Microtone Kitchen

Turnabout on turntablism
Microtone Kitchen is scratching new ground. 'There's certain things you can do with this instrument that you can't do with others'
T'CHA DUNLEVY, The Gazette
Published: Thursday, February 01

St. Denis St. was downright sleepy this past Sunday night. But down a flight of stairs, below street level, beyond the glass door of a converted storefront, in a tiny studio at the back of the main room, seven people were hard at work.

Facing one wall were the DJs - Mana, Killa-Jewel, Praiz, Midas and Panda-Zal - each concentrated on their own specific contribution to the piece at hand. One was cutting up a vocal line, another a flute, another a drum, over a murky instrumental hip-hop beat.

Behind them were two more musicians, Johnny Know 1 and Sebastien Marin, on guitar and bass, and sometimes keys. In the middle, Mana reached from his laptop to his turntable, urgently calling out cues:

"C-sharp minor's next."

Say what?

Microtone Kitchen is not your average DJ crew. "Scratch DJing used to be only about rhythm," Mana explained, when I tracked him down to talk shop on Tuesday afternoon. "Most DJs are very good at that, but in terms of tuning, making chords and melodies, (the art form) is undeveloped.

"We're pushing that - tuning, being on key ... (using) highly defined pitch articulations, which is microtonal. When you scratch, you're going between the notes."

To clarify, when a record is played on a turntable, each sound has a certain pitch. If you speed up or slow down the turntable, the pitch goes up or down, accordingly. When a DJ is scratching, notes take on a multitude of variations that are not part of a conventional scale, returning to the original pitch only when the record is released and goes back to its regular speed.

Using this concept, plus the pitch shift controls on DJ turntables, Microtone Kitchen ensures, as a starting point, that its samples are always in tune.

"Ooh, that's way off key!" Mana said, during Sunday's rehearsal, as someone introduced a vocal snippet into a song.

"It's 'cause he's singing. Tune your samples, remember?"

Like many scratch DJs, Mana cut his teeth on the battle circuit, winning the Montreal elimination of the Technics DMC international scratch DJ championship in 2003 and 2004. But over the past few years, disenchanted with its limitations, Mana retired from the battle scene.

He opened a DJ school, Soul Mechanics (where the band was rehearsing Sunday night), where he teaches various levels of scratch DJing. Just over a year ago, he started composing music for turntables.

"(When I got out of battling), I still wanted to do hardcore scratching," Mana said, "but not for competition - the format has so many rules about what you can and can't do. When I make music, I don't want to be limited. ... I started composing more musical arrangements, with multiple turntables, so I needed multiple turntablists."

Microtone Kitchen was born in December 2005. The group performed at last summer's Montreal International Jazz Festival, and continues to evolve. Tonight's performance at the Main Hall will mark the first time the band plays all its music in one continuous set, with no breaks between songs. The tempo gradually increases through the course of the show. And all the transitions are, of course, in key.

"We're doing harmonic mixing," Mana said. "It's easier for the ear to accept. You hear certain mixes, even if they're on beat, they don't sound good. It's because the DJs are not doing harmonic mixing."

There are other musically minded DJ collectives around the world, Mana said, who are changing the parameters of the art form, which is in a state of flux:

"People say turntablism is dying. Maybe battles are dying. People are changing. People used to think DMC was turntablism. But there are a lot of ways you can use turntables as an instrument. It's growing, if anything. Maybe it needs to take a step back from the market, and mature before you can sell it to a lot of people. ... It's only a matter of time before it comes back as another art form."

But why? Why make a band from DJs? Why not just DJ, or make a band?

"There's certain things you can do with this instrument that you can't do with others," Mana said. "When you play a piano sound on a record, the moment you manipulate that sound - the piano can't make that sound; it can't go back and forth. (The turntable) is its own instrument. That's the point. And it's the best instrument I can play. ... Everyone has a need to make music.

"The question is more, 'Why not?' "

Microtone Kitchen performs with guests DJ Static and John Harry tonight at 9 at the Main Hall, 5390 St. Laurent Blvd. Tickets cost $7 at the door.

tdunlevy@thegazette.canwest.com

- Hear it here: To hear song clips or see videos of Microtone Kitchen, go to Editor's Picks on our website.

More at: montrealgazette.com - T'Cha Dunleavy Montreal Gazette

Montreal’s Microtone Kitchen takes the turntable off the back burner...

Still a novelty to many, the addition of a scratch DJ to a live band is, like any combination of disparate instruments, bound to transform and evolve over time. Montreal’s Microtone Kitchen, a project two years in the making, inverts the equation with turntablists Killa Jewel, Praiz, Midas, Pandazal and DJ Mana joined by keyboardists/guitarists Know One and Atsu, placing the turntable up front, not off to the side. The Mirror spoke to DJ Mana and Killa Jewel right here in Montreal.

Mirror: You’re a product of the battle scene, and have kept active furthering your skills as a turntablist. Why is this particular concept so close to your heart?

