We spoke with the local singer-songwriter about his transition, his album Blurring Time, the media attention around his cancelled U.S. tour and more.

by Dave MacIntyre

This article was originally published in Cult MTL.

Change can be scary, but change can also be transformational. Bells Larsen knows that feeling intimately.

His latest album, Blurring Time, dropped on April 25 via Royal Mountain, earning a wave of praise and newfound attention for the Montreal-via-Toronto singer-songwriter. Shaped by Larsen’s gender transition, Blurring Time features dual vocals from Larsen recorded both pre and post-transition. In June, the album topped Earshot’s top 200 national campus and community radio chart, and was longlisted for this year’s Polaris Music Prize.

We spoke with Larsen on Zoom to discuss his whirlwind 2025 — from the album’s release to making headlines after being unable to apply for a U.S. work visa.

Larsen says he’s “really touched” by how the album has been received so far, despite many of its songs being several years old. “There can be a tendency to outgrow one’s own art,” he admits. 

“From the time of writing until the time that a work is actually out, I know a lot of folks who are like, ‘Ugh, I just want to move on to the next thing.’ But a) I really don’t feel that way, and b) I’m just really touched that the songs are resonating with people. Even though they were written four years ago, people are still finding a home within them.”

The album’s title track, “Blurring Time,” was the first song Larsen wrote for the project. The concepts of ontology and nonlinear timelines, as well as our existence within space and time, stuck with him — especially as he’d been writing the album mid-pandemic. 

“It’s very strange, confusing and kind of isolating as a queer person to look at those around me, notably cishet people, and use their life milestones as a yardstick with which to measure what I’m up to,” he says. “Looking at what my friends are achieving with their jobs or houses or lives, and being like, ‘I’m figuring out how to shave.’”

Though it’s been a slow unravelling, Larsen says he’s identified with every letter of the LGBTQ acronym at different points in life. “I didn’t necessarily see my own flavour of queerness or transness reflected in media in a way where I was like ‘Oh my god, that’s me,’” he adds.

Originally from Toronto’s Annex neighbourhood, Larsen moved to Montreal in August 2019. Depending on the song, Blurring Time is performed in both official languages — he’s fluently bilingual, having studied in French immersion growing up and learned to read in French before English. He jokes that, upon moving here, he didn’t have any dietary restrictions and was “essentially giving girl” before becoming a transgender man and swearing off various kinds of meat. Montreal’s creative, queer-friendly vibe would shape his songwriting, too.

“One of my best friends lived in Montreal for her undergrad and her master’s, and she moved back to Toronto recently,” he tells us. “We went to high school together, and we often talk about the differences between Toronto and Montreal. She often says that Toronto, for her, feels like a very people-focused place. You go to Toronto for the relationships you have or the friendships that you’ve cultivated in the past.

“Montreal, she says, is a very sensorial place. We’ve got really good food. So much greenery. Spiral staircases. It’s a very beautiful place. Montreal has inspired my songwriting more, lyrically. I just want to name-drop neighbourhoods and corners and what I’m seeing.”

Blurring Time began life in 2021 after attending an online songwriting class called School of Song with Big Thief guitarist Buck Meek. Larsen opened for Meek at the Fairmount Theatre last year in a full-circle moment.

Meek prompted his students to try emulating their favourite singer-songwriter, whether lyrically or structurally. “I borrowed a page from Elliott Smith’s book, and essentially copied the exact chord progression from ‘Say Yes’,” he says. “That’s ‘Blurring Time’. The song has the same chords.

“It was March 2021. I hadn’t cut all my hair off yet. I wasn’t on testosterone. I was waiting to hear back about the date regarding my top surgery. Spending so much time alone in one’s apartment with mirrors, you’re thinking about who you are. We all had so much time to sit with ourselves. I essentially took to this chord progression to ask myself, ‘Okay, I can very clearly articulate the fact that I am not a woman, but I’m not really sure who I am, what I am, what I want.’ That was the jumping off point for the album. With every song that comes after, I’m tackling a different question with regards to who I am.”

Before considering the duet-type dynamic between his former and current selves, Larsen’s goal in writing Blurring Time was to figure out who he was. By the time he finished, his self-identity became more concrete. He decided in late 2021 to blend those two vocal parts. 

Knowing he wanted to start taking testosterone and assuming the wait time for treatment would be lengthy, Larsen was surprised to learn he could get those hormones right away. “My doctor was like, ‘Okay cool, do you want to start next week?’ I was like, ‘Whoa! No, actually.’ I felt like I needed to almost send off my past self like Moses in a little basket down the river. I needed to say bye in some way. 

“I’m a very sentimental person. I wanted to create a parting gift or time capsule. I knew I wanted to write these songs for the sake of capturing them as an album, but I didn’t know if I wanted it to be exclusively my high voice. It would make sense with a lot of the things I’m singing about, but also I was like, ‘I feel like there’s more to the story here. A low voice would serve that, too, but I also don’t want to wait to make these arrangements, because I don’t know what I’m going to sound like.’” 

He decided to shape his transition around this project, recording with his high voice while beginning hormone treatment and focusing on the rollout for his 2022 debut album Good Grief.

“Worst case scenario, if my voice sounds like shit, I’ve got a high-voice album of really pretty songs,” he says of his thought process at the time. “That can be my parting gift not only to myself as a trans person but also myself as a musician, and that’s fine.”

Good Grief was Larsen’s way of “testing the waters” with album-making. Blurring Time had more restrictions, as he couldn’t re-record his high voice (using AI was of zero interest to Larsen). The “more is more” rock/bedroom pop approach of his debut no longer suits him, and those songs have mostly been retired from his setlists.

“I was trying to be someone I was not,” he continues. “I’ve always gravitated toward very quiet, open-tuned, finger-picking stuff, with pedal steel, cello or banjo. I’m a folk guy through and through. I’m not really a rocker. I think I really honed in on that a little bit more with the second one.”

