Fresh Finds at Bar Le Ritz

by Vanessa Barron

I wound up at Bar le Ritz last Saturday night to catch a showcase of five mostly local bands, ranging from power-pop and jazz-punk to emo and noise. Throughout the course of the night, I found friends, familiar faces, and most importantly, some new favorite bands. Here are the highlights.

Photos by Amir Bakarov

Fresh Wax

The standout act of the evening was Fresh Wax, a bass guitar-and-drum duo who showed up with sick sunglasses and a blasting energy that shook the paint off those primary-coloured planks on the Le Ritz walls. They ripped the wildest riffs in left-field time signatures and took turns on vocals, shouting punchy lines that I didn’t understand and honestly, didn’t need to. The chops of both of these guys were up there with professional jazz musician levels of technique and fervour. I‘ve heard their shows get even wilder at smaller venues, so I will 100% be seeing them again.

Gondola

Gondola was a pleasure as always, as I must confess I’ve seen them at least five other times this year. This four-piece indie-pop group delivered a full range of dynamics and complementary solo moments, maintaining a tight cohesion balanced by moments of unrestrained jamming. Lyle on lead vocals was really sending it on this particular evening. His booming baritone carried melancholic lyrics with full force, evoking the bitterness of heartbreak with an edge of defiance. My favourite of the night was a newer song inspired by the reality show MILF Manor, entitled “Moment I’d Like to Forget.” I have yet to analyze these lyrics from a Freudian perspective, but boy, is it a catchy melody!

Wakelee

I was pleasantly surprised to find that I really vibed with Wakelee’s set. Generally, I’m skeptical of Brooklyn-made emo music in the year 2024 (if they were from a cultural hotbed like Central Pennsylvania or Ohio, perhaps I’d be less prejudiced…), but this set was tight, well-balanced, and totally won me over. I particularly loved how the backup vocals from the bass guitarist weaved into the main melody. These two-part vocals and the singer’s unmistakable emo affectation reminded me of the classic Blink-182 ballad “I Miss You.” I have since re-listened to their single “mildlyinteresting,” which succinctly captures the pathos of asking for advice on Reddit, confessing in its catchy refrain that “every question I have, I post on the Internet.”

Room

I wish I had caught more of the opening band, Room, which had all the powerhouse belting and radiant bubblegum rock energy of groups like Beach Bunny and Remember Sports. I caught two of their songs, probably the happiest music in an otherwise doomer-toned lineup.

Lastly, I’ve gotta give some credit to the headliner Evergreen. Noise-punk is not my specialty, and my ears couldn’t quite pick up on chords, melodies, or lyrics to comment on. I did, however, see moshers at the front having a great time, and that’s what counts.

Africa / Afro Funk / Afrobeat / Saharan Blues

Sahad, The New King of Afrobeat

by Sandra Gasana

A gentle introduction. A guitar, a voice. That’s how Sahad welcomed us to his very first concert at Club Balattou last Thursday. He is joined by Joon Ho Wantete on piano, Christian Obam, the bassist everyone’s raving about at the moment, Raphaël Ojo, with his contagious smile, on drums and backing vocals, and Frédéric Bourgeault on trumpet.

Mixing Wolof, French and English, he took us from blues to afrobeat, funk and reggae, sometimes with no transition between tracks. At times, we thought we were at a Fela Kuti concert, so perfect was his mastery of this style of Nigerian music. He repeatedly addressed the crowd with the question: “Are you alive tonight?”, before moving on to another track.

The complicity with his musicians was palpable, particularly with Joon Ho, who seems to have worked with the artist for a long time. “Some of the musicians I used to play with in Senegal are now based in Montreal,” he told me during our interview a few days earlier (Sahad, Taxi-Brousse in Song – PAN M 360), while others had flown in from London and Abidjan for the occasion.

In addition to playing guitar, he incorporated percussion into his show, sometimes engaging in percussive dialogues with his drummer or interacting with the trumpet, which heightened the musical intensity in the room.

The audience also had an important role to play in following Sahad’s instructions, particularly on the track Ayeye. While the first part of the show was performed in front of a seated audience, the second part was quite different. The artist invited the audience to move closer to the stage, and that was all it took for them to start dancing. The song Kadio Blues was a particular crowd-pleaser, with its breathtaking trumpet and keyboard solos.