DJ Mana: When I was battling, the focus was on my technical skills and my ability to move super fast on the tables, but for the past two years I’ve been studying piano, microtonal theory and Indian music. Music is not just rhythm, and that’s what turntablism always focused on. In terms of tonality, it’s always been hard to make the turntables sound musical, but now we can tune our samples and harmonize our scratches so we know what bandwidth of frequency we’re using, so that everything compliments each other in harmony, rhythm and melody.

M: Having lent your turntablist skills to productions with Robert Lepage and Vanessa Rodrigues in the past, would you say that this is completely different from simply adding turntables to live instrumentation?

Killa Jewel: Yes. I’ve scratched with jazz bands and rock bands, but this is different because we’re using the turntable as the primary instrument as opposed to it being the accompanying instrument.

M: So is Microtone Kitchen a reaction to the sidelining of the turntable?

DJM: It’s not a reaction as much as it is a natural progression. There’s other people doing this kind of stuff anyway, we’re not the only ones. I think we’re the only ones in Montreal, but outside of that there’s Southern California’s Ned Hoddings, with Ricci Rucker, D-Styles and Mike Boogie, and Birdie Nam Nam from France. We’ve added keys and guitar to the mix, which are fundamentally tonal. - Scott C Montreal Mirror

Microtone Kitchen is a Montreal-based group that creates original live music with turntables, keys and guitar. The group, led by five-time turntablist champion DJ Mana, has an all-star roster including: female DJ phenomenon Killa-Jewel, talented up-and coming battle DJ Praiz, the highly skilled turntablists Midas and Panda-Zal, and keyboardists Johnny Know1 and Sir Bastard.

Microtone Kitchen approaches the turntable like a real instrument. They create beats, bass-lines, chords, melodies, and arpeggios by scratching sounds on records and harmonizing with keyboards and guitar. Their sound is influenced by contemporary jazz, classical, IDM, hip hop, and various electronic music. The result is an eclectic mixture of groovy organic music with an electronic feel. - Just For Laughs Festival 2007

DJ Killa Jewel adds a few more skills to her arsenal

Killa "Julie Fainer" Jewel has a busy summer ahead of her, but judging from the last couple years of her life, that's about par for the course and she enjoys golfing.

"First I'm playing after Buck 65's show [at the Jazz Fest], doing a couple routines and playing some danceable hip-hop jams, but that one's just a straight-up DJ gig." What she seems more excited about, though, is her July 6 performance on the Groove Stage as part of the DJ-based musical group Microtone Kitchen that also features DJ Mana, Praiz, Midas, Pandazal, and keyboardists and guitarists Know One and Atsu Izumi.

"We have five turntables, piano, Wurlitzer and guitar. DJ Mana actually came up with the idea and basically approached all of us and said, 'Look, I need some extra hands to perform what I'm writing.'" Though it started as DJ "Reincarnation of Bruce Lee" Mana's project and he remains its Lex Luthor, the process of recording with so many people ultimately altered the group's DNA. "What ended up happening was we all sort of collaboratively put in our two cents [that makes 14 cents], sat down with Mana and composed the songs so they're all performable live."

She grew up taking classical piano lessons, though her ease in front of a crowd took some time. "When I was a kid, my hands used to sweat and shake so much that it was debilitating, I don't know how I do what I do today." Whatever it was, it's a good thing she got it sorted out before some guy named Robert Lepage came calling. Lepage first got her on board
for the Peter Gabriel co-produced Zulu Time, and in 2005 she toured the world with his show The Busker's Opera.

"He enjoys working with people who aren't necessarily professionals at what they do. Originally he asked me to play with them because of my DJing, but in the end I ended up singing opera, acting, and learned how to play the drums."

Before getting off the phone, I can't help asking about the pink elephant in the middle of the boys' club, and she's heard it enough to finish my sentence.

"Right, the girl thing. My whole take on it is that I've worked my ass off and paid my dues and I've rarely taken shortcuts. I may have gotten some free clothes, but I'm not sponsored by any DJ companies, which I'd much prefer."

On top of the Jazz Fest gigs, she's competing in the Montreal DMCs the day after the Microtone show and playing the Halifax Jazz Fest as part of the Vanessa Rodrigues Soul Project. While being a girl the whole time!

Killa Jewel
w/ Buck 65
At Club Soda (1225 St-Laurent), July 2, midnight
w/ Microtone Kitchen
Jazz Fest Groove Stage, 10 p.m. - Brendan Murphy Hour.ca

For further local mini-supergroup action amid the outdoor stage at the Jazz Fest, you can catch Microtone Kitchen at the Bell Stage at 10 p.m. on July 6, for some tasty, top-notch turntablism with a side order of sweet keys. That old chestnut about too many cooks doesn’t seem to apply to DJ Mana and his kitchen staff—Praiz, Midas, Pandazal, Know One, Atsu and Killa Jewel, the latter also joining Buck 65 at Club Soda on July 2. - RUPERT BOTTENBERG

As always, the grand old men of jazz in the 514 rule the roost. What’s nice to see is younger, genre-bending talents—like Kobayashi’s Proietti and Tauchner, and Microtone Kitchen, with turntablists DJ Mana and Killa Jewel—getting nods here, alongside more traditionally “jazz” types like Nelson, Officer and Herskowitz. - The Mirror