Contemporary / Free Improvisation / Indie

FLUX | Lori Goldston’s intense and intimate cello

by Frédéric Cardin

You may have heard her alongside David Byrne, Terry Riley, Malcolm Goldstein, Natasha Atlas, Threnody Ensemble or Nirvana at the famous Unplugged concert in 1993. Her name is Lori Goldston, and she composes/improvises, teaches, writes, and campaigns for a new way of making “artful” music. The Seattle-based musician was at La Sotterenea last night for a concert that also featured Montreal guitarist Stefan Christoff, Lebanese-Palestinian-Quebec author Elissa Kayal and singer/harpist Christelle Saint-Julien. The concert was part of the program of Montreal’s new Flux festival, which focuses on alternative music of all kinds: contemporary classical, improvised, indie, rock, experimental, electro and more. Listen to Alain Brunet’s interview with one of the event’s initiators, Peter Burton.

FLUX CONCERTS, INFO AND TICKET

The performance of poor Christelle Saint-Julien, plagued by all kinds of technical sound problems, will have to be passed over. She accompanied herself on harp (Montreal is definitely a world center for “Indie” harpists!) with a fragile voice that was nonetheless capable of more solid lyrical outbursts. The highlights of the evening were provided by Elissa Kayal, who opened the show with a powerful text about uprooting, identity and the misery of an entire people (Palestinian). Powerful phrases such as “La tristesse, je la pisse hors de moi!” (Sadness, I piss it out of me!) ensured an emotionally powerful first contact with the evening’s program.

Lori Goldston herself took to the stage with her cello and embarked on a tour of just a few pieces, albeit of considerable length, all mostly improvised in a rather modal language that is more or less always developed in the same tessitura of around two octaves. Through this seemingly straightforward approach, the artist’s ultra-solid classical technique shines through. Interchanging textures between generous bowing and voluble pizzicato, Goldston musically invites us into a visceral and emotionally expansive personal universe. That said, there’s nothing abrasive or aggressive about her style of contemporary art music improvisation. Rather, it’s an open door to a vibrantly intense and, dare I say it, somewhat romantic interior.

Guitarist Stefan Christoff joined Goldston at the end of the concert. The meeting of Goldston’s lyrical cello and Christoff’s soaring, ethereal electric guitar brought the evening to a close as if on a cushion of meditative ambiance. Very beautiful.

In the same spirit, I invite you to discover Goldston and Christoff’s album A Radical Horizon, released earlier this year. Even if Christoff is on piano rather than guitar, you’ll feel much the same as we did last night.

For info on the rest of the Flux festival, visit the

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INTERVIEW BY ALAIN BRUNET WITH WADADA LEGEND LEO SMITH, IN CONCERT FOR FLUX ON MONDAY OCTOBER 7

Contemporary Jazz

L’OFF Jazz | The ONJ at Michael Formanek’s Service

by Alain Brunet

Where do we stand with contemporary big band jazz? Among the contributions to the genre, double bassist and composer Michael Formanek provides an answer through his works and arrangements conceived for big jazz orchestra. The most convincing example of his work can be found on the album The Distance, released in 2016 on the ECM label with the Kolossus ensemble, tailor-made to interpret his art and featuring artists of the highest calibre – Mary Halvorson, Kris Davis, Tim Berne, Chris Speed, Mark Helias and others.

The album consisted of the opus’ title track, followed by a prelude entitled Exoskeleton preceding eight distinct parts grouped into four movements. This was indeed a major project under Michael Formanek’s guidance.

His rhythmic choices correspond in large part to those of the most seasoned composers/improvisers of this generation. He manages to retain the swing or impression of swing while exploiting a variety of compound-measure rhythms, well beyond binary or ternary. The harmonic choices are drawn from over half a century of modern and contemporary music, written and improvised, European and American.

This time, a congruous share of Montreal’s jazz elite took part in this complete rereading of Distance’s six pieces. Michael Formanek’s strong line-up featured some excellent improvisations from the trumpeters, particularly Bill Mahar and Jocelyn Couture, supported by the equally capable David Carbonneau and Aaron Doyle. The most experienced of the saxophonists was the most eloquent, but Jean-Pierre Zanella shared performance and improvisation duties with Annie Dominique, whom we’re just getting to know, and a number of highly skilled players, including Samuel Blais, Frank Lozano and Alexandre Côté. The trombones also revealed changes in the line-up with Margaret Donovan. Teodora Joy Kadonoff and Taylor Donaldson joined Dave Grott.

