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.
