Self-taught neoclassical composer will play Jazz Fest for the first time.
Neoclassical
Montréal
Contemporary
Morton Feldman and Jeanne Renaud: Interartistic rendez-vous
Festival Quartiers Danses presents a project where Morton Feldman’s famous For Bunita Marcus merges with a choreography by modern dance pioneer Jeanne Renaud.
Bass House / Bass Music / Deep House / Electronic / House / Indie Pop
PIKNIC: FELIX DA HOUSECAT, HOOPALAÏ, MKEISER, UNDERHER, POE, 2NDFIKRI
Felix Da Housecat: 3:30pm, 8:30pm, Videotron stage
With the reopening of the borders between Canada and the United States, Piknic Electronik can now welcome American artists: the headliner on Saturday, August 21 is Felix da Housecat (real name: Felix Stallings), 48 years old, a reference in house music, a famous style born in Chicago, where our man grew up and surfed on the second wave of house music, since the 90s. He is also known under the pseudonyms Thee Maddkatt Courtship, Aphrohead and Sharkimaxx, and for his label Radikal Fear Rec
Hoopalaï: 7:30pm, 2:30pm, Videotron stage
Hoopalaï is composed of veteran house musicians Lebaron & Pfreud (François Lebaron and Frédéric Laurier). Their first weapons were sharpened in the 90s. They roll their hump since then, here they are again on the menu of a raised program of house diversity.
Mkeiser: 6pm, 1pm, Videotron stage
Mkeiser is another Quebec producer and DJ with a passion for house music. We don’t know much about him… let’s leave it to his music to introduce him.
Underher: 8:30 pm, Museum stage
The Tunisian artist Underher applies himself to hybridize house and bass music with indie pop and dream pop.
Poe, 7:30 pm, Museum stage
Poe is a Quebec producer at the confluence of indie pop and melodic electro involving the human voice and reconstructing the song form.
2ndFikri, 6pm, Museum stage
Montreal producer and DJ Manal Fikri, aka 2ndFikri, is into deep house and unleashes her Sunday arsenal.
The Insolitudes festival concludes on Friday at Ausgang Plaza with an urban music night featuring Ragers, Sarahmée and Urban Science Brass Band. Ragers is one of the rising forces of rap keb mixed with soul/R&B, as evidenced by the EP Tant qu’à y être, released last March. Urban Science Brass Band’s reputation is well established, these Montreal musicians and MCs have been playing at the crossroads of jazzy-funk groove and hip hop for many years. Of course, Sarahmée is the queen of this emblematic evening of urban culture. Welcome “dans sa vie” !
Acid-Techno / EBM / Electronic / Industrial / Pop / Synthwave / Techno / trance
(POSTPONED) I Hate Models • Lucide
The unmissable March event for fans of electronic styles at over 140 bpm – acid, industrial, ’90s rave… you want it? You got it! I Hate Models, or IHM for short, is a producer and DJ who delivers techno sets that we’ll politely call relentless, with kicks to wake the dead and distorted synths saturated to the max. In a career of just a few years, the Frenchman, incognito thanks to a bandana covering his face (yet another one, like SNTS we were telling you about in February), has already signed with the European labels Arts and Perc Trax. Lucide, one of the resident DJs of the local collective OCTOV, gets the evening started.
Electronic
Nuit blanche @ SAT
For the Montréal en lumière festival’s 17th Nuit blanche, la Société des arts technologiques (SAT) finds a good use for its extensive expertise in immersive and telepresence: being in two places simultaneously!
Telepresence and projection technologies developed by the SAT make it possible to merge spaces. You can “teleport” from one floor of the SAT to the other by immersing yourself in interactive audiovisual works, including real-time audiovisual performances.
The opportunities are twofold:
1. L’effet vert: racing game
Together with the public, dreamlike interactive scenes will be created by a video designer. A video inlay process will lead performers and audiences on both floors to be projected onto the video imagery as they move through the green space.
2. Graffiti numérique : line of light
Collaborating with artist Louis-Robert Bouchard, audiences on both floors will be able to jam on the creation of digital graffiti in a common space.
Rechristened l’Envers for the occasion, the Espace SAT (ground floor) will be open to the public free of charge. The invited DJs are Karaba, Nat Barrera, Odiile Myrtil and Jerico. The VJs are Maylee Keo and Gold Casanova. Snack are offered at Café SAT.
The top floor of the SAT (where the Satosphere is located) is bestowed with the name Vers l’envers, accessible for $10 (at the door only). Guest DJs are Lis Dalton, DJ Frog, Gene Tellem, Kris Guilty, and Guillaume Michaud. Visual projections in 360˚ are orchestrated by Daph4000- and Name. The public gathered on this floor gets treated to a selection of snacks and cocktails offered by the Culinary Lab.
For both floors of festivities, telepresence experiences are courtesy of The Green Effect and Graffiti.
Rock / Technical Death Metal
(POSTPONED) Origin • Beneath The Massacre • Defeated Sanity • Killitorous
Photo credit: Rodrigo Fredes
In the press release announcing the Occupation Domination 2020 tour, singer Jason Keyser of Origin explains that it’s been eight long years since the first version of the tour of the same name took place in North America. Why did they wait so long to repeat the adventure? Because they were waiting for the right time to resurface with the most rabid, cruel and brutal tour of the year! While the Kansas-based technical death metal band hits the road to promote the 2017album Unparalleled Universe, it’s worth noting Montreal quartet Beneath the Massacre’s return to the stage. After the release of Incongruous in 2012, the technical death metal band took a break that ended in 2018. Their fourth album, Fearmonger, came out at the end of February on Century Media Records.
