Akufen

Since 1999, Akufen (Montreal's Marc Leclair) has been amassing a thick stockpile of 12" releases for labels like Perlon, Background, Traum, Oral, Trapez, and Force Inc. With influences ranging from Bootsy to Mancini to Moroder to Reich, Leclair's productions veer from challenging experimental techno to pop-oriented micro-house. For most of the tracks on 2002's My Way, his first full-length album for Force Inc., Leclair employed a technique he referred to as "microsampling." Leclair would spend hours of each morning recording material from AM/FM dials and a shortwave, and he would then use those recordings as fodder for his productions, splicing seconds into minute fragments (consisting of voices, song snips, acoustic guitar flicks, and all sorts of unidentifiable moments) and applying them to danceable, hook-heavy house tracks. The anticipation for the album was increased significantly by a limited release of the album's feature cut, "Deck the House," a dazzling crazy-quilt of short-attention-span house dementia. Leclair has also recorded as Anna Kaufen and Nekufa.