It’s worth noting that all these musicians have adapted to the harmonic challenges posed by Michael Formanek’s works. Pianist Marianne Trudel and guitarist Steve Raegele often use atonal or serial language, perfectly in tune with the aesthetics of this vast project.

For this music from The Distance to gain in power, it would be necessary for several ensembles to play it and transcend the known versions. In any case, the performance on Thursday was rigorous, studious and diligent.

PROGRAM

Conductor | David Russell Martin

Invited Artist | Michael Formanek (Contrebasse)

Orchestre national de jazz |

Saxophones | Jean-Pierre Zanella, Samuel Blais, Annie Dominique, Frank Lozano, Alexandre Coté

Trombones | Dave Grott, Margaret Donovan, Taylor Donaldson, Teadora Joy Kadonoff

Trumpets | Jocelyn Couture, Aron Doyle, David Carbonneau, Bill Mahar

Piano | Marianne Trudel

Guitar | Steve Raegele

Marimba | João Catalão

Drums | Paulo Max Riccardo

1The Distance
(Michael Formanek)05:59

2Exoskeleton: Prelude
(Michael Formanek)09:04

3Exoskeleton Parts I-III: Impenetrable / Beneath the Shell / @heart
(Michael Formanek)21:34

4Exoskeleton Parts IV-V: Echoes / Without Regrets
(Michael Formanek)15:42

5Exoskeleton Parts VI-VII: Shucking While Jiving / A Reptile Dysfunction
(Michael Formanek)11:29

6Exoskeleton Part VIII: Metamorphic
(Michael Formanek)

Publicité panam

Crossing a Debacle and a Desert and Emerging Transformed: a Journey Through the Sound Worlds of Marc Hyland and Nour Symon

by Alexandre Villemaire

The industrial setting of Théâtre La Chapelle opened a window onto musical universes with an emotional intensity very much of our time and into the inner world of the performers and composers. The evening featured an ad-lib production presented by Le Vivier, two immersive creations by Marc Hyland and Nour Symon that were poignantly complementary.

Opening the concert, the large, attentive audience witnessed a sonic meltdown with Le grand dégel, a piece for voice, electric guitar, and tape. The work takes Orlando, Virginia Woolf’s seminal novel, as its source. The excerpt Marc Hyland chose to illustrate speaks of a great thaw and heartbreak, which the author depicts and describes as “a frightful debacle, where waves and ice carry away human beings, animals and objects.” Plunged into the half-light, with the only illumination of a red light projected onto the cyclo at the back of the stage, the work opens with a declamatory recitation accompanied by an electroacoustic framework that gradually increases in intensity and transformation, revealing horse gallops, whose movement is the “life force” serving as motivic material that melts into the introduction of the electric guitar. Once this introduction is underway, we enter a second phase of the work where the interaction is between guitarist Simon Duchesne and baritone Vincent Ranallo, who converse in a crazy recitative. Both artists are to be commended for their technical prowess. Ranallo shines in this long recitative with an operatic flavour, where he alternates between falsetto and his deep voice with ease. He is accompanied by clusters of guitar sounds that Duchesne handles in different ways. Gradually, the sounds and even the voice become distorted, accentuating the drama of the text and the underlying sound wave effect.

Both Marc Hyland’s and Nour Symon’s works demand total abandonment and a letting go of the mind on the part of the viewer and listener. The sound worlds they transport us into are so sensory-charged that they require time to adapt. This is particularly true of the second work on the program, J’ai perdu le désert by composer Nour Symon. By his own admission, his musical universe is so charged and chaotic that it requires necessary acclimatization before the listener and performers find their cruising speed. The title of J’ai perdu le désert foreshadows a link with the artist’s previous major work, his opera Le Désert mauve, based on the novel of the same name by Nicole Brossard. The intensity of the work and the music remains, but the approach here is more personal. Indeed, Nour Symon invites us to cross her inner deserts and venture with her on a quest for identity in the form of tarab, a form of sound meditation emblematic of Egyptian culture “where all our emotions are summoned at once”.

