Cadenza boss Luciano revealed his highly anticipated Æther live performance project at Spain’s Monegros festival on 18th July, a project that is being billed as a “synchronization of sound and colour”…

In this video you can see Luciano conducting his laptop symphony from the centre, with his back to the audience like a classical music conductor would guide an orchestra.

Cadenza label mates Reboot, Mirko Loco, Lee Van Dowski, and Digitaline throw in sounds and percussion from their laptops using Ableton Live, whilst Luciano controls the incoming sounds via a touchscreen computer and what appears to be a Native Instruments Maschine, ultimately deciding what gets through.

The show has a strong visual aspect too, with each individual sound assigned a specific colour, that presumably grows in intensity the more it is used in the main mix.

The project has been four years in the making, and is a bold attempt by the Swiss-Chilean minimal house hero to push live techno performance forwards.

Luciano was also part of Ricardo Villalobos’ short-lived Narod Niki laptop supergroup, which was also based on the idea of live collaborative performances via laptops.

Your opinion

It’s difficult to get a full feel for what the Æther performances are exactly like just from this video, but we’d like to get your opinions on this interesting development regardless. Please share any thoughts or feelings you have below.

You can catch Luciano’s Æther project at any of the events listed below:

Aug 07 Tokyo Summer Sonic Festival, Chiba Marine Stadium, Tokyo, Japan
Aug 07 Osaka Summer Sonic Festival, Maishima, Osaka, Japan
Aug 14 Electrocity, Klasztor Cystersów, Lubiaz, Poland
Aug 19 High Speed Rock Festival, Gotham, Israel
Aug 20 Aether, Zappa Club, Israel
Aug 21 Lowlands Day 1, Lowlands Festival Site, Biddinghuizen, Netherlands
Aug 22 Pukkelpop 2009 - Day 3, Kiewit, Belgium
Aug 29 Creamfields 2009 - Day 1, Daresbury, Cheshire, UK
Sep 04 Electric Picnic, Stradbally County Laois, Ireland
Nov 21 Sonofilia 2009, Guadalajara, Mexico