To top it all off, Malian diva and griot Djely Tapa blessed the stage with her powerful, haunting voice, while Sahad’s compatriot Seydina charmed us with his unique vocals.

My favorite song was the tribute to Dakar, which took me back to my memories of the city I’d just visited a few weeks earlier. “The next song, we’re going to Senegal. It’s important to sing a song from home,” he announced by way of introduction, with a passage he had the crowd repeat: Dakar ndiaye nekhna, which means Dakar, the wonderful capital. Sahad showcases his musicians, giving them the space they need for their respective solos, sometimes playing the role of conductor. One thing’s for sure: Montreal’s Senegalese community missed quite a show last Thursday. Let’s hope that word-of-mouth will do its job so that on his next visit to our metropolis, the Balattou will be packed to the rafters with his compatriots, who have everything to discover in this multi-talented artist.

Photo credit: Peter Graham

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Rap français

IAM: The Bosses of Marseille are in the house

by Sandra Gasana

Accompanied by Dj Daz and DJ Kheops, the legendary French rap group took to the Fizz stage to perform Petit frère. Indeed, IAM was eagerly awaited last night by a mostly French audience, but not only.

All ages were represented, even some young fans who weren’t born when the band debuted in the late 80s. For the occasion, there were four of them on stage: Akhenaton, Shurik’n, Kephren and Saïd, the group’s backing singer. They followed up with another of their hits, Samouraï, which the audience knew by heart, before continuing with Ça vient de la rue, which clearly set the crowd on fire.

All dressed in black t-shirts and jeans, they address the crowd several times, especially Akhenaton and Shurik’n, to express their gratitude to the Montreal public. “It’s a pleasure to be here,” says Akhenaton, ”the welcome’s great, as it always is, always love. And it’s off to the classic Je danse le MIA, with the famous dance step that goes with it. A return to adolescence for me. We were treated to several other tracks from their most popular album, L’école du micro d’argent, including Nés sous la même étoile, and L’empire du côté obscur. For this track, they came on stage with red lightsabers, straight out of Stars Wars, against a backdrop of red light.

“Montreal, make a fucking mess for us!” shouted Akhenaton, before the track La saga. “Tonight’s not a very long night, so let loose on all the sounds,” he advised the crowd. Indeed, the concert lasted just over an hour and started right on time, not a minute late.

Another highlight of the evening was the song Bad Boys de Marseille, which has become an anthem for their hometown. Their first concert in Montreal was in 1994, so it’s been 30 years. They also took the time to mention some of the Montreal artists they’ve collaborated with in recent years, including Meryem Saci, former member of Nomadic Massive, and Malika Tirolien, whose career is in full bloom.

As the concert draws to a close, the four of them sit on a bench for the 9-minute track Demain, c’est loin, another classic. Shurik’n and Akhenaton take turns addressing the crowd, leaving the others on the bench. “We see that not much has changed since we wrote this song, but that doesn’t stop us from thinking about tomorrow, because… tomorrow is far away,” says Akhenaton by way of introduction.

After the traditional end-of-concert photo, they leave, shouting “Palestine libre! Free Palestine! ”. IAM’s activism remains intact, even after 30 years.

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Contemporary / Electronic / Experimental / expérimental / contemporain

MUTEK 2024 | After The Pole Position…

by Alain Brunet

It sometimes happens that established, recognized creators have little to say after their “peak hour” has passed. In many cases, this is true, and in others, it’s not. In the case of POLE, it’s not true. Here’s an artist who’s still fervent, who reached his peak of coolness at the turn of the 2000s, and who hasn’t stopped searching since.

Invited to perform as part of Nocturne 6, the final program on the MUTEK Montréal 2024 menu, the German artist is one of the originators of glitch, a Germanic alternative to dub, an electro sub-genre then immersed in an electro-acoustic perspective and an inclination for minimalism in expression. As POLE points out in an interview, glitch was an important influence on the founding artists of dubstep, such as Scotland’s Kode 9, who took over from POLE at the SAT on Sunday night.