This hour-long event features a wide-ranging instrumental line-up: piano (Symon); harmonica (Benjamin Tremblay-Carpentier); oud (Nadine Altounji); violin (Lynn Kuo) and cello (Rémy Bélanger de Beauport), evolving with graphic scores projected at the back of the stage as a guide for the musicians and audience alike. Every image, line, and video presented, superimposed in the presentation, has a musical meaning to which the artists respond, evolve, listen to each other, and improvise with a host of extended playing techniques.

Despite the appearance of disorganization, Nour Symon’s writing is astonishingly precise, with every change of dynamic, sound and visual material executed to the second. From the Egyptian desert to the outskirts of Cairo, via the watery desert and even the desert of a snowy path, Nour Symon’s music appeals to our senses. While the confrontation between her identity and her Egyptian origins is reflected in the video excerpts taken from her own travels, it is also the experience of shock at the Palestinian genocide that informs the creation of this work. It alternates between moments of great intensity, anger and chaos, and calmer passages. The latter are experienced a little like catching your breath after screaming and crying your eyes out, before plunging back into the world of sound.

Between the symbolism of an emotional and environmental debacle and the incommensurability of the desert, confronted with its multiple identities and the violence of the world, both physical and internal, we came away from this cathartic evening with strong images imprinted on our retinas, a myriad of sounds hanging in our eardrums and strong emotions anchored in our being.

Photo Credit : Claire Martin

Brazilian / Groove / Jazz-Funk / Música Popular Brasileira

At 81, Marcos Valle Sets The Fairmount on Fire!

by Sandra Gasana

Until a week ago, I’d never heard of Marcos Valle, despite being a die-hard fan of musica popular brasileira (MPB). When my Brazilian student told me about him in our last class, and my boss suggested I cover the show, I was hooked. And that’s what I did on Thursday evening, at the Fairmount Theatre, as the concert couldn’t be held at the Tulipe for reasons we all know.

The sold-out show drew a predominantly Brazilian crowd (many of whom we don’t often see at local community concerts), as well as a good number of Brazilian music fans from all generations.

Marcos Valle was accompanied for the occasion by a full band – drums/percussion, bass, keyboards, trumpet. The veteran musician and his colleagues certainly set the Fairmount on fire.

Dressed in an orange shirt, with long hair and a post-hippie air at the top of his 81 years, he settles nonchalantly in front of one of his two keyboards for the evening, and begins a well-paced instrumental song to set the tone for the evening. His keyboard phrasing is fluid and solid, in keeping with the context of his work. At times, he gets up in the middle of a song and stands in front of one of the musicians, watching him draw his solo. Also, he retains the assets of his former life as a charming bossa nova singer.

“I’m happy to be here with you. This American and Canadian tour is to celebrate my 60 years in the music business,” shares the octogenarian between two performances, before opening with Cinzento, a song he composed with the activist rapper Emicida.

His voice has aged a little, but the singer still manages to hold his notes and whisper his rhymes as only he can. But can we really expect perfection from an octogenarian who continues to sell out every venue he visits?

Despite technical problems at the start of the show, this did not detract from the rest of the evening. Patricia Alvo, Marcos Valle’s wife and backing singer, was also able to display her vocal talent… when her microphone was better adjusted by the sound engineer.

His famous song Mentira was a huge hit with the crowd, who rushed to get out their cell phones to immortalize the moment.

“I’m delighted that the new generation continues to listen to my music. It all started with the next song, which is called Crickets Sing For Ana Maria,” he announces. We were then treated to a long drum solo, followed by a version of Rocking You Internally. Marcos Valle also played several tracks from his recent album Túnel Acústico such as Feels so good and Toda Dia Santo (one of his classics on this album), which was well received by the audience.

