Data Breaker

Sutekh (San Francisco producer Seth Horvitz) has been one of
American electronic music’s heaviest cats for over a decade. Schooled
in avant-garde composition, he’s also savvy to the ways of the most
cutting-edge advances in digital music technology, which helps Sutekh
to bridge highbrow dance music and experimental sound design with
supreme elegance.

Sutekh’s deep, voluminous discography spans back to 1998. He came to
my attention with the 2000 full-length Periods.Make.Sense., back
when I’d reflexively scoop up anything bearing the Mille
Plateaux/Force Inc. Music Works logos. That album and
subsequent releases like Fell and the live Incest CD
evinced Sutekh’s masterly merging of both of those imprints’ main
aesthetic features: Mille Plateaux’s cerebral, microscopic tonal
exploration and Force Inc.’s propulsive hypnosis. In Sutekh’s early
phase, clicks & cuts meets the discotheque by way of the
INA-GRM, and eggheads get scrambled in the process. He also has a
surprisingly funky side to his approach, which has surfaced in releases
on his own Context Free Media label. (Check his tracks on the
Deadpan Escapement comp and “D’z,” for proof; if he really set
his mind to it, Sutekh could probably become one of hiphop’s most
interesting producers, too.) Witnessing Sutekh destroy the floor at
Oseao Gallery in 2003 with a 55-minute stream of WTF? techno remains a
highlight in my electronic-music-gig-going annals.

Later productions have found Sutekh getting more whimsical and, uh,
funky, in the radical electro duo Pigeon Funk with kindred
playful genius Kit Clayton and delving into classical piano
composition (including pieces by Erik Satie and Karlheinz
Stockhausen) and Gypsy music. Other times, Sutekh’s probed the
outer fringes of jazz and abstraction, ranging from mellow smoothness
to a ruptured approach to aural agitation. Ultimately, he’s one of
those rare electronic musicians who excels at several styles without
appearing dilettantish.

“It’s interesting to hear people’s reactions to my music, because
some say that it all carries a common signature, and others call it
disparate,” Sutekh told East Bay Express. “I think it’s best
when people can’t quite figure out what to make of it.” Agreed.

•••

A quick word about the Icarus Kid (aka Seattle
producer Dan Crowdus), who’s making his live debut on the same bill
with Sutekh at Re-bar on Friday night. Yet another phenomenal discovery
by Bonkers! promoter Ian Scot Price, the Icarus Kid creates a playful
brand of IDM that bespeaks of too many hours basking in the ill glow
of a video-game console. He conceives bleepy, cheerful, slightly
unhinged melodies that swoop, burble, and soar with surprising
sophistication. It’s not all fun and games, though—his music is
soundtracky and symphonic, too.

Sutekh performs at Bonkers! Fri Oct 9, Re-bar, 10 pm, $8 before
11 pm/$10 after, 21+. With Randy Jones, Misha, the Icarus Kid.