That folkier shift has helped elevate Larsen’s profile well beyond Montreal, making headlines back in April after cancelling his U.S. tour upon learning of Trump administration policies barring transgender people from applying for American work visas — a situation he refers to as “visa-gate.” Since his passport has “M” marked as his sex, Larsen could not apply for a visa as they are now required to reflect the applicant’s birth sex, and cannot have “X” written on them.

He wrote to the authorities to confirm he’d be good to enter the country. They initially said yes. But Larsen decided last-minute to forgo his visa application citing “a pit in my stomach.” Soon after, he learned about the change in U.S. immigration policy. The decision had been made for him.

“The email was delivered in a very no-emotion kind of way,” adds Larsen. “There was no ‘We regret to inform you that you will not be able to participate in the world’s largest music market for the next four years.’ They were like, ‘Let us know if you want to talk more.’ I was like, ‘About what?’”

Larsen then spoke with his agent and label manager, discussing potential implications for his career with Blurring Time‘s release two weeks out. After a Zoom call with the American Federation of Musicians in April, he cancelled the tour. 

The U.S. government’s policy change also caused issues for others in Larsen’s circle. Another transgender artist friend of his pulled out of an American festival for which he’d been booked, as he felt unsafe crossing the border. Before visa-gate, Larsen’s partner, Noah, had planned to visit him in L.A. for his show before Noah realized they couldn’t, having worked for a pro-Palestine nonprofit.

Since visa-gate garnered public attention, Larsen’s audience has grown significantly, though it’s a “weird cocktail” for him. Two weeks after it happened, Blurring Time came out, and both positive press and playlist placements were soon to follow.

“It’s hard to tell what is from visa-gate, and what is from the music just being good,” he says, adding that he “really rejects” the idea of his listenership growth being a consequence of his situation, even if he also sees it as a kind of “no press is bad press” moment.

“If the music was bad, probably no one would be sticking around. But my numbers have only continued to go up.”

The remainder of 2025 has been spent trying to “find a good balance between chilling, writing, playing and offering this album the longest lifespan it can have,” he says. Larsen toured across Canada until October and played U.K. dates in November, coinciding with the release of a deluxe edition of Blurring Time, featuring an exclusive track (“Night Bus”). This week, he’s playing two Montreal shows at PHI, on Dec. 3 and 4.

In October, he also released a book with his father Andrew, a children’s author, titled Call Me Gray, about a child coming out as non-binary to their father. “He wrote it right around the time I wrote Blurring Time,” says Larsen. “He wrote it to better understand me.”

Ultimately, Larsen hopes Blurring Time gives listeners something they can relate to, regardless of gender identity.

“At the end of the day, I’m just singing about changing, and wanting to be closer to my most authentic self. That’s not exclusive to being a trans person. 

“While I hope my community in particular views these songs as a sort of salve for them, I also hope that everyone, regardless of lived experience, will be able to find a home within these songs.” ■

Bells Larsen performs at PHI (407 St-Pierre) on Dec. 3 (sold out) and 4, doors 7 p.m., show 8 p.m., $35/$40, all ages.

For more on Bells Larsen, please visit his website.

An interview with the Montreal band’s core members, Murray Lightburn and Natalia Yanchak, ahead of their album launch at Le National on Nov. 20.

by Dave MacIntyre

This article originally appeared in Cult MTL.

Murray Lightburn and Natalia Yanchak have always been ones to look for light and beauty amidst chaos. The Dears’ ninth studio album, Life Is Beautiful! Life Is Beautiful! Life Is Beautiful! — the title so nice they named it thrice — was released on Nov. 7. The Montreal mainstays’ first album in five years shows the band meditating on the human condition and the ups and downs of being alive, while doing so in their trademark anthemic fashion.

Unlike previous album cycles that were more protracted, this one came together quickly. Recording alongside Shae Brossard at Hotel2Tango, various musicians recorded their parts for 11 songs within two days. Horns and strings were added the following two days before Lightburn and Yanchak finished their parts.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused them to delay touring plans for the album’s predecessor, 2020’s Lovers Rock, and they didn’t get to make good on those plans until 2022. Once that was finished, both Lightburn and Yanchak moved on to other projects. Lightburn released a solo album, Once Upon a Time in Montreal, in 2023 and composed music for film and TV shows (including the documentary Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story), while Yanchak has been working in the video game industry for a small Montreal studio.

“I had a rough idea of songs like ‘Doom Pays,’ ‘Tomorrow and Tomorrow’ and ‘Gotta Get My Head Right,’” says Lightburn. “Chipping away at them over the years, but just shelving. Series composing work is quite demanding, but it goes quickly. Whereas a movie is just on the edge of being an evergreen situation. 

“That’s on your desk the entire time. You’re forced to think about it. You’re chipping away at that, as well. I’ve been doing a little of both of those things. The Jackie Shane documentary was in my life quite a bit for a long time. When that cascaded out, I was like, ‘Okay, there’s a small hole in my schedule for a month.’ I had to apply that discipline of having a deadline and delivery dates for other projects to the Dears.”

As such, Murray gave himself until the end of that month to write songs and finish the album, before allocating time to produce it that worked for them and their bandmates — guitarist Steve Raegele, bassist Rémi-Jean Leblanc and drummer Jeff Luciani — who all have endeavours outside of the Dears. They convened in the studio during March break, mastering the album by early April.

“That can only happen if you’re working in a way where your design is bulletproof,” he continues. “There’s no messing around. Anything I do goes through that same process of drafting, designing, writing, editing and knowing exactly what it is. When it’s time to press ‘go’ and render the project, you go into production and it’s very, very fast.”

