Last night at Bar Le Ritz PDB, TUKAN took flight on the Quebec scene, deploying an array of multicoloured feathers and sounds. And it was as part of POP Montreal 2025 that the Brussels-based four-piece band came to rock the Montreal dance floor.
The concert, opened by Canadian band Poets’ Workout Soundsystem, got off to a furious start. This band, which is very mysterious on social media, is a well-kept secret on the Montreal music scene. Performing with minimalism in their staging (two people, a projector, a microphone, a drum machine, a tracksuit), Bar le RitZ PDB immersed itself in the energy of rebellious poetry. The beats are as simple as the stage design, but what matters is the message. Resistance, anti-capitalism, communion. Whether you like the format or not, the message seems, nowadays, to come from a feeling that many share. A necessary message: we are not alone, even in the chaos of this society that seems to divide us all. This shouted slam, set to an electronic backdrop, was a kind of catharsis before TUKAN’s show, which quickly took over.
Drums, synthesizers, guitar, piano, analogue machines… TUKAN is the meeting point between four individuals, between different sounds, instruments and genres, but also between them and us. As the performance progresses, the audience cannot remain stoic in the face of the complicity between the members, which translates into music. They seem to communicate through sound, one speaks, the other responds. The sounds flow with a certain simplicity, and soon it’s as if we’ve been transported far away from the North American continent. This performance, a hybrid of jazz, post-rock, psychedelic and electronic music, transports us to a speakeasy a thousand miles underground in Europe.
Dim lighting, dancing bodies, four passionate, sublime artists. It’s groovy, danceable, sometimes transcendental and dreamy. You can definitely feel the European touch in this crossover of genres. Playing several tracks from their latest album Human Drift, released in 2025, as well as older ones, they took us on a journey through their universe for an evening. And for a moment, I missed Europe. Fortunately, music can be exported, and these artists have the opportunity to come and play, whether at a festival or not, here at home in Montreal. It was TUKAN live for POP MTL, and it was good, really good!
