Desert Bloom MUTEK, Montreal QC, August 25

Desert Bloom MUTEK, Montreal QC, August 25
Photo: Ashutosh Gupta
Climbing a long set of stairs and riding an elevator further into the sky, at the top of 7 Doigts, the swaying piano experiments of Rachel Nam's Desert Bloom project washed over everyone like the watery glow of a fish tank.
As Nam sent familiar piano sounds slipping and sliding into woozy new territories with some becalmed processing, augmenting the sounds of her source instrument with an intimate touch and using samples of bird calls, and whispering crescendos to bridge the negative space between each softened note, the audience absorbed it all from the venue floor, swaying in response. 
As the weekend headed to a close, this low-key sound bath took on a glowing healing quality while also warming up the room to one last hazy party, many rising from the floor when Nam introduced a kick and transitioned the hour-long set into a cloudy of downtempo techno.