To make a long story short, there was nothing nostalgic about POLE’s program, recent material far outweighed old sounds, and there was no formal repetition. Low frequencies were deliberately exacerbated, to the point of generating vibrations on all the plexuses close to the stage. Technical problems broke the rhythm of the performance a little, but POLE took matters into their own hands and got their set off to a good start. Aside from the special use of infrabass, we also detected a number of small details in their sonic quest and a real expertise in rhythm and the synthetic percussion that generates it – notably those rather jazz-like cymbal effects.

In short? Fashions and generational tensions are the enemies of creation, and this is the counter-example. After pole position, there’s life, and it’s good to live it.

Photo Credit: Bruno Aiello Destombes

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Electronic

MUTEK 2024 | Synspecies, an Absolutely Magnificent and Edifying Work of Art

by Salima Bouaraour

Synspecies: mesmerizing cosmogonic sculpture

SYNSPECIES ES+SL – ASBU

Live A/V | North American premiere

The A/Visions 1 series came to a close with Synspecies, an absolutely magnificent and uplifting work. A cosmogonic myth flavored with posthumanity, algorithms and lasers. This sculptural performance from another universe was an absolute, divinatory success.

Mutek has left its mark on the history of electronics, developing its trademark over the past 25 years. With this presentation, we were in the Mutek spirit more than ever.

Perfect symbiosis and synchronization between a beam of light forging evolving visuals and a powerful, devastating soundtrack. This is how the process of creating the universe came to the fore, and the wonder of life was born. Walls trembled and infernal red shadows penetrated our souls.

This concert of abstract algorithmic music and creative coding by Elías Merino and Tadej Droljc was bewitching and diabolically beautiful. Scripted by a powerful luminous laser, the universe came to life through geometric shapes, spirals and lines, offering up ghostly-looking characters.

Slovenian artist Tadej is accustomed to fusing sound, image, light and sculpture, and his work has been awarded the Lumen Prize Student Award and the Dennis Smalley Scholarship. His work has been presented at prestigious festivals such as Ars Electronica, the Biennale NEMO in Paris and the Brighton Digital Festival. The Spanish Elías explores abstract algorithmic computer music, unusual electronics and instrumental compositions.

Synspecies: a definitively futuro-speculative, cosmogonic and post-eugenic work.

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Electronic / House / Techno

MUTEK 2024 | Rhyw’s Final Bouquet

by Sandra Gasana

After giving a big hug to Data Plan, who preceded him on the decks, Rhyw takes over the Piknik Électronik National Bank stage for the special Mutek show. He got off to a gentle start before picking up the pace a few minutes later. The rain didn’t affect Rhyw’s set, which benefited from late-night sunshine and an ever-growing crowd as the evening progressed.

He soon begins to dance, as his movements on the console become increasingly brusque, setting the tone for what’s to come at the close of Mutek. The crowd doesn’t seem to have noticed the change of DJ and continues to dance as if nothing had happened, but a small group of Rhyw fans have stepped forward to cheer on their artist. We quickly switch to techno, house, with a few recorded voices heard here and there. Welsh-Greek electronic music producer Rhyw is famous for his bold, complex sounds. Mystical noises are sometimes heard, in an unknown language, blending synths and inviting travel. The same synth rhythm recurs several times, but accompanied by different rhythms each time. In short, he builds around the synth. He takes advantage of the breaks to change the rhythm and start again with a completely different, more danceable sound.

He starts jumping up and down at times, so immersed is he in his world, and you can feel the decibel level soaring. In between sips and shy smiles at the crowd, he takes advantage of the pauses between songs to see how the audience reacts, before setting off again. We’re in full electro mode, with percussive rhythms adding to the sheen.

This former member of the influential duo Cassegrain has done well to pursue a solo career that sets him apart on the electro scene. He has performed at such esteemed venues and events as Berghain, Berlin Atonal and Boiler Room Tokyo, to name but a few.

Mixing broken beat, traditional and ultra-modern techno, he adds minimal yet robust structures to his wild sets that make you feel like you’re in an open-air disco. The predominantly young audience seemed to enjoy the performance, while a mother in her sixties and her daughter in her thirties shared a cigarette while shimmying to Rhyw’s sounds, and a father and his pre-teen daughter danced at the top of their lungs throughout the set.