We went from 60s/70s funk to groovy jazz, with harmonies typical of musica popular brasileira, all performed against a backdrop of samba, jazz, disco, baião and even batucada rhythms. At the end of the program, Patricia Alvi had fun filming the jubilant crowd and delighted musicians, well aware that this international tour may well be one of the last for this great artist… who is nonetheless in exemplary form! The only disappointment was that we didn’t have the pleasure of listening to Samba de Verão (Summer Samba), as I’d hoped during the encore, but instead got the track Bicicleta (Marcos is said to be a bicycle enthusiast), in which the trumpet featured prominently.

One thing’s for sure: it’s every artist’s dream to still be on stage at 81, touring as successfully as Marcos Valle.

musique contemporaine

Of light and musical velvet : SMCQ’s first concert of the season

by Frédéric Cardin

The start of the 2024-2025 season of the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ) was a success. A program of great stylistic coherence enabled the various performers of the SMCQ, together with the Petits chanteurs du Mont-Royal, to radiate magnificent music, contemporary in its rigor and demands, but sometimes romantic in its suggested affects. Kaija Saariaho’s amusing choral piece Horloge Tais-toi! (Clock, Shut Up!) kicked off the evening with a piano-only accompaniment version, and ended with an orchestral version of the piano score, still with the children choir. As the title suggests, there’s something both mechanical and playful about this piece, in which the object’s insistent ticking seems to be particularly well embodied in the mouths of children, who we imagine dreading the hour when they have to get up to go to school. A version by the Maîtrise de Radio France, available on YouTube, shows an extended spatialization of the choir, leaving plenty of space between the singers, spread out over the whole stage. This wasn’t the case yesterday, with the Petits chanteurs grouped together in the traditional, tightly-packed way. I would have liked to hear the result with the French placing. I think the effect of the tic-tacs must be more impressive.
This was followed by another Saariaho piece, Lichtbogen, directly inspired by the northern lights. If you can imagine the kind of music that might emanate from these hypnotic ripples of color, chances are it sounds like Lichtbogen. A full chamber orchestra conjures up a sonic kaleidoscope of luminescent, shimmering abstraction, all the more pleasing for its warmth. Projections of authentic aurora borealis added an entirely appropriate visual magic.

I didn’t know what to expect from the young composer Hans Martin, who was unknown to me until yesterday. I must confess to having been pleasantly seduced by his musical proposal for choir (Les Petits chanteurs again) and orchestra, entitled Stance and based on a text by Renaissance poet Claude de Pontoux. The poem deals with the passage of time, which destroys everything except, apparently, the character of the person to which is destined, seemingly, the text (the beloved?). What’s most striking is the roundness of Martin’s sound, which is imbued with a fleshy but elusive tonality, for once its fullness is reached, it is traversed by dissonant shivers that invite it to escape higher up the scale. But it’s always caught up, in a slow, sustained chase. It’s truly beautiful, and I’ll enjoy listening to it again some day.

Saariaho’s Jardin secret (Secret Garden), for stereo support and accompanied by graphic projections, began the second half of the concert with a vaguely impressionistic electronic expression.

This was followed by the evening’s most substantial piece, Arras by Montrealer Keiko Devaux, a large and beautiful construction of moving, organic, sumptuous music, as the title suggests, that takes us back to the city that was a mecca for Flemish tapestry in the Middle Ages (now situated in France). Like a commission for the 14th-century Dukes of Burgundy, Devaux weaves a rich interweaving of motifs and textures, assembled in a general canvas showing a background of harmonies seeking consonance. On top of this panorama, modernist gushings set the score in the 21st century. Like a romantic summer landscape over which a veiled mist settles, and which is traversed by tremors and breakthroughs revealing the underlying perspective.

Musically, we know from Devaux herself that many personal references and musical memories are integrated into the score. In the harmonic support, we hear and feel a fundamental Romanticism to which contemporary exploratory impulses are added. The fusion is magnificent, and Arras deserves to be played in Europe, in Arras itself, the inspiring cradle of art behind this exceptional music.

I have said elsewhere that Devaux is, in my opinion, one of the most stimulating composers of the current generation in North America. I’ll say it again without hesitation, and add that Europe is well within her reach (while hoping she stays here forever!).

The SMCQ’s 59th season, if yesterday’s concert was any indication, will be a vintage one.