The album’s title references a spontaneous moment during a show where the Dears played their album No Cities Left in full at the Rialto Theatre, in which Lightburn got the crowd to shout “life is beautiful” back at him three times during a speech between songs. “People these days are quite mired in the troubles of the world,” Lightburn explains. “We’re bombarded with this. It’s part of our algorithms.

“When I’m out in the world and interacting with people, my take is that the glass is half full, not half empty. If you just lived your entire life on the internet, you would think that everybody is angry all the time. It’s big business to be a rage farmer. The more we push back against darkness, the more light we will see and feel. This album is absolutely a manifestation of that.”

Life Is Beautiful!… opens with “Gotta Get My Head Right,” a song that had been sitting on the shelf since Lightburn started writing it shortly after he and Yanchak’s son, Apollo, was born in 2012. He’d struggled to finish it for a long time afterward, but something eventually clicked and the song was finally fleshed out.

“It was the song we were missing,” says Lightburn. He then turns to Yanchak: “Remember me saying, ‘We’re missing an opener?’ None of these songs are the opener. The opening song is critical. It’s your thesis statement. It has to have that opening song feeling that we’ve done. That song came to me like a lightning bolt. When that happened, it was done in a day.” 

Given everything that has happened to the two in the years since that song began life — their son’s birth (as well as raising their first child, daughter Neptune), multiple albums, two solo albums for Lightburn, heavy touring — it feels serendipitous in the best way for “Gotta Get My Head Right” to come together so suddenly. 

The single “Tears of a Nation,” meanwhile, is one that came together more laboriously, and quite literally so — Lightburn essentially compares that song’s process to childbirth. It also almost didn’t make the LP.

“To complete a song, you have an idea, a melody, you hammer out some kind of basic demo. I have tons of voice memos, but I’ll get going, and then I’ll hit a wall and be like, ‘I guess this isn’t going anywhere.’ You put it down, and at some point it pops back into your brain. 

“The reason why it’s popping back into your brain is because the other part is coming. You don’t realize it. The writing process is so strange like that. You give up on something, you move on…” 

“But it’s still in your subconscious,” Yanchak interjects. “It’s still brewing.” 

“It’s kind of like being in labour for 24 hours.,” says Lightburn. “You start having contractions, you think it’s go time, you go to the hospital, you got your bag, you’re there, you’re waiting for this thing to come out. It’s not ready. They send you home.

“The thing is, you don’t see it that way, because that baby’s coming out, yeah? But you think it’s not coming out, like it’s dead. So you move on, you start working on another baby. It’s like, wait a second, this baby’s still coming out. You go back, you start having the contractions again, and it’s like, ‘Oh shit.’ That’s one of those songs where it’s like, ‘Time to go back to the hospital’ and boom, within 30 minutes, you can’t write fast enough.”

The Dears’ next Montreal show will take place on Nov. 20 at le National, with their daughter Neptune’s band Mellonella as one of the opening acts. Having met many of their fans at shows over the years, their process takes into account what certain songs will mean to certain people. 

“That’s part of the DNA of our records now — our audience is a part of them,” says Lightburn. “We’ve had this really long relationship with them. They’re expecting a certain thing from us, and we work to deliver that. The day it falls completely flat and we can’t even scrape together 100 listeners on a new song, that’s the day when we’re going to hang up our skates. But if our fans still want the manna from heaven, we’re going to give it to them.” ■

The Dears play le National (1220 Ste-Catherine E.) with guests on Thursday, Nov. 20, 8 p.m., $48, all ages. This article was originally published in the November 2025 issue of Cult MTL.

The bass icon and star singer-songwriter from L.A. told us about the game-changing music discovery of his youth and his forever Montreal friend: “This man’s had to carry me out the club.”

by Dave MacIntyre

This article originally appeared in Cult MTL.

Thundercat may have been born and raised in Los Angeles, but his connection to Montreal’s musical history runs deeper than you think.

The six-string bass-wielding virtuoso born Stephen Lee Bruner went from playing bass for nine years in seminal California thrash metal band Suicidal Tendencies to finding huge success with his own music and collaborations with Flying Lotus, Kendrick Lamar, Justice, his late friend Mac Miller and Montreal’s own Kaytranada. Thundercat’s musical versatility is boundless, and has only expanded and evolved with time.

I had the pleasure of meeting Thundercat IRL at the W Hotel in Square-Victoria before his latest Jazz Fest show at Place des Arts in July — he’d previously played a thrilling free outdoor show on a sweltering summer night at the festival in 2023. 

Though he hasn’t released an album since 2020’s It Is What It Is, Thundercat told me he’s actively trying to wrap up work on its follow-up. (In mid-September, he treated fans to dual singles produced with Greg Kurstin, “I Wish I Didn’t Waste Your Time” and “Children of the Baked Potato,” featuring Remi Wolf — two great tracks and a hopeful signal of more new music to come.)

We also chatted about his long-held adoration for Gino Vannelli, his friendship with Kaytranada and that time he woke up on a Montreal park bench after a drunken night out.

Dave MacIntyre: You mentioned during your Jazz Fest show two years ago that you really love Gino Vannelli. Tell me more about that.

Thundercat: Oh my God. Discovering Gino Vannelli as a young man was very pivotal in my songwriting and music-creating. I remember I found Gino Vannelli because my brother picked up the record Brother to Brother, sampled it and made a beat out of it. I was like, “Oh, crap, what is this?” I listened to “Appaloosa” for the first time straight through, and I was like, “Oh, my God.” I was like, “This is the best thing ever.” From Brother to Brother, I just went down a rabbit hole.

DM: That’s amazing, because in Montreal, we don’t necessarily know how our local artists are perceived abroad.

Thundercat: “Living Inside Myself” is still one of the most profound songs as a young man to listen to. He was very expressive. Not too many songwriters were that expressive with their feelings about life. Gino takes the cake for me when it comes to songwriting like that. It kind of molded my mind and shaped what I wanted people to understand about who I am. 

