There are, of course, many reasons to resent Perth (recently they’ve instituted a policy on outdoor drinking requiring any pub with a licenced area that borders the footpath to institute an al fresco dining policy i.e. you can’t bring drinks outside from inside, they must be brought to you by a specified staff member. You also cannot walk in the outside area while carrying a drink. When the drink gets to a table, it stays at a table. GAR!), but few of them are so persistently infuriating as the incapacity of your favourite musicians to get their asses onto that 3 hour flight from the east coast and entertain us for an evening. The list of disappointments is legion, but the pain starts afresh every time. Hence this: a series of semi-regular posts about the artists whose non-performance is making me increasingly sad about the fact I’m not still in Melbourne right now. What a jolly way to start a post!

So, Gui Boratto. Gui Boratto is awesome. And prolific. And Brazilian. I went on a bit of a minimal tech tip last year and Boratto was by far one of the most consistent, and consistently accessible producers I came across. That sounds a little like modified rapture, so I’ll just get out there and say: Mr. Boratto makes fucking amazing techno. One of the darlings of the Kompakt stable, Gui had already released a number of singles and remixes across any number of labels, but really came into his own last year with the release of his first LP ‘Chromophobia’, an album which was seen by many as one of the more comprehensive full-lengthers to have burst on to the minimal scene in many a year. ‘Chromphobia’ is an immensely textured piece of work and holds together as a tightly conceived album in a way that most electronic artists seem to really struggle with. Maybe the broader sense of structure comes about because Gui moonlights as an architect/designer. SO AWESOME. While there are any number of awesome tracks to be found, the highlight is the almost out of place ‘Beautiful Life’, a wonderfully joyous but complex pseudo-anthem replete with a distorted female vocalist singing about feeling the sun for 8 minutes. It’s minimal gone pop. And it’s far better than it sounds.

Gui Boratto - Beautiful Life [MediaFire]

I think what I like about Boratto though is that his music doesn’t actually feel all that minimal. Sure the skittering, repetitive beats are there, and most of the ideas behind the tracks are relatively simple and underplayed, but he has such a keen ear for melodic fruition that sometimes when a track breaks you just stop and sit for a second while mouthing the words ‘fucking hell’. ‘The Rivington Suite’ is kinda like that. Hence the fact I’ve attached it. My god I listened to this tune a lot while I was studying last year. Melodically, it’s almost a counter-point to the elation of Beautiful Life, but poignancy nothwithstanding, you still feel like you could float away on the breakdowns. Ah.

Gui Boratto - The Rivington Suite [MediaFire]

So back to the resentment: Gui Boratto is currently doing a live tour of the east coast, pumping out the best of his many and varied releases for you, the discerning, and eastern states based punter. Here be the dates:

22/2 - Logic, Bar Soma, Brisbane

23/2- Club Club, Chinese Laundry, Sydney

24/2 - Sunday Royale, Elsewhere, Gold Coast

29/2 - Likes of You, Brown Alley, Melbourne (with Sven Vath and Steve Bug)

1/3 - Bunker, Sydney

Also look out for the soon to be released single ‘Anunciacion’, his first track on Kompakt (well, the K2 imprint at any rate) in a solid year and a half. According to Gui it’s going to be a slow, sad 4X4 track, heavy on emotion and synths. Yep. Maximal this ain’t. Still if it’s anything like the Rivington Suite, I’ll be all over it like a rash. In the meantime though, go see him. It’ll totally make me jealous.

-luke