CONSULT THE SMCQ’S 2024-2025 SEASON PROGRAM

Reggae

The Marley Brothers and Dad’s Legacy

by Eric Cohen

When you are the progeny of one of the most important figures in the history of modern music, you kind of have no choice but to live a little bit in the shadow of massive success. When you are the child of Bob Marley, it is simply impossible to escape dad’s legacy.

Marley’s greatest hits album, Legend, has spent a total of 853 nonconsecutive weeks on the US Billboard 200 albums chart (as of this month) the second longest run in the chart’s history – so, there is no getting away from that kind of magnetic pull, so why fight it? Since his passing in 1981, many of Bob’s kids (he had children with several different women) went into the business on their own, namely Ziggy, who had a big hit in ‘88 with the song “Tomorrow People,” and Damian, who dominated the charts when he welcomed listeners to the world of “Jamrock “in 2005. Sometimes, though, the sum of the parts brings more than the individual pieces.

This year, some of Bob’s kids: brothers Ziggy, Stephen, Julian, Ky-Mani, and Damian took the legendary Marley songbook on tour, for what they call the Legacy Tour, which stopped by the Place Bell on Monday, September 30th.

There was a “Natural Mystic” blowing through the air right from the very beginning of the show, as the brothers ascended on the stage while the band delivered a deep one drop and bass line that shook the foundations of the building. With a backing band that can rival the original Wailers locking into every groove and riddim, the siblings took turns wailing the songs that made their father such a powerful musical force, each of them possessing a little nuanced quality of Bob’s voice and vocal delivery that is unique to that Marley DNA. They were all equally on point, each possessing their unique personality on stage, switching between vocals, guitars, and Nyabinghi drums, but special mention goes to Ky-Mani, whose gravel-y voice hit that same spot that Bob inhabited when he really dug deep! The performances were above reproach, driving the adoring crowd into a prolonged frenzy that felt like a giant non stop party, adorned by images of reggae history and regalia. One look at the audience during the show, and you’d see people from every generation dancing, singing, and living a transcendent experience.

It was magical in the sense that the Marley Brothers (and the fans) were paying hommage to the sacred Tuff Gong songbook (which is a way of life in Jamaica), with folk hits (yes – reggae, at its core, is folk music – music of the people) that moved the people, songs like “Get Up Stand Up,” “So Much Trouble in the World” (featuring some fantastic dancehall toasting from Damian), “Coming In From the Cold, War,” “Could You Be Loved,” “One Love,” and a dynamite version of “Iron Lion Zion” that put a giant smile on the face of every single person in the building. In every sense, Marley’s children are carefully carrying his legacy forward, and energy like that will never, and can never die!

Baroque / classique / Tango Nuevo

OSM | Four Seasons, Two Eras, Vivaldi and Piazzolla

by Alexis Desrosiers-Michaud

On a sunny afternoon, nearly two thousand people packed into the Maison Symphonique on Sunday to hear the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (OSM) in its reduced format, led by conductor and soloist Rosanne Philippens, perform Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and Astor Piazzolla’s Buenos Aires.

It’s interesting, and common, to present the two bodies of work in the same program, especially as they are separated by some 230 years and 11,000 kilometers. What is surprising, however, is to alternate Vivaldi’s Seasons with those of Piazzolla. As a listener, it’s easy to switch from baroque to tango, but the reverse is less fluid. Nowhere in the program is there any mention of the reasons for this decision. Our hypothesis is that, as one of the two works is twice the length of the other, an order allows us to present two concert parts of equal length.

It’s worth recalling what the Seasons are all about. Vivaldi’s four concertos are accompanied by poems, probably written in the composer’s own hand. These essentially allude to activities (a festival, hunting), human or animal characters, the weather, or feelings and resentments (fear, cold). In this respect, it would have been preferable to oppose the two violin desks with a continuo in the middle, rather than opt for the traditional orchestral formation. As a result, the birds don’t all sing from the same side, and the wind swirls in all directions.

You didn’t have to be far-sighted to follow the music with the poems printed in the program, as there was so little light in the middle of the parterre. Le Printemps promised little of interest; the strings were heavy, and the lightness of birdsong was nowhere to be felt. The long notes did not lend themselves to the pastoral rhythm of the third movement, and the dancing spirit went unnoticed. At least, this articulation did justice to the barking dog represented by the viola in the second movement.