He’s not pulling any punches musically at all. My whole history is riddled with Gino Vannelli’s music. I got a chance to talk to him. I got a chance to play my music for him. I think my piano player used to play with him a bit — Dennis Hamm. The part where he’s around and he’s still doing his thing, to me, is just aahhhhhh!

DM: 73 years old!

Thundercat: Yeah. Still kicking ass and taking names.

DM: Did you meet him in person or on Zoom or what?

Thundercat: It was over FaceTime, because I was somewhere in the process of working on my music. It’s one of those things where I know at some point we’ll meet face to face. I’m hoping we will meet face to face so I can express my love for his work in person. We love Gino Vannelli over here.

DM: During that 2023 show, why did you dedicate “Them Changes” to him specifically?

Thundercat: Because of everything I just described to you. That’s me wearing my heart on my sleeve. That’s what Gino taught me.

DM: What goes through your mind when you think of Montreal as a city and the previous times you’ve been in town?

Thundercat: I think I’ve enjoyed every time I’ve come to Montreal, other than the customs — good God! You just steal a bag of Funyuns and you’re forever right on the edge of going back to jail after landing in Montreal’s customs. But I have a lot of beautiful memories of being here in Montreal. I kid you not, I will find a reason to get out on the street and sing Gino Vannelli’s “I Just Wanna Stop” (laughs). I will be screaming that at people. It happened last night, literally. 

A good friend of mine is an artist from here named MissMe. She reminded me of a story. She was like, “You remember what happened?” 

First of all, starting a story with me like, “Do you remember what happened eight years ago?” No! Hell no, I don’t remember, especially if I was drinking. But she was like, “You remember, we lost you? You just wandered off and you just got lost completely. We couldn’t find you, and your phone was dead.” I was like, “Oh yeah. I woke up on a park bench!” I just woke up on a park bench to some kid standing next to me, like, “Are you Thundercat?” I was just like, “Can you help me?” (laughs) You just land into full-on partying.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/3qA2zGAH4jI?feature=oembed“Children of the Baked Potato” by Thundercat feat. Remi Wolf

DM: Speaking of Montreal, you also have worked with Kaytranada on the song “Be Careful.” How close are you to him?

Thundercat: Kaytranada is one of my favourite people. Kaytra is one of the people who actually makes me happy as a person. I feel like he’s always understood me as a friend and as a musician. We’ve never not been able to see each other. He’s seen me through some of my darkest moments. He and I have a great friendship, and I’m grateful that we can always come back to that. This man’s had to carry me out the club. (laughs) He’s seen that I’ve gone way too far, and he’s like, “I’ll just make sure he gets in the car.”

DM: What do you have planned for the remainder of 2025?

Thundercat: Beat the shit out of my dick. (laughs) No, I’m just kidding. Just keep trying to find things that inspire, and practise more. Play more. Get out of my head more. Try to keep my heart open, even though the world has a way of shutting it. Play faster. Hope they don’t ruin Sonic the Hedgehog 4. I feel like we ruin everything for no reason. Everybody goes, “Are you excited for the Marvel movies?” I read the comics every day — not in particular! And yeah, just enjoy the music. ■

The Ajax, Ont. pop-punk legends play their final show at the ceremony in Vancouver on March 30 to celebrate their induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, presented by JUNOS Premier Sponsor, TD.

By Dave MacIntyre  •  Postmedia Content Works

Published Feb 13, 2025
Last updated Feb 13, 2025

4 minute read

Formed in 1996, Sum 41 will give their final performance at this year’s JUNO Awards. Photo by 2024 TRAVIS SHINN

This article originally appeared in the National Post.

Ending your band on a high note 25 years after your first EP is a poetic way to go out. Especially when you’re Sum 41. 

The veteran Canadian pop-punks are calling it quits after their final cross-country tour ended last month, capped off by a performance at this year’s JUNO Awards in Vancouver. The band will also be inducted into The Canadian Music Hall of Fame during the ceremony, presented by TD Bank Group. 

If you’d told them back in the mid-‘90s that this is where they’d be nearly three decades later, guitarist Dave “Brownsound” Baksh admits they probably wouldn’t have fully grasped the impact a JUNO can have. 

“We’d probably be a little bit snotty, but I think that came from a place of not understanding what it means to actually be a part of something like this,” he says. “We would’ve just had our heads down and been like, ‘Great — we’re writing more songs. Thanks for the news, but we’re busy.’” 

The band has won two JUNO Awards previously, first in 2003 for Group of the Year, and Rock Album of the Year in 2005 for their third album, Chuck. Baksh recalls how frontman Deryck Whibley’s award for their 2003 win was left at his house for more than a decade and wasn’t returned until Baksh rejoined the band in 2015, after leaving in 2006. 

With their final performance just weeks away, the band’s 25-year-long mark on pop-punk is punctuated by their induction into The Canadian Music Hall of Fame. Photo by 2024 TRAVIS SHINN

“I feel like he just thought it was missing from a party at his place or something like that, but no — the thief the whole time was me,” he says, laughing.  

Baksh is keeping details of the band’s JUNOS performance “really hush-hush” but like everything they do, it’ll be the product of a lot of hard work, with visuals and “a meaning behind it.” As for their Canadian Music Hall of Fame induction presented by TD, Baksh admits his imposter syndrome kicks in whenever he thinks about it, and his bandmates are no different.  

“We’ve always been a little more [on] the side of [still being] dumbfounded by things that happen to us,” he says. “But I think that because of what this is, it’s going to give us something to reflect on that’s really, really cool. 

“We’ve got to come up with something good to say. You don’t just get inducted into The Canadian Music Hall of Fame and say, ‘Thank you, mom. Goodnight!’ It’s been a long and great career. I don’t have the words now, but I will once I’m on that stage. It’s a beautiful thing, and it was very unexpected.” 

