliberté is a humanonaut, in the sense that he explores all the facets of expression and of sensory or conscious experience a human can imagine.

Maybe it’s only my imagination, but while the music plays, I receive lots of information, matrices and answers to my questions – obvious things sometimes…

And truly, on the floor, looking at all the characters present, visible or furtive, disguised as Stereo or wrapped in aura, I felt a great union, a rare gathering of so many beliefs and such kindness, not only of the present moment but also from every continent, and beyond time.

The almost Gypsy rhythms (thanks Ayman) mixed with great remixed classics and ageless sounds, drowned in a heavy and weighty bass, I told myself that the visionary Laliberté was doing more than playing music: he must have been using the system as a tool to bring the frequencies down to where it’s impossible to go, in order to literally open our souls…

We heard THE WALL – PINK FLOYD – and also “enter sandman”, and even a Phil Collins tune I think, and other rock classics, remixed…

I swear, there were long waves there passing through us like… I don’t know actually, but it’s not an impulse, it’s an undulation that goes through you, and takes up all the space of your consciousness, bringing you back to the pack animal within you…. On the dance floor, there were also those spectral shadows dressed all in black, dancing like… like circus dancers actually… magnificently anonymous, with their big hats or their big black capes bearing a tiny golden Cirque du Soleil symbol on the back… they were superb. But as anonymous as they want to be, no one is really anonymous on my floor… 😉

So there it is, it’s more or less complete as a review, and maybe not even that relevant, but I felt the need to set down the memory of this moment…

To discover these talented artists as I did, just follow the links to their music on soundcloud…

GUY LALIBERTÉ