Fortunately, this was the only less successful moment of the concert. From the very first moment of the Été, you can feel the terror and the storm being unleashed in a lively tempo and marked articulation. Autumn also passes the test, despite the fact that the slow movement, Night, is played too fast for an Adagio Molto indication. The chord progressions in this movement are magnificent and deserve to be savored, leaving the harpsichordist free rein.

Winter is by far the most successful season, as there is much more freedom in sound effects and tempo, whereas the other three concertos were performed more traditionally. The violins are creaky, and we feel the cold penetrating us, the wind whirling and the “teeth chattering”, as written in the poem.

Piazzolla’s Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas (porteñas means the inhabitants of Buenos Aires) “musically describe the different periods in the lives of the inhabitants of the suburbs of Buenos Aires according to seasonal changes”. Sunday’s performance was at times melancholy, at others highly energetic and lively. As the tango rhythms were marked to perfection, it was amusing to see the theorbist tapping his foot as he waited to play again, tempting the audience to do the same. The slapping and glissando effects were surprisingly precise. Hats off to the OSM, led by the dynamic Olivier Thouin, for having succeeded in playing this work without a conductor leading with the baton.

Rosanne Phillipens is a fine violinist and a very good communicator. Despite a few inaccuracies, she moves seamlessly from one score to the next. Communication between her and the musicians is fluid, and the ball passes as if nothing had happened. Honorable mention also to the theorbo player, whose name appears nowhere, and to harpsichordist Luc Beauséjour, who brilliantly ornamented the Vivaldi pieces. Mr. Beauséjour had the honor of ending the concert on a humorous note; in Leonid Desyatnikov’s arrangement, Piazzolla’s Primavera Porteña ended with an echo of the beginning of Vivaldi’s Printemps on violin. Relayed to the harpsichord, it’s a funny allusion to a ringing cell phone, which fortunately didn’t ring on Sunday afternoon.

Electronic / Hip Hop / Soul/R&B

Over the moon with Kaytranada

by Guillaume Laberge

Unsurprisingly, it was a successful homecoming for Kaytranada on Saturday evening at Parc Jean-Drapeau. The superstar brought the house down on Île Sainte-Hélène as part of his Timeless tour, also in support of his album of the same name, released last June.

Before Kaytranada took to the stage, three artists took to the stage in the following order: Kitty Ca$h, Lou Phelps (Kaytra’s brother) and Channel Tres. All three helped prepare the crowd for the main event with upbeat, rhythmic sounds, allowing the audience to warm up and let loose before the main course. A special mention goes to Channel Tres, whose dancers raised the energy level with a colourful performance.

Time for the highlight of the evening! To the tune of “Pressure,” the intro to his new album, Kaytranada took to the stage at around 9.15pm, enveloped in a thick cloud of smoke. Energetic and welcoming, the crowd was ready to express its love for the local hero. He then went on to play several tracks from the new opus, each as good as the next. This immediately captivated the crowd, who already seemed very familiar with this brand-new repertoire, despite its recent release.

Kaytranada went on to alternate classics like “YOU’RE THE ONE” and “10%” with more recent tracks from Timeless, as well as recently released remixes, such as his remix of Justice and Tame Impala’s excellent “Neverender.”

It’s often easy to lose concentration during a DJ/producer’s set, but Kaytranada knows how to avoid this problem and keep the audience’s attention thanks to neat dance steps and mesmerizing visual effects. All in all, a highly cohesive show with perfectly executed transitions between tracks.

After more than an hour and a half of powerful song sequences, our man ended his concert on a high note, closing with the song that made him famous, “Be Your Girl,” bringing the show to a masterly close. After a short break, he returned for an encore with two final songs from Timeless: “Call U Up,” accompanied by his brother Lou Phelps, and “Drip Sweat,” with Channel Tres. Both artists took to the stage to perform their respective parts.

All in all, Montreal’s electronic music fans were not disappointed by the performance of their Quebecois darling, who gave an explosive performance on this balmy September evening.