Formed in 1996, Sum 41’s wild ride began with their 2000 EP Half Hour of Power before catching fire in 2001 with the hit “Fat Lip” and debut album All Killer No Filler, vaulting Whibley, Baksh, bassist Jason “Cone” McCaslin and drummer Steve Jocz to fame.  

If there’s any moment Baksh recalls that made him realize how big they were getting, it’s when they played the Vans Warped Tour in New York City and saw “Fat Lip’s impact first-hand. 

“There was a circle pit going around from the front of the stage to the back of the soundboard. Merch tables were set up around the stage, and they were holding onto their tables because people were shaking the ground so much. I’ll always remember that moment as being the time when I realized, ‘Oh wow, we’ve actually done something really cool. All this hard work is moving us forward.’ “ 

Two more successful albums, Does This Look Infected? and Chuck, followed before Baksh’s departure in 2006 to focus on other projects. 2007’s Underclass Hero and 2011’s Screaming Bloody Murder would see the band operate as a trio before Jocz left in 2013, with Baksh rejoining two years later.  

Since 2016’s 13 Voices, the band has consisted of Whibley, Baksh, McCaslin, guitarist Tom Thacker and drummer Frank Zummo. Following up 2019’s Order in Decline is the band’s eighth and final album, Heaven :x: Hell, released last March and receiving acclaim from fans and critics alike.  

Don’t miss the band’s final performance at The 2025 JUNO Awards on March 30. Photo by 2024 TRAVIS SHINN

So why did now feel like the best time to call it a day? Quite simply, they didn’t want to start grating on each other and not enjoying one another’s company, something touring bands are always vulnerable to. “There’s such a closeness and tight quarters when you’re traveling as a band, and it can wear on people,” says Baksh.  

“We’re all in a great head space. We all love each other beyond when we first all got together with this lineup. The record is doing so well. It just felt like it’s better for us to go out at what is another peak, as opposed to a valley, in our career.” 

But the one thing Baksh most wants Sum 41 to be remembered for is how fans could come to their shows and leave their differences and polarizations at the door. “You could just come to a show and have fun with us,” he says.  

“That’s exactly what we wanted to do at shows we were seeing, and that’s exactly how we were and how we live our lives.” 

SUM 41 fans and all Canadian music lovers can visit the permanent home of The Canadian Music Hall of Fame at Studio Bell, Home of The National Music Centre in Calgary, where an entire floor is dedicated to all inductees since 1978 when the first inductee, legendary pianist Oscar Peterson, was honoured.  

More inductees will be celebrated at a special ceremony at The National Music Centre in Calgary on May 15. More info at https://canadianmusichalloffame.ca/. 

The 2025 JUNO Awards, hosted by Michael Bublé, will take place Sunday, March 30 at Rogers Arena in Vancouver. Tickets are on sale now at https://www.ticketmaster.ca/junos and viewers at home can watch the ceremony live on CBC or CBC Gem.  

This story was created by Content Works, Postmedia’s commercial content division, on behalf of The JUNO Awards. 

Complex talked with Milo about Hot Show’s legacy, opening for Destiny’s Child at Canada’s Wonderland, and arriving just before Gorillaz redefined the animated band.

By Dave MacIntyre

June 16, 2023

This article first appeared in Complex Canada.

If you grew up in Canada around Y2K, you probably remember an lovesick cartoon duo named Simon and Milo. The pair known as Prozzäk made uptempo, danceable tunes that turned them into mainstays on MuchMusic and YTV during the turn of the millennium. The short, neckless Simon and tall, Schwarzenegger-like Milo are played respectively by Jay Levine and James Bryan McCollum, both of the Philosopher Kings. During Hot Show, the duo sets off on a never-ending quest to find true love with a vast repertoire of catchy songs as their soundtrack: “Strange Disease,” “Sucks to Be You,” “Omobolasire,” “Wild Thing,” and “Europa” among them.

Their debut album, Hot Show, dropped in 1998 and is certified triple platinum in Canada. Prozzäk also proved to Canadian listeners that a virtual and/or animated band could be a commercially viable concept before Damon Albarn took that idea to new commercial heights globally with Gorillaz. Older generations had the Archies, the Banana Splits and Alvin & the Chipmunks, but Prozzäk’s Hot Show came along at a time where both music videos and animated TV shows were booming, and their profile would be boosted further by heavy airplay.

A sophomore album, Saturday People, dropped in 2000 before the duo attempted to break into the American market by signing with the Disney-owned Hollywood Records, though their name was altered stateside to simply Simon and Milo. They released one compilation album there, Ready Ready Set Go, in 2002, which included a song, “Get a Clue,” written for a same-named Disney Channel film starring Lindsay Lohan.

Two other albums, 2005’s Cruel Cruel World and 2017’s Forever 1999 have come in the years since, and Levine and McCollum continue making music and touring as Prozzäk today (they even tried launching an animated series in 2018). The duo will be performing at Edmonton’s Pride Festival this coming August, as well as with Aqua and Bran Van 3000 in Niagara Falls in June.

Complex Complex talked with Milo about Hot Show’s legacy, opening for Destiny’s Child at Canada’s Wonderland, and arriving just before Gorillaz redefined the animated band.

Hot Show turns 25 in November. What goes through your mind when you think of that upcoming milestone?
Whoa! I hadn’t even thought of that 25 year thing yet, wow! That’s a long time ago. I feel old. But honestly, I’m so proud of that record, and it launched Prozzäk. And Prozzäk is the craziest, most amazing project that Jay and I came up with. It’s a good memory, definitely.