Electronic / Hip Hop / Jazz / Soul/R&B
24 Hours of Vinyl # 20, night and day
For the Nuit blanche, the collective at the helm of the Music Is My Sanctuary (MIMS) website presents its 20th 24-hour vinyl marathon. Presented at the Wilder Building, this event is designed with the participation of the Agora de la danse, Tangente Danse, Vinyl Caravan and Bar à Vinyle. From 9 p.m. to 9 p.m., the turntables turn for those who plan not to sleep, to say the least extend the pleasure until exhaustion. On the morning of this full clock round, a disc fair will be orchestrated by Discogs on Sunday morning, 10 a.m., with more than 20 sellers on site. All ages combined, vinyl lovers will reach happiness during 24 hours.
Initiated in 2011 by Lexis and the Music Is My Sanctuary platform, the 24-hour vinyl happening aims to bring together a cohort of excellent high-quality DJs with the following instruction: play only vinyls and celebrate the eclecticism of DJs participants – disco, funk, hip hop, electro, jazz and more. MIMS fans will be able to live the experience on site or even virtually, either via social networks relayed by the platform. Already presented in Paris, London, San Francisco, New York, Toronto and Vancouver, 24 Hours of Vinyl has every reason in the world to return to its original city.
DJs sets:
21:00 Doc’trin
22:00 Choozey
23:00 Anabasine
00:00 Juju Le Moko
01:00 Moka
02:00 OJPB
03:00 Bunzinelli
04:00 Solitary Dancer
05:00 Pascale Project
06:00 Daura
07:00 Jana & Jade
* Streaming seulement :
08:00 Sonofagun
09:00 James Benjamin
* Re-opening + vinyl fair :
10:00 Nelly-Eve Rajotte
11:00 NOYL
12:00 Devo B
13:00 Sportswear
14:00 Kobal
15:00 Andy Williams
16:00 Killa Jewel
17:00 Canicule Tropicale
18:00 Silktits
19:00 Seb Fauteux
20:00 Lexis
All visuals effects by BOYCOTT.
Opera
La vie parisienne, opéra-bouffe by Jacques Offenbach
The music faculty of the Université de Montréal presents Jacques Offenbach’s La vie parisienne, produced by the university’s opera workshop and orchestra . Offenbach’s opéra-bouffe premiered in 1866 at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris. At a time when opera was considered to be the total spectacle, the ultimate entertainment, La vie parisienne was a grand success: 265 performances in Paris, from October 1866 to July 1867, the year of the International Exposition. A century and a half later? The work still sees performances, and is in fact an essential touchstone for music departments.
“We owe to Jacques Offenbach the establishment of operetta as an international lyric genre whose evolution, through Johann Strauss Jr., Franz Lehár and Arthur Sullivan, led to the musical of the 20th century.,” explains Jean-François Rivest, musical director of this UdeM production. “La vie parisienne, with a delightful libretto by his lifelong collaborators Meilhac and Halévy, is a hilarious, entertaining and delicate opera bouffe. The social satire unfolds with great wit and finesse, unlike broad comedy of the ‘slap in the face’ variety.”
ARTISTS
Atelier d’opéra de l’Université de Montréal
Orchestre de l’Université de Montréal
Jean-François Rivest, musical director
Robin Wheeler, opera workshop director
Alain Gauthier, stage director
Death Metal / Rock
(CANCELLED) Possessed • Pestilence • The Black Moriah • Bane
Photo credit: Hannah Verbeuren
Revelations of the Ancients Tour. An appropriate name for a tour boasting both Possessed and Pestilence, two bands that contributed to the rise of death metal in the 1980s. Possessed is considered the first band of the genre and participated in the famous WWIII Weekend Festival in Montreal in 1985, with Celtic Frost, Destruction, Voivod, and Nasty Savage. If you missed the San Francisco band’s performance last September at Club Soda (as part of the Quebec Deathfest 2019), don’t repeat the mistake, and take the opportunity to witness singer Jeff Becerra’s fiery delivery on stage.
Experimental / Contemporary / Noise
(POSTPONED) BARDA 1 [noise festival]
Photo credit: Rémy Ogez
The members of the Montreal band EN FER are embarking on a new adventure, that of BARDA, a noise festival that’s making room for itself in the metropolis. This first edition adopts a very special formula – it will host no less than 17 musical projects in the cramped but welcoming Sotterenea. Each performance is 10 minutes or less in length, and the order will be randomly selected, resulting in short but intense sets. Bring earplugs and a raincoat because a veritable storm of of decibels is expected!
With the participation of Alex Pelchat, Alexander Moskos, David and the Mountain, Girl Circles, Gmackrr, GRKZGL, Hazy Mystic Mountain, Lowebrau, Nik Forrest, Pinkki Pilvi, Provisional Mailorder, Roman Pilates, Scurvy, SKIN, Taskmaster, Transparente, and Wapstan.
Deep House / Electronic / House
(POSTPONED) Detroit Swindle • RoH
Detroit Swindle knew how to capture the essence of house and deep house, to assert themselves as one of the best representatives of the genre alongside artists like Cinthie (more house) or Frits Wentik (more jazzy), respecting the classic template laid down by American figures Mr. Fingers and Kerri Chandler. The Dutch duo (a long way from Michigan, aren’t they?) gave an incredible performance at MUTEK in 2017 (with Fred P opening) – we still remember their use of the talkbox on stage. This time, expect a DJ set made for the dancefloor, an electric and torrid atmosphere in honour of Newspeak’s fifth. RoH, one of the resident DJs from the local Kizi Garden crew, will open the festivities.