Publicité panam

Alt Folk / Indie Folk / Indie Pop / latino / musique traditionnelle mexicaine

POP Montréal | Beautiful Trafic on the Road to Lhasa

by Michel Labrecque

What’s not to love about this tribute show? To hear Acadian Marie-Jo Thério, Argentinian Juana Molina, Québécoise Klo Pelgag and the Arizonan group Calexico, among others, commemorating Lhasa de Sela on the same stage was intriguing, to say the least.

The Rialto was packed for the occasion: a multi-generational crowd, Franco, Anglo, Latino, came to attend this cultural high mass, dedicated to a singer who has become an icon since her tragic death from cancer in 2010 at the age of 37.

It only took three albums for this Mexican-American, who has lived in Montreal and France, to achieve the mythical status she enjoys today. A fourth opus has just been added: as its title suggests, First Recordings is chronologically the first album.

I know people, and even fellow journalists, who find this phenomenon exaggerated. One friend confided to me that she didn’t understand the craze, that Lhasa’s voice annoyed her. But on that Sunday, September 29, there was no room for skeptics. One spectator recalled having discovered Lhasa during her first intimate concerts at Le Barouf or Le Quai de Brumes, small bars, smoky at the time, where Lhasa opened our ears to Mexican and Latino sounds.

This is also Lhasa’s legacy in Quebec: to open us up to others, while integrating ourselves here.

The show’s presenter, actress and author Nathalie Doummar, told us from the outset: these three hours of music would allow us to hear almost all of Lhasa’s music and lyrics. And we began to float.

The first wave featured Helena Deland, Klo Pelgag, Feist and Laurence-Anne, all indie-pop singers who set the table, each in their own way, with ballads in English and Spanish. With the excellent accompanying musicians, the evening was off to a flying start.

It’s impossible here to comment on each of the twenty-two performances, during this two-hundred-minute concert. We also heard excerpts from interviews with Lhasa de Sela, a vibrant testimonial from her sister Gaby, and readings of some of her texts. There was some not-so-good and some excellent, but never bad. And above all, a great deal of musical diversity.

Between the folk group Ambroise, Juana Molina alone with her keyboards, guitarist Yves Desrosiers and the Alt-Rock of Bibi Club, everyone had their own way of making a Lhasa song their own. In some cases, this would have benefited from more depth, but the emotion and spontaneity made up for it.

In my humble opinion, the highlight of the evening was the appearance of Mexican singer Silvana Estrada and the band Calexico. Silvana Estrada’s vocal range, which I mentioned in another concert review, stunned the room. She was like Lhasa De Sela power 3. After two solo songs, she accompanied Calexico and the room started dancing. The Tucson band was in top form.

There were other special moments: folk singer Myriam Gendron delivered an almost Crimson-like version of Anywhere On This Road. We also heard the Barr Brothers, Bia, Marie-Jo Thério, Samantha de la Vega, La Force…and the list goes on.

One small drawback, which several spectators mentioned to me: most of the artists on stage were not introduced. At times, you wondered who was singing. Not everyone knows some of the more niche artists, such as Silvana Estrada and Samantha de la Vega.

Whatever the case, the crowd was satiated and the fans got their money’s worth. If there are any tickets left for September 30, I encourage you to go.

Publicité panam

Americana / chanson keb franco / prog / psychédélique

POP Montreal | On Third Try, Larynx Emerges For Good

by Alain Brunet

For his third emergence, Alexandre Larin, who expresses himself under the pseudonym/diminutive Larynx, didn’t seem to be swallowing too hard for a guy who’s still emerging after three offerings: Ma troisième émergence (September 2024), Applaudissez, bande de chameaux (2022) and J’aimais mieux les maquettes (2022).

Before he emerges for good on 3rd try and wins Game 1 (let’s be true to Canadian soccer), Larynx can gargle shamelessly, for he relies on a considerable repertoire.

When I arrived at La Sala Rossa on Wednesday September 25, I discovered a humorist of the absurd, coupled with an already prolific lyricist and composer, surrounded by his musicians in the middle of the floor. He’s hilarious when he’s overly sprayed with dry ice, when he affectionately confides in his audience that he’s freezing them (“Get used to it, winter’s coming!”) or when he recommends that his fans “move over there because it’s cool that way”. Haha!