What do you remember most fondly about that time?
So many things were different back then. When we came out, it was the beginning of the Internet. Which sounds crazy to talk about now, right? That was a while back. We felt like we were at the beginning of something new. There wasn’t another animated band breaking at that time. We were before Gorillaz, who had made a splash after that. It felt like we were trying all these new things. Luckily, it all worked at the right time. We worked really hard at it.

What inspired you and Jay to come up with the idea of a cartoon band for the project?
It came out of necessity, really. The first song we did was “Europa”… Have you heard the whole backstory of how we got together?

Yeah, you guys got into a fight in Montreal.
We got into a fight [while we were] in the Philosopher Kings. We were opposite personalities, I’ll put it that way. That’s a nice way to put it. After we had a fight in Montreal, we had to work it out. We said, “Let’s go and try to write a song together.” It sounds so cheesy to even say it, but it was the right thing to do. As soon as we did that, we realized, “Wow, we totally click when we’re making music.” That’s how Prozzäk was born.

Why did we do it animated? Jay sang “Europa” with this accent. It was in a character, this voice that he used on the tour bus while the Philosopher Kings were on tour. After the show, he’d have a glass of wine and put on this fake British accent and pretend to be an old, jaded rock star. That was Simon, it’s his alter ego.

We did the song, and we meant to pitch it for Ace of Base, who were huge at the time. We thought that would work. When we were recording it, it was in the Sony Music building. They had a really cool building at the time, where there were writing rooms and a full recording studio, where we recorded our first two albums. The head of A&R, who took care of all the creative direction for the label, came in and heard the song. He was like, “Oh, what is that? I love it! Can you do a whole album?” [Me and Jay] just looked at each other and said, “Yeah, sure.” (laughs)

As soon as we decided to do it, Jay was like, “There’s no way I’m going to go out there and perform with a fake accent. I’d feel like an idiot.” Immediately, we thought of a cartoon [band] idea, as a way to kind of hide behind that. In the end, the cartoons became such a way better idea than if we just tried to go out there as two guys. Simon and Milo were born out of necessity.

I didn’t realize Europa was intended for Ace of Base. That’s fucking wild!
Yeah! They could’ve done it well, too… That’s what started at all. It wasn’t like we sat down one day and said, “Okay, let’s create a band.” That’s the cool thing about music. Sometimes, random events happen and they’ll lead you to a new path that you hadn’t thought of. I personally never would’ve thought I’d be doing the Euro-rap in a fake German accent, a second before I came up with Milo. I was like, “Oh, well that’s kind of the only thing I could do!” (laughs)

Why do you think a cartoon band such as Prozzäk was able to tap into a wide audience so much in Canada for kids of a certain generation?
That was it. It was the biggest time for music videos, really. Now, yes, everything has to be on video and your socials. But back then, that was the height of making videos like little movies. MuchMusic was really important. Everybody watched MuchMusic, and then everybody watched YTV. Luckily, both of them supported our videos. I guess the first video we did was “Omobolasire.” Then after that, when “Sucks to Be You” came out, and then “Strange Disease,” we were like, “Okay!” They knew people liked it. It was a very different time, when everyone was watching the same thing!

Yeah!… And at the time, anime cartoons were big on YTV—Pokémon, Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball Z. In a way, it was perfect timing.
Yeah. In hindsight, of course, you can see why it happened, and all the factors that went into it succeeding. But at the time, we weren’t aware of that side of things. I wasn’t aware. I wasn’t watching anime. We didn’t know that our fans were really into anime. That’s actually something I didn’t even realize until we came back in mid-2015. We did a reunion show at a cosplay event [the Atomic Lollipop Festival] at the Science Centre in Toronto. We showed up there, and all these fans are dressed up as Simon and Milo and all these other characters. Then we just click, and we’re like “Ohhhh! That makes total sense…” Now, looking back, there were a lot of factors [behind Prozzäk’s success] besides just writing a catchy song, or coming up with the characters.

We weren’t big enough in England or the States to have the splash Gorillaz did, because Damon Albarn was already big in Blur at that time. So it wasn’t going to happen exactly the same way.

What do you remember about the musical climate of 1998?
It was so pop. It was the Max Martin, Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears era that was just taking over from grunge before that. It’s funny—our first band, the Philosopher Kings, came out in the midst of ‘90s grunge. We were totally the opposite of whatever was happening, so we always felt really left out. But it was also good, because you have your niche. With Prozzäk, we felt like, in a way, it was pop, but it was also quirky and weird and unique. We were committed to doing it that way. We didn’t try to replicate those Britney Spears songs, even though Jay and I respected Max Martin and all those Swedish songwriting masters.

What inspired the animation style for Simon and Milo?
We worked with a really talented illustrator, Scott Harder. We had an idea of the look—both Jay and I grew up on Scooby-Doo and that kind of thing. We both liked that look. We also were vaguely aware of anime—certainly the big eyes. We thought that would be a cool element for Simon. He’s so emotional and open, and we thought the eyes would reflect that. Scott was a great illustrator. He helped us develop the characters, and then he passed away really young. He had a heart attack when he was in late 20s or early 30s.

That’s horrible, I’m so sorry.
Yeah. He didn’t get a chance to really see the characters take off, unfortunately. But we ended up working with an animation company partly owned by Anne Murray, called Animation House. Toronto, L.A. and South Korea was where they were based. All the cel animation was done in South Korea. It was totally influenced by whatever they were doing at the time there. We really worked on the characters initially, and on getting the look of them. But as far as how the rest of the world looked, that was partly the animation studios, too.

Which song did you have the most fun writing for that album?
There was a lot! “Strange Disease,” definitely. We knew that one was special as we were writing it. We just pictured Simon saying, “A little sexual frustration,” and that was like, “Oh my God, that sounds like a hit.” That one was fun. “I Like to Watch (Milo’s Night Out)”—for me, it was so random. That’s not even my thing! (laughs)

Every song was really fun as we were writing them, just being really free creatively. In the end, there’s a lot of heart in all the songs. Jay will say for sure that a lot of it was autobiographical as far as what he was going through at that time. That’s why I think people connect with it, because there is real emotion in there. It’s not just coming from some cerebral place.