His work has been described as “a dialogue between the physical and the abstract, inviting audiences to experience a sound that is as intellectually stimulating as it is visceral”. Last night, he delivered just that.

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Electro-Rock / Electronic / Industrial / Minimal Techno

MUTEK 2024 | Factory Floor, Not Exactly on The Rug

by Alain Brunet

Factory Floor: Gabriel Gurnsey and Nik Colk Void, joined by a guest percussionist, were eagerly awaited around midnight on Saturday and Sunday.

A DFA Records signature in the 2010s, the British band stood out for their singular blend of post-industrial, electronic, minimal techno, acid techno, acid house, experimental and electronic rock. Understandably, many of the night owls present at MTELUS have been fans ever since, and we were delighted to discover their new percussion-based offering. Two instrumentalists devoted themselves to this, while the other piloted the electronic gear. What did we get? Not much… not exactly on the rug.

The rhythmic pulse varies little over the course of the hour, becoming long-winded after about twenty minutes. Average rhythmic figures, built around a binary techno beat. Around the rhythm, nothing exceptional either, rather basic melodic-harmonic motifs. Add to this the playing of unseasoned percussionists, which lacked firmness – if you know anything about this profession, it’s obvious.

All in all, this too continuous and homogeneous flow quickly became redundant. Nothing memorable given the expectations…

Factory floor UK
Live | World premiere

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Dark Ambient / Darkwave / Electronic / Industrial / Metal

MUTEK 2024 | Amnesia Scanner & Freeka Tet, Brutal and Refined

by Alain Brunet

In the context of the MTelus 1 series, it was an opportunity to take this nasty slap entitled STROBE.RIP, a concept by Finnish tandem Amnesia Scanner and artist Freeka Tet. For anyone interested in the rough and violent sounds of the digital nebula, the first hour of Saturday August 24 is a must.

At the confluence of avant-metal, indus rock, dark ambient, electronic noise, synth-punk and techno, this head-on encounter takes place on stage in a thick haze, punctuated by flashes of light and sparse, rare images. You can’t see much, and you’re kept in the visual mystery of what’s happening on stage. Instead, you have to listen, take in the sound, contemplate the storm without asking for more. We’ll ask questions later! And here we are: this extraordinary storm is accompanied by an intense search for processed voices and sounds, tossed violently into this pit of synthesized felines. Magnificent carnage! These post-industrial landscapes are fascinating and visceral, and we take great pleasure in letting ourselves be jostled by them. And then pick out the meticulously designed details and finely chiseled ornamentation.

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Ambient / Contemporary / Dark Ambient / Electronic / Experimental

MUTEK 2024 | Tati au Miel… Burning Reverie

by Alain Brunet

At the Satosphère on Friday and Saturday, Mutekians spent a fascinating, tumultuous, brutal and no less nourishing hour. Tati au Miel presented a live set entitled Reverie, an invitation to dreams oscillating slowly between bliss, serenity, healing and trauma, nightmare, strangeness and anger.

We discovered him in the midst of a pandemic, and we can’t help but notice once again his undeniable talent for generating atmospheres where the fire within him manages to set us ablaze. Within these incandescent drones and abstract forms, the melodic cues and harmonic constructions are extremely sketchy, distant evocations of soul and black folklore to name but a few.

The track taken in Reverie is linear from the outset, but reveals often violent surprises, magical apparitions, visits from virtual spectres and other ambushes that leave us on our heels from start to finish of this brilliant performance. Intense-colored images, blazes of light and shaggy shapes dot the Sato’s skyline, while sound materials crackle in fusion.

Seemingly hardcore, industrial, drone or dark ambient, Tati’s honeyed sound world turns out to be broader and more complex than this nomenclature of referents. His vocal interventions and sound objects animated in front of us flesh out his electronic discourse, a discourse founded first and foremost on intuition and the desire to explore.

The Montreal artist has a raw talent for drawing us into a captivating audio-visual world, and concluding with a powerful jungle/drum’n’bass acceleration. We see and hear what burns. What slices. What pulverizes. What lifts. What rises from the ashes.

