The Danish trio will once again hit the road for a short North American tour, which they will begin at home, between two European tours. This time, they are performing at the Velouria Festival II, organized by the Montreal label Velouria Recordz. While they claim a clear affiliation with The Cure, especially in the rich, dark voice of Mikkel Borbjerg Jakobsen, the band has a clean, refined sound with an energetic melancholy. They’ll present his latest album, Outnumbered, released in April 2019 on Artoffact Records.
Listings
Garage Rock / Rock
Double Date With Death • Debate Club
Photo credit: Rowan Fraser-Taylor
L’Au-Delà, released at the beginning of January, is the second album from Double Date With Death, with a cover designed by none other than Elzo Durt, one of the masters of psychedelic visuals in recent years. The band doesn’t even hide it, it’s clearly influenced by Californian psychedelic garage rock (think Thee Oh Sees or Ty Segall, to name only the most famous). In this case, however, the Montreal band has chosen to express itself in French. The album, recorded, produced and mixed by Guillaume Chiasson (Ponctuation, Jesuslesfilles), is divided into eight short tracks just psychedelic enough to take us on a journey to the beyond.
Africa / Psych-Rock / Rock / Saharan Blues
(CANCELLED) Mdou Moctar • Avec le soleil sortant de sa bouche
*Photo credit: Jerome Fino
Niger’s Mdou Moctar isn’t the kind of person who waits for things to happen. Growing up in a village where music was prohibited, he built himself his first guitar from scrap wood. He travelled to Nigeria to record his 2008 debut album, which mashed up Tuareg blues-rock and Afro-electro, and spread like wildfire on the West African cellphone circuit. He produced and starred in the first Tuareg-language film, a remake of Purple Rain. And with each successive, blistering guitar lick, he’s placed himself at the forefront of the North African desert-psych sound that Tinariwen made the world aware of back in 2001. His latest album (and first with a proper band and producer), 2019’s Ilana: The Creator, is an amazing piece of work, bursting with energy and a harsh, shiny tone, Moctar’s rhythm section chugging steadily along behind him as he takes his outrageous riff-work to transcendental highs.
Qawwali
Fareed Ayaz & Abu Muhammad
Acolytes of the venerable Qawwal Bacchon ka Gharana, the same centuries-old musical school that gave the world Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Pakistani brothers Fareed Ayaz and Abu Muhammad are, both at home and abroad, among the absolute top names in qawwali, the exhilarating Sufi tradition of escalating, ecstatic song. Just the kind of uplift to drive away the last of winter’s grey mood.
Electro-Punk / Indie Rock / Rock
We Are Wolves
Photo credit: Richard Lam
Straddling between electro-punk and electro-pop, sometimes one more than the other and vice versa, We Are Wolves have always shown a certain melodic sensibility. Their latest effort, the five-track digital EP La main de Dieu, with its songs in French and Spanish, is (further) excellent proof of this. The Montreal trio, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, unpack at Foufs, a concert hall where they’ve rarely (never?) been seen. A symbolic return to their punk roots?
Frank Zappa’s body of work is considerable, and well known, but you won’t find much pipe organ therein, except on the album Uncle Meat, when Don Preston plays “Louie Louie”’s introductory notes on the “Mighty & Majestic Albert Hall Pipe Organ” (dixit FZ). So it’s a nice surprise to discover the Trio RCM, hailing from France, in which percussionist Henri-Charles Caget and guitarist Frédéric Maurin support the work of organist Yves Rechsteiner. The latter is responsible for the basic arrangements of this program, which includes almost a dozen pieces by Zappa, but also interpretations of works by Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Pink Floyd, King Crimson and Pat Metheny. This time, the organ in question is the MSO’s mighty-in-its-own-right Grand Orgue Pierre-Béïque. The earth is gonna shake!
Electronic / House
Tchami
Pioneer of the future house movement, known notably for his work with Lady Gaga, Janet Jackson, and the DJs Snake, Mercer, and Malaa – with whom he forms the collective Pardon My French – the founder of the label Confession heats up the MTelus with his panoply of warm and sensual sounds. The Miami-based Parisian DJ and producer, whose real name is Martin Bresso, has made house his domain, flirting with practically every variation of the genre. Always dressed in his emblematic priest’s vestment during his sets, this apostle of the bass invites you to a groovy, not very Catholic mass.
Ben Böhmer
However, if Tchami is too much this or not enough that for you, you can always opt for Ben Böhmer’s ethereal house at Théâtre Fairmount on the same evening – one wonders why the two weren’t programmed in the same place… Recently active on the world house scene, Ben Böhmer has in just a few years become an unavoidable reference point for deep and progressive house with about ten EPs already to his credit. The prolific German DJ and producer, endorsed by Anjunadeep and Keller Records, is also the boss of the Ton Topferei label. If you can’t choose between Böhmer and Tchami, you still have some time to develop the gift of ubiquity.
Electronic / House / Techno
Call Super
In just a few short years, Call Super has won the hearts of the public, the media – his album Arpo won the DJ Mag Album of the Year award in 2017 – and the recognition of his peers. A daring musician of English origin, he produces music that flirts with the experimental. No doubt the warm, organic sounds of his sets, tailored for the dancefloor, will find an ideal resonance through the Stereobar sound system, perfect for this type of music. There is another showcase on the same night host, the Stereo afterhour, with the long-awaited Dixon, voted most popular DJ by Resident Advisor in 2019. He’s one of the leaders of German progressive house, alongside artists such as Âme (with whom he co-founded the label Innervisions) and Henrik Schwarz.
Samy Ben Redjeb is the founder of the Analog Africa label, based in Frankfurt, Germany. A true archeologist of musical treasures, he travels in South America and Africa to unearth tropical sounds, Afrobeat, cumbia and salsa from the 1960s and 1970s. The result of all this work is a panoply of compilations of totally unheard, groovy and catchy sounds. He’ll be sharing his gems when he hits Montreal for the first time, to the delight of ears in search of exotic discoveries.
Photo credit: Laurine Haddock
Organized by one of the founders of the Montreal psychedelic festival Distortion, this concert presents two emerging bands: Shade, a rock ‘n’ roll band from Hamilton, and Orchids, a local shoegaze band – a rare genre in Montreal. The latter has just joined the Belgian label EXAG’ Records and will present, among other things, its next two songs to be released as singles.
In the opening slot, Jyraph will replace the previously scheduled Chacal.
Electronic / Tech-House / Techno
Omar S • Project Pablo
Originally from Detroit, the crucible of techno, Omar-S is a worthy representative of the local underground. His unique style, with its focus on house, is in line with that of his predecessors, such as Theo Parrish or Moodymann. A prolific producer and excellent DJ, during his sets he oscillates between techno, house and deep house. Dance music with a deep debt to to jazz and soul (Motown), which finds its spirit in Chicago house, sometimes even sampling disco. The only watchword is: groovy. Put out your dancing shoes!
Ambient / Avant-Garde / Electro / Experimental Dream Pop / Post-Rock
Siamois Synthesis
The first clue is a Montreal composer and audiovisual artist named Maxime Corbeil-Perron on keyboards and electronics, the second is a bass player who has been active on the independent music scene for the past 20 years, named Sylvain Gagné, the third one is a guitarist named Simon Trottier (not shown here), known for highlighting the textural possibilities of his instrument, the fourth a vocalist of Japanese origin named Maya Kuroki. Put them together and you have the new band Siamois Synthesis, launching their first album Feu Aimant, on the Ambiances Magnétiques label, whose first excerpt is very promising.