A consummate musician with proven percussive flair and a proclivity for exuberant, worldly rhythms, Guillaume Coutu-Dumont is one of Montréal’s most lauded electronic exports. After studies in electroacoustics, Latin and classical percussion, he quickly became a local fixture around the first editions of MUTEK. In 2003, inspired by Akufen’s micro-sampling aesthetic, he released recordings under the banner of leftfield micro-house duo EGG (with Artificiel’s Julien Roy) and the more Latin-flavoured Chic Miniature (with Argentine expat Ernesto Ferreyra) before putting his reliable funk wizardry to wax on Musique Risquée, Oslo and Circus Company. By 2007, he had gathered machines, relocated to Berlin, and hatched his one-man band, Guillaume & the Coutu Dumonts, rewarding legions of fans with his most adventurous sonic template yet – a propulsive fusion of house, jazz, gospel, techno, and Afrobeat – on his debut album, Face à L’Est. While Guillaume operates out of Teutonic techno’s ground zero, his varied musical achievements remain rooted in organic, seamless and soulful sounds. As he readies new collaborative work from Chic Miniature, ambient venture MUSEUM (alongside Frederic Aubourg and brother Gabriel Coutu-Dumont) and the improv-prone, percussive five-piece GCD & The Side Effects (with Circus Company label mate Dave Aju), Guillaume returns to EM15 to conduct a euphoric, closing-night carnival.
Beginning his career as a percussionist in a funk band, Guillaume Coutu-Dumont feeds his musical passion by studying various classical and Latin strands of percussion then switching to electro-acoustic composition. After having integrated himself in a contemporary jazz ensemble with which he released two records, the influence of concrete music popularized by Peter Schaeffer, and techno ultimately led to a complete devotion to electronic production.A prolific producer who maintains his home base in Montreal, he has gradually become known on the international scene through his diverse range of projects such as Egg, Luci, Chic Miniature, Flabbergast and the artistic collective, Racam—releases found on an equally diverse range of labels like Karat, Morris Audio, Raum and MUTEK_REC. Inspired by the different possibilities offered by fusing styles, and guided by sound experimentation, Guillaume Coutu-Dumont manipulates portions of afro beat, gospel and swing to season the basic rhythms of his solo debut. A true source for hybridized music that warrants close attention.