In March 2017, we celebrated Distroboto’s Sweet Sixteen with a concert at Casa del Popolo, where the project was born in January 2001.

L’expérience Distroboto est étroitement liée à la culture indépendante montréalaise et a été un succès dès ses débuts. Seize ans plus tard, les machines ont vendu plus de 100 000 œuvres réalisées par plus de 1200 artistes locaux et internationaux !

To mark this 16th anniversary, Montreal Sound Ark presents several shows featuring the music sold through Distroboto vending machines over the years.
When the project began way back in January 2001, the first audio recordings sold were cassettes– more specifically, compilations of royalty-free music from the beginning of the last century: gospel, ragtime, country, blues … In the summer of 2001, a musician released a series of 3.5-inch floppy disks with a single piece of music on them. A few months later, other artists began to submitf 3-inch mini-cds for distribution in Distroboto machines.
Today, the musical archives of the Distroboto project at ARCMTL include more than 300 different titles released on mini-cd, cassette and diskette, not to mention the occasional download code!
Despite of – or possibly because of — the small size of the CDs, the variety of forms that the releases were sold in is incredibly rich: silkscreened boxes, fabric pockets, custom paper envelopes, glued or added objects; much of the packaging was produced by hand and are real works of art. The same variety is found in the musical styles found therein: blues, country, folk, rock, and an immense proportion of experimental projects, electronic, noise, spoken word, improvised music and sound art. Some of the most prolific artists of the golden age of Distroboto mini-cds, during the 2000’s, include 1-speed-bike, The Unireverse, Alexis O’Hara, Alain Lefebvre, Chris Burns, Ghislain Poirier, Steve Godin, Esther B, The American Devices (to name but a few favorites …)
During these years, Casa del Popolo hosted many concerts of improvised music, electronic and noise, and Distroboto was among the catalysts of the scene, alongside labels such as Fluorescent Friends , Brise-Cul or other venues such as the Brick. Several other labels also released mini-CDs for Distroboto such as Monochrome, Turtle Island Records, Natasha’s Recordings or Le Son 666, producing short feminist and colorful albums and compilations! The Academy Award for record labels that have used the Distroboto network has to go to Walnut + Locust, who produced dozens of different mini-CDs by many dozens of different artists for the machines over the years!
Distroboto machines are also a platform for artists who juggle several disciplines (music and printed arts, writing and spoken word …), such as Rick Trembles, Dominique Pétrin, Leyla Majeri, Henriette Valium, or Eric Braun, who also produced the music on floppy disks way back when… The radio station CKUT has also been very supportive of the dissemination of the music from the Distroboto collection, adding its CDs for their archives and regularly ranking them in the charts! We’ve also noted quite a few connections between the Distroboto project and the fabulous people who host shows at CKUT: Louise Burns, Marc Montanchez, Lawrence Joseph, Alex Moskos, Fortner Anderson …
Lastly, don’t forget that regardless of any nostalgia for the mini-cd, the Discman or the “real” cd player, mini-cds are still being produced and sold in Distroboto machines, now often accompanied by a download code.

You can hear the special shows below, with track lists in Artist – Album and / or Song Title format! Enjoy!
-Émilie Mouchous, March 2016

2017.03.10 15:00-17:00 -0500
Friday March 10

Quebec Connection – Musique nordique vol.1 – People moving people
Pervert – a few short tracks
Intercom – Décharge de rock – Police massage
Tam – Alien Nation – Alien nation
Léopard et moi – Léopard III – Pierre noire
Tony Ezzy – You really must believe! – Space plane
Bobo Boutin – Cold night without electricity
Minibloc + 1 – extrait
The Unireverse – Buck Wizardin – Lil’ miss wizard
Suck Machine – Life is so much better since I drilled a hole in my skull
Gin Gin Sussex – Sweet lemon juice
Gordon Krieger – Black horns at the end of the city
Monochrome – Les Filles Électriques
Monochrome – The Model
Gmackrr – Ladies club vol.2 – Jour de pluie
Ohnono – Compilation
Mingo l’indien – Ma colombe vol.1 – Hommage à Syd Barrett (dédié à Roger Tellier-Craig)
esther b et leon lo
Alexis and her exes – Music for breakups – Getting drunk with the cat in an apartment w too many mirrors
Alexis and her exes – Music for breakups – You will be loved again

2017.03.17 15:00-17:00 -0400

Friday March 17

Matana Roberts – Solo live
Dewop – Lx6
Lipsky-Dimsky – Singapore sling
Super Synth Montréal 5 – Les Momies de Palerme – Incarnation
Super Synth Montréal 6 – Tonny Ezzy – My name is Tony E.
Super Synth Montréal 1 – Pecora Pecora – Vents ioniques
OS – Kisses – encor4e
Milliseconde topographie – Paperasses éparses
Ghislain Poirier – La Ronde
Musique Nordique vol.1 – Gentle Bakemono
Bobo Boutin – Virgin Mary Procession
Total music – G track 2
The Funeral Kids – We will love again et Sacrifice choir
Automates Ki
Tony Ezzy – Now is the time of a great transformation
Noot – Track 1
Ladies club vol.2 – cyan – fosse
Teenage Love – Why ?

2017.03.24 15:00-17:00 -0400
Friday March 24

One-speed bike – Limp penis – When I was 20 she took me home
Ghislain Poirier – Instrumentals – de l’art de la fellation
Julie Rousse – quelques minutes sur les bienfaits de la guerre
Goa Tout puissant ! – St Louis de Terrebonne
Les Georges Leningrad – 5 mini-pops
Cacao People – Uncle Fun
Moondata productions – Lab Projects 220203
gelée – tachée
le Monochrome – Skipp 2004
le Monochrome – Nocturne 1 (r240)
paanq – the curse of the Beople
The Milky Ways – Where’s my baby
Lesbians on ecstasy – Alien8 recordings comp – Tell me does she love the bass
Dewop – Le cromagnon rugit
Hybe – with or without you
anachronicxp – nervomoteur – inscriptif
Ladies Club vol.1 – Martine H Crispo – Mathilde 312
Heisenberg Effect vol 2 – Floor Tom Boogie
Manufacturing Defect – Untitled
Echoes still singing limbs