Let’s talk about “Sucks to Be You” for a second. How much pushback did you get from radio and TV programmers over that song? I’ve always admired how you managed to get the word “bastard” on the radio.
Right! Which is so funny, because now that’s so tame… But there was some pushback. I remember we were coming up with that on the way to the studio one day. Jay had the idea of the verses, but it was as a grunge song. So that part, “I’m a bastard if it’s true,” was way slower—more like Kurt Cobain would’ve done it. I really liked that melody, but I was like, “Okay, I wonder if that could be Prozzäk. Can we speed it up? Let’s try that.” Then I was like, “Yeah, that’s cool, but it’s not a hook. We need a hook.” We were talking about [either] a specific date he’d been on, or I think someone had said that to him, “sucks to be you.” It was a saying that was around and in the air. Everyone was saying it at the time. Once we realized that would work, we were like, “Oh yeah, this is the moment to bring ‘Sucks to Be You’ out.” That just happened to still be the right time when it came out, because people were still saying it.

And you managed to get “bastard” past radio censors.
Yeah, I’m sure they gave us some pushback at first. Like, “I’m a jerk if it’s true,” “I’m a bad guy if it’s true”. They came up with something totally stupid. We were like, “No no no, it’s got to be ‘bastard’.” Throughout the whole process, there were moments where we had to put our foot down, for sure. Actually, choosing that as a single was something that we fought for, because the label didn’t understand it. They didn’t think it was a hit. You hear those stories all the time, and this is another one. We knew as soon as we did it, “Oh my God, this has got to be a single.” And they didn’t get it. So we just had to keep pushing it, and eventually they gave in.

Sucks to be them for not recognizing it sooner.
Well, in the end, they luckily came onboard. And honestly, Sony was amazing at the time. It was just the right moment where Canadian record labels—specifically Sony —had money for domestic Canadian music, which they didn’t really have before. Céline Dion was the biggest artist on that label. When she blew up, all of a sudden there was all this money at Sony Canada, so they could sign these other [Canadian acts]. They signed the Philosopher Kings, Our Lady Peace, Chantal Kreviazuk, all these other people… That definitely helped pay for those animated videos, because they were hundreds of thousands of dollars at the time.

What inspired how you guys made those music videos? They felt like a bit of an episode of a cartoon show in some ways.
We always envisioned it as a bigger story. We wanted to do an animated series from the get-go. We saw it as, “Let’s tour it as holograms,” back before that was even a possibility. Once we had the characters and the story, we really saw all the potential, like, “How can we keep going?” It definitely was bigger than just the song. But another great thing was that we had a great head of the video department at Sony who we worked with on all those. He was just the right guy. His name was Marc Lostracco. He had just come out of film school. He was 23 or something at the time, but he was the head of the video department. He loved the characters. He loved the music. It just happened to work.

Jay and I would write out the synopsis for the video, and line-by-line what we would see happening. We’d work with him to storyboard it, and then he ended up directing some of those videos, too. If it weren’t for him, it wouldn’t have happened the same way — another right person at the right time on the team.

You guys tried to break into the U.S. and you partnered with Disney. Your project was renamed Simon and Milo. Was that because Disney felt iffy about marketing a band named after an antidepressant to kids?
Absolutely. They felt more than iffy. We knew going in that if we decided to work with Disney, they would probably have some issues with some things. They did, and we weren’t really happy with how the whole thing went down, either. On one hand, working with [Disney] was a dream, because they were the biggest animation company. So we’re like, “Oh, wow. We’re developing a Saturday morning cartoon show with them!” But it was a Saturday morning Disney cartoon show in the early 2000s. It’s not Adult Swim—it was before all that. That was kind of the main reason we even decided to go with them.

In the end, it wasn’t the right partnership, because Simon and Milo have a bit more edge than that, especially back then. We did have a champion there, though: Jason Jordan. He was the head of A&R—it was Hollywood Records, which is owned by Disney. He was the first guy who signed the Philosopher Kings to a U.S. deal when he was 19. We were one of the first bands he signed to Columbia Records. We had a long history with him, and he was always a fan. He happened to really like Prozzäk’s stuff, too. That was one reason why we wanted to work with them, because we had a good relationship there—with Jason, anyway. But the big Disney machine did try to soften Simon and Milo too much.

So if something like Adult Swim was around at the time, you would have been more inclined to try doing something with them?
Of course! Yeah, absolutely. That would’ve been ideal. I mean, it still would be ideal. (laughs)

How did you guys manage to pull off live shows in the late 90s, despite being a cartoon band?
The cool thing was, like we mentioned, the reason why we did it as a cartoon was because Jay was never going to be comfortable. He didn’t want to sing as himself onstage and show his face. So we were always trying to come up with something more creative that was just based around the videos. Luckily, at that time—again, timing is everything—raves were really big when we first started. It was maybe towards the end of that phase of the rave culture here.

The first few shows we did were just videos in the middle of a rave. We got to be in the audience watching people react to it and see when Simon says, “put your hands in the air,” when they were going to do it and how they would react. That was one of the coolest moments. It totally felt like I was the Wizard of Oz. It was so cool. So we did some raves, but the first show we did was actually just that screen, opening for Destiny’s Child at Canada’s Wonderland. That was pretty cool. At that time, it was Beyoncé before she was Beyoncé.

Just casually seeing Beyoncé at an amusement park. No big deal.
It was cool. She was friendly and professional—they all were. But then eventually, after Hot Show blew up, fans kept saying, “We want to see you, you’ve got to do a real tour!” Eventually, I think Jay got over himself and wanted to get out there. I love performing, so I was always down for being involved with the show. We came up with what we do now: the video screen is still the biggest thing, but we’re performing there.

