Ghislain Poirier's organic, hip-hop-inflected beatscapes have been released on such renowned labels as Chocolate Industries and intr_version. He'll be putting the dip in your hip with his microchip at Wavelength on June 6. Represent! It seemed odd to me at first that Ghislain Poirier, convicted electronic musician, didn't want to carry out an interview over email. “What the shit?” I asked myself. “Did I accidentally email Ghislain Poirier, Sr.?” As the interview unfolded, however, it became clear that this Montrealer was an atypical electronic musician in more ways than just his reluctance to communicate via electronic mail.

Your bio talks a lot about your work as a visual artist. Why are you compelled to create in both mediums? Well, to tell you the truth, music is taking an ever-larger place in my life. I don't do any more drawings or paintings; I may come back to it later, though. It was really a matter of space and time. Not enough space in my apartment, not enough time. Music is really 100% of what I do now. At least it's still creating! (laughs)

What are you planning on unleashing on us here in Toronto? I'm pretty excited --- I'm bringing an MC named Séba with me to Toronto. He's worked with me on my last two albums. He and I, we're a team. We'll be working a lot more together.

How'd you get hooked up with Séba? I was DJing a poetry night, and he came up on stage and just started freestyling over beats. It took about a year for him and me to get started working together -- but now, we're a team. We'll be working a lot more together. What's this Sneaky Dee's place like, anyway? Is it a bar, a club? How's the sound?

It's more a bar. Sound is loud. Bring earplugs. Great. We're really excited about Toronto -- I think I've only played there once before, a while back.

You're excited? I'm excited. What's knocking your socks off these days? I love all of Madlib's stuff: Madvillain, Jaylib... Prefuse 73 is
amazing as well. Also DJ/Rupture on Tigerbeat6 -- but lately I've also been listening to a lot of afrobeat, soul, ragga, anything that's not electronic music.

Why the move away from electronic music? Electronic music used to be challenging, about pushing sound further. Now, it seems like the work of pioneers is just being repeated, being done over. Hip-hop is fun! I love the interaction between the audience and the MC. I like that the way I'm working now lets me push the boundaries, but also have fun.

So can I have your computer, then? I'm still using computers. I don't change my technique, just my output. It's the feeling, the finished product that matters. If you do it with turntables, with an MPC, acoustic -- I don't care. I don't put technique before music.

Whoa -- hold on, let me write that down. Okay.

Anything else I should tell the people? We're seriously excited about coming to Toronto. We are going to have a lot of fun at this show!

BY BUNK BEDOUIN