A hilarious and communicative frontman, Larynx is already a prolific artist who has mastered the art of songwriting. To do so, he can count on some very fine musicians inclined to psychedelia, prog rock and the basic elements of Americana (country, folk, rock). The vocal harmonies are beautiful, the keyboards rich, the guitars well knit. What’s more, their message is not just clownish, but also vulnerable and epidermically sensitive.

The soloist’s voice is admittedly faint, but that’s not an irritant given the height and charisma of the character and his message, which knows how to make people giggle and also bring out the bad guy.

Publicité panam

POP Montreal | Patrick Watson Ecumenical

by Marianne Collette

Patrick Watson’s Sacred Sunday took place on the last day of POP Montréal. The aim was to introduce children to “sacred” music, in the broadest sense of the term, without restriction of musical genre or religion.

At the start of the show, the composer took the time to explain to his young audience what he considers “sacred music” to be: music that makes you want to look up at the sky and clouds. A fine definition, which has the merit of describing all the works on the program, in all their diversity. Patrick Watson was joined by a host of talented musicians, including Erika Angell, the Barr Brothers, Fernie, Mack MacKenzie, Kiya Tabassian, Joey Burns from Calexico, the Chœur des Mélomanes and the Greenline string quartet.

It’s important to underline the generosity of these artists, who have agreed to perform in what is essentially a free concert. What an opportunity to attend a show featuring so much dedicated talent! The musicians’ professionalism was tangible in the way they interacted with an audience made up of a good number of toddlers. Let’s face it, this is not the easiest audience. No one spared any effort, however, playing to these noisy, dissipated spectators with the same passion as if they were an audience of eminent music lovers. The artists present showed their passion for music and their desire to share it, while remaining aware that children listen in their own way, and that the most important thing is to give them the chance to come into contact with the world of music.

The presentation of the show was adapted to younger audiences: the musicians often spoke to the children, explaining in simple words the origin and history of the songs performed. On the other hand, the music was enjoyable for ears of all ages. At the end of the concert, the audience was invited to join the Chœur des Mélomanes in a rendition of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. An enduring classic that delights children and parents alike.

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POP Montréal | Nabihah Iqbal, Authentic and Universal

by Alain Brunet

Nabihah Iqbal grew up with rock and metal, and her musical culture is clearly British, if not global. The London-born artist bears a Muslim name from southern Asia, and she tells us she doesn’t drink alcohol, preferring a drink made in Montreal. So what?

These are the only possible clues to her origins. I insist on this presentation, because what we love about Nabihah Iqbal has little or nothing to do with these considerations.

We listen to her music with consummate pleasure, and soon come to the conclusion that this gifted artist has everything it takes to be a citizen of the world, open, fulfilled and creative, while at the same time embracing her origins.

There was a time when Westerners of Caucasian origin expected their fellow citizens of non-Western origin to express their native culture through their actualizations in a Western context. Fortunately, this colonialist expectation of an ethno-cultural ornament no longer exists, or is steadily declining. This was clearly demonstrated on Saturday evening at the Rialto Hall, which was better packed than at any time during POP Montreal’s 23rd presentation.

The rhythms of this brilliant thirty-something’s music are binary or ternary, the harmonies tonal or modal, the lyrics universal. Her aesthetic draws on ethereal wave rock, the rock relative of ambient electronica. His work is somewhat reminiscent of that of the previous generation in the UK, such as Cocteau Twins, certain works by Massive Attack, My Bloody Valentine, Lush and other projects endorsed by the 4AD label in the 80s and 90s.

In fact, Nabihah Iqbal fuses the two and adapts them to her creative ambitions. As an orchestral designer and leader, and master of her own destiny, she has teamed up with her saxophonist and electro producer partner Aldous RH.

We were treated to a variety of rich proposals at different levels of intensity, sometimes heavier, sometimes more ethereal, all belonging to a coherent, fluid, accessible and, above all, highly inspired universe. That of Nabihah Iqbal, who certainly conquered the floor of the Rialto Hall. Will the hundreds of fans who turned out on Saturday spread the good news? To ask the question is to answer it: here’s a tangible buzz, for the best of reasons.

Photo Credit: Sarah ODriscoll

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