M for Montreal officially became the “Marathon” portion of the annual festival/conference on Thursday night at 11 PM, with shows happening all over the city, but it had already felt like I’d run 26 miles by then, with showcases and events planned down to the second for the “international delegates” like myself in attendance. There were panel discussions and workshops Thursday morning and then the Official Selection showcases began at 2 PM.
The day shows happened at adjacent venues L’Escogriffe and Quai des Brumes where two of my favorite sets of the fest so far happened. Montreal art-punk collective La Sécurité — which includes members of Choses Sauvages (who had their own sold out show later that night) — laid down a fiery, defiant beat, somewhere between Le Tigre and Bush Tetras, with singer Éliane Viens-Synnott hollering in spirited Franglais, busting out angular dance moves, and smashing a tambourine. They were terrific, and I may go see them again tonight. Listen to their album Stay Safe!, which was released via Mothland this summer, below.
The other day’s highlight were Vancouver’s Winona Forever, who make jazzy pop with sneakily serious chops: The mathy, twin lead interplay between singer-guitarist Rowan Webster-Shaw and guitarist Ben Robertson was worthy of Steely Dan.
Winona Forever turned up later in the night as the backing band for fellow Vancouverite Teon Gibbs, who mixes rap and R&B into a charming, smooth style. He had played the M for Montreal opening cocktail party on Wednesday, backed only by his beatmaker on a laptop, but adding WF’s Shaw and drummer Alex Bingham made his evening set at Café Cléopatra really come alive.
Café Cléopatra also hosted another rapper, Quebec City’s Joseph Sarenhes, who mixed a variety of hip hop styles with elements of his Guinean and Aboriginal. He had charisma and moves to spare.
It’s not M for Montreal with at least one Francophone rap act and this year, I caught LaF as part of the Official Selection showcase at Club Soda. The band’s three frontmen traded lines and pumped the crowd up, backed by a DJ, a guitarist/keyboardist and and another musician on flute and saxophone. While not exactly my thing, and may not translate outside of Quebec, there was a big student crowd there who knew every word.
Also seen on Thursday: Montreal’s Les Shirley, who came out to ’90s techno but bashed out ’90s grungy punk (they were a lot of fun); Vancouver duo Mieshia & The Spanks sound exactly like the kind of guitar-drums duo who would open for The Kills or Queens of The Stone Age (which they have); Dump Babes win my Headscratcher Band Name of the Year Award; and Blesse were like a French-Canadian version of Julian Casablancas’ The Voidz except with three talented singer-songwriters trading off lead duties across their short set.
I also saw Hawa B at Club Soda, whose brand of R&B got decidedly weird and atonal as her set went on; and Grand Public, a new band led by Gregory Paquet who used to play guitar in ’00s-era Montreal indie heroes The Stills. Not bad!
Check out a few iPhone photos from Thursday, along with music from some of the groups I saw, below. Read more about M for Montreal 2023 here and stay tuned for more coverage.