Tati au Miel CA/QC – Reverie
Live A/V | World premiere

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Afro-Caribbean / Afro-Electro / Afrobeats / Electronic / House / Jazz / Neo-soul

MUTEK 2024 | Glowzicombo, The Start of An Exciting Adventure

by Alain Brunet

Producer G L O W Z I, trumpeter Chudyanna Bazile and bassist Amaëlle Beuze make up Glowzicombo. This, we observed on Friday at the SAT, is yet another remarkable emergence of Montreal Afro culture in the summer of 2024, beyond the brilliant recruits Club Sagacité and Moonshine whose inspiration we savored in July.

Multidisciplinary, the soon-to-be-famous G L O W Z I repurposes sound and visual archives, creating a universe where the progressive values of black feminism and feminine creation are unabashedly asserted in the immersive environment they’ve created for the Nocturne 4 night owls.

A sensual flow of neo-soul, hip-hop, ambient, dub, house, jazz, konpa, zouk, afrobeats and amapiano vibes. These grooves are the basis of a trio performance, with bass and trumpet as organic complements to these electronic proposals. Selected images, aesthetic and ethical questions and reflections are projected on the walls. By the way!

The instrumental execution is rather perfunctory, the trumpet having to stick to simple lines given the performer’s intermediate level, while the electric bass applies itself to reinforcing the groove developed by Glowzi. But the performers’ limitations don’t hold them back, and the strength of the ideas and emotions they convey outweigh these technical considerations in this case. Super vibe!

These young women are bright, inspired and brilliant, and they’re still in the early stages of a project that could make a real impact. If, of course, we make every effort to bring it to full maturity over the coming years.

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Electronic / punk hardcore

MUTEK 2024 | Zoë McPherson, Deconstructed Club Music

by Salima Bouaraour

Was Montreal ready for Pitch Blender? Were we seasoned enough to listen to contemporary techno and deconstructed club music? Equipped enough to experience a cybernetic rave?

It looks like Mutek has taken the plunge for you!

For several years now, techno music has been evolving along a musical spectrum that is still difficult to name, a spectrum symbolized by artists such as Blawan, Rhyw or Peder Mannerfelt and many others. Wicked bass lines. Syncopated offbeat rhythms. Sound deconstruction. Magnetic ricochets. Filtered frequencies. In Europe (England, Scandinavia, Germany), the scene is full of geniuses, still little-known here, where experimentation and musical innovation are not incompatible with the ability to make people dance.

Zoë Mc Pherson, a dynamic French-Irish multimedia artist based in Berlin, combines performance, sound design, DJing and installation art to create unusual sounds. Teaming up with motion designer Alessandra Leone, the two creators gave Métropolis a foretaste of new trends in techno. This cybernetic rave was transcendent and theatrical. Long sessions anchored by powerful, enveloping bass, ricochets of filtered kicks, deconstructed rhythms with a touch of hardcore punk or sometimes accelerated dub. Majestic and monumental, this trance session opened the door, I hope, to further invitations in the same vein.

Zoë Mc Pherson & Alessandra Leone

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Electronic

MUTEK 2024 | Fred Everything, Innovating in What Makes People Dance

by Salima Bouaraour

Frédéric Blais aka Fred Everything is a pillar of the Montreal electronic music scene. His career, built up over 25 years, celebrates two birds with one stone at the Mutek Festival. Producer, DJ and manager of the Lazy Days Recordings label, Fred always concocts emotionally rich live sets that speak to as many people as possible. His ability to bring people together, while never neglecting innovation, is a technical feat of ingenuity that delivers refined, well-crafted sounds that are easy to listen to.

For the Nocturne 4 program presented at SAT, the crowd was treated to this classic: electronic music tinged with jazz, soul, downtempo and deep house. His album, Love, Care, Kindness & Hope , was released last May, and we were treated to a live presentation of the material.

Our favorite Montrealer delivered a magnificent performance that the mutékians tried to thwart with their hips. All arms were raised in celebration of one another in a message of love and serenity. A soaring, comforting live set. It really was.

Fred EverythingCA/QC – Love, Care, Kindness & Hope

Live︱World premiere

photo credit: Kinga Michalska

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