The Swedish band has lost none of its verve and revolutionary ideals, as evidenced by its most recent album, War Music, released last October on Search And Destroy/Spinefarm. A sense of urgency can be heard from one end to the other of this hardcore firecracker, with Marx’s famous maxim punctuating “Blood Red”. It’s impossible not to mention the two bands that will accompany Refused for most of their North American tour. First of all, Youth Code, an EBM act plunging its tendrils into hardcore, with a brutal and generous stage presence. Finally, the classic band of committed hardcore punk, Racetraitor, arrives with an abrasive sound if ever there was one. An uncompromising evening, not to be missed!
Listings
Baroque / Classical / Classical Period / Contemporary
Gemma New conducts I Musici de Montréal
I Musici de Montréal, under the direction of the New Zealand-born conductor Gemma New, presents a string program dedicated to three major composers of their respective eras. First, an adaptation of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Fantasy and Fugue BWV 542, originally for organ. Next, the ensemble tackles Shaker Loops, by the American John Adams, a minimalist work in four linked sections. To close the concert, Felix Mendelssohn’s 7th of 12 symphonies for strings, in D minor, composed when the German was only a teenager. As part of the I Concertini Series, this concert, which lasts approximately 60 minutes without a break, will be presented twice, at 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. The musicians are seated in the middle of the hall, not on the stage, so this series of concerts creates an intimacy with the audience.
PROGRAMME
I Musici de Montréal
Gemma New: conductor
J. S. Bach: Fantasy and Fugue in G minor, BWV 542
John Adams: Shaker Loops
Felix Mendelssohn: Symphony for Strings in D minor No. 7
Post-hardcore / Progressive Metal / Rock
Bird Problems
The Montreal quartet celebrate the release of their EP Beyond the Nest with a launch concert. If the videos for the songs “Cold Turkey” and “Pigeon Superstition”, released in December and January, are any indication, Bird Problems move away from the metalcore with jazz influences of the album Taz (2017) in favour of a progressive rock-metal sound that will surely appeal to fans of Between the Buried and Me.
Progressive Metal / Rock
Devin Townsend
Photo credit: Tanya Ghosh
The February 28 concert sold like hotcakes, so a second date was added to meet the demand. The Canadian multi-instrumentalist’s acoustic (and unsettling) performance at the 2019 edition of Heavy Montreal apparently had no negative effect on his fans. Given that the tour for the album Empath, released in March 2019, begins in Montreal, it’s a mystery as to whether Townsend will perform mostly material from his solo albums, or whether he will also draw from the repertoire of The Devin Townsend Band, The Devin Townsend Project and Strapping Young Lad. If we’re lucky, maybe we’ll get the Strapping Young Lad songs he played during the 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise last January.
Electronic / First Nations
Anachnid
After snagging a prize at SOCAN’s 2019 Indigenous Music Awards in Winnipeg, and releasing her latest track, the gentle yet potent “Sky Woman”, this past November, Montreal-based artist Anachnid brings her “Dreamweaver” show to MAI. With her totem animal, the spider, to guide her, Anachnid’s web is crafted with strands of her Oji-Cree and Mi’kmaq roots, upscale club sounds, passionate defiance, emotional honesty and the occasional jab of on-point humour. Don’t lose the thread on this one!
Other performance of this show:
• Saturday, February 29, 9 p.m. at MAI (Montréal, arts interculturels)
North East Asian / Taiko
Drum Tao 2020
How many musicians can you think of that include daily long-distance runs, calisthenics and martial arts training in their practice schedule? That’s what’s required of the percussionists in Japanese ensemble Tao, which since 1993 has brought the fearsome thunder of traditional taiko drumming, enhanced by flavours from elsewhere in Asia and a striking theatrical flair, to stages around the world. Excitement is guaranteed when they start clubbing the skins at Place des Arts.
Experimental / Contemporary / Noise Rock / Rock
Gloin • Cantos • Jed Arbour
Photo credit: Conner Palomba
Toronto’s Gloin released their first EP Soft Monster last April. Since then, the band has notably opened for the mythical space-rock band Moon Duo. Hopefully, on the occasion of their second appearance in Montreal, they’ll have some new material in the same stoner rock and noise-rock vein. Gloin will soon be playing at the SXSW festival in Austin, and the New Colossus festival in New York, making them one of the emerging Toronto bands to watch out for this year. The concert takes place at L’Escogriffe with two local bands: Cantos and Jed Arbour.
Hip Hop
Cam’ron
Harlem MC Cameron Ezike Giles, now 44, enjoyed some fame in the 1990s and 2000s; rapper Cam’ron (his stage name) was one of the hopes of the Roc-A-Fella label, and then… he stopped releasing albums between 2009 and 2019. Perceived as a veteran who’s been around a lot of hip hop’s big names, the rapper is now trying to relaunch his career with the still-fresh Purple Haze 2 – his first album with the same title dates back to 2004. What will it be like on stage… a decade later?
Contemporary Jazz / Jazz
Mark Godfrey
Co-leader of the Pram Trio, Ontario double bassist Mark Godfrey has been named 2019 Emerging Jazz Artist of the Year by the Toronto Arts Foundation. What’s more, this month he’s releasing Square Peg, his second album as leader of an acoustic band with a timeless jazz style. He has also been heard alongside Kellylee Evans, Barbra Lica and Jake Koffman. While in Montreal, he’ll be performing with collaborators on his new recording, which follows the album Prologue, released in 2018.
MUSICIANS:
Mark Godfrey: double bass
Allison Au: alto sax
Matt Woroshyl: tenor saxophone
Chris Pruden: piano
Eric West: drums
Africa / Afro-Electro / Afropop / Malian Traditional
Djely Tapa
Hailing from the Malian griot caste, raised in the Kayes region in the western part of the country (near the Senegalese border), and a Montrealer by choice, the singer Sountougoumba Diarra firmly respects her African heritage while showing a strong desire to update it, and thus she becomes Djely Tapa. Caleb Rimtobaye (Afrotronix, H’Sao) helped her in this process, resulting in the beautiful album Barokan, released in January 2019. Here is Djely Tapa perfectly equipped to represent the immense culture of Africa 2.0. Malian and Sahelian traditions blend into the vast electronic universe, but it’s all still part of the West African movement. Within the Montreal musical community, she is THE African singer of the moment.
Hip Hop / Neo-Psychedelia / Pop / Singer-Songwriter / soul-pop / Trap
Yseult
In the middle of the previous decade, the young singer Yseult earned the praise of French pop fans, then withdrew from the scene until her resurgence in 2019, notably with the hit “Rien à prouver”. “Classic” French chanson, indie pop, psych-rock, hip hop, trap and other musical colours wrap around an eloquent voice and a character both atypical and magnificent. Without a doubt, Yseult is a powerful singer, but her distinctive taste and aesthetic curiosity make her a singular thing in pop. This visit to the Centre Phi is just an appetizer before her imminent ascent in French-speaking North America.
Singer-Songwriter