We had massive Simon and Milo heads designed. Back then, for whatever reason, we had them made of the heaviest steel and fibreglass you could create. It [cost] tens of thousands of dollars to make these stupid heads, and then we had to carry them around. It was a total headache. When we came back in the mid-2010s, we found out you could just do an inflatable head that fits inside one suitcase—both of the heads. That was a game changer.

If you had 2023 technology in 1998, what would you have done differently with live shows?
We would’ve done a hologram show, and have it happen simultaneously in Toronto, London, and Japan the same day. That was our vision back then. I guess we’re getting closer to that, but I don’t know now if people would rather see a hologram [than a real person]. I think they’d still rather see a real person.

Hot Show proved that a cartoon band was a commercially viable endeavour before Gorillaz emerged, right. We’ve also seen Hatsune Miku and other cartoon bands like Dethklok from Metalocalypse. Do you feel like you were ahead of the curve, or was it something different?
We were just there at the right time, I think, in Canada. We weren’t big enough in England or the States to have the splash Gorillaz did, because Damon Albarn was already big in Blur at that time. So it wasn’t going to happen exactly the same way. It couldn’t have happened any other way. It was the right time, with the right team around us, and with the help of the right media, MuchMusic and YTV. They all made Hot Show what it was.

What does the future hold for Prozzäk?
I hope the future holds more tours, for sure, because we love to play these songs live. Jay and I are always going to want to create new Prozzäk music. Hopefully there’ll be [a Prozzäk project] that people will resonate with again.

The producer and DJ will return to Montreal from her new home in Amsterdam to launch the record and accompanying film this spring.

by Dave MacIntyre

You know what they say: you can’t rush greatness. Aïsha Vertus, better known as Gayance (the Haitian Créole word for “joyfulness”), has officially released her long-gestating debut album Mascarade.

The album, out today on London-based label Rhythm Section, comes after she’d released several singles starting in March 2021, leading to her self-releasing her first EP, No Toning Down, in October of that year. Having DJed for roughly a decade, Gayance taught herself how to produce on Ableton Live during the earlier stages of the pandemic.

Musically, Mascarade is a groovy, blissed-out mishmash of genres from all corners of the globe. Traces of styles like house, funk, soul, jazz and hip hop can be heard throughout, as well as various genres of African, Caribbean and Latinx origin. A relatively short listen at just under 30 minutes, the album very much lives up to her self-described sound of “jazzy-house with Brazilian spices so you can make out with your crush.”

Admittedly, the Haitian-born, Montréal-Nord-raised producer/DJ hadn’t been thinking too much about it in the weeks leading up to release day, instead focusing on relaxing and resting before jetting off to Brazil for two weeks.

Mascarade was also completed in April of last year, when it was mixed and mastered. “There’s nothing to do. People can just listen to it. That’s fine. It’s not mine anymore,” she says while letting out a huge laugh.

Though she’d been splitting time between Montreal and various other places in the world (specifically countries like Belgium and Brazil), Gayance is currently based in Amsterdam, where she spoke to Cult MTL from. “I was tired of going back and forth,” she tells us about the physical and financial toll of frequently travelling between Montreal and other countries.

“Every month since last spring, I was doing one month there and one month here, over to Europe and then back to Canada. It was very fun. I was very grateful to be able to do that. But it was starting to cost a lot, and (the jetlag) cost a lot for my body. I was just like, ‘You know what? I might as well just base myself here.’”

While she attributes the album’s delay partly to how much time it took to get pressed, Gayance also had a parallel project on the go that would contribute to the hold-up. That project? Shooting a music video for the single “Nunca Mais” (directed by Montreal’s own Maïlis), which took a bit of a detour before production began.

“We had a crazy idea, and then there was a very key member of the team who could not attend the shoot that day,” she adds. “Kind of Mercury retrograde type shit. Then, we had to cancel the shoot. We were like, ‘What?!’ We still had some funds to do it. 

“Before the pandemic, I was planning something with all my friends for my 30th (birthday). Everybody would go to Brazil together, but it obviously never happened. But I was like, ‘Listen, I’m going to do it regardless of the sky falling apart. I just want to go to the forest there.’ Then Maïlis was like, ‘You know what? We could just follow you.’ We took two weeks, we wrote something, and then I flew. I was scouting for a month. The month after, she came with a camera crew. We came back with 10 days of shooting, like 16 hours. We were like, ‘Let’s just continue (the shoot) throughout every season in Quebec.’”

In Gayance’s words, Mascarade is the story of her 20s. As with anyone’s 20s, many a life lesson can be learned, and many a memory — good or bad — can stay with you forever. For Gayance, her 20s were spent learning what her boundaries were, and how to  check them — something she admits she hasn’t been great at doing. (This theme also directly influences the standout track “Shore Apart.”) 

“I didn’t know what boundaries meant, really,” she continues. “I wasn’t crossing people’s boundaries, but I let a lot of people get into mine. That’s why I had a few burnouts. Your body has to recuperate from this, and sometimes it takes a long time. It can take you three months to fully recover. It’s not cool.

“(I’ve learned) so many things. We could talk about life for hours. To me, it’s hard to talk about those things, so that’s why I do art instead! (laughs) It’s more subjective, and people can also interpret it in their own way… For me, what was interesting with the visual part of (the album) was all these people working on it and were also bringing their own story into this. Everybody can relate to those emotions in some ways. I just want people to feel validated.”

One song in particular, “Moon Rising (10 Years),” took the shortest amount of time to complete for the album (the title track took the longest), and has a very personal backstory serving as its primary influence. Gayance’s late grandfather led a choir group, and was one of the first to bring congas into churches in Quebec, an instrument that features heavily in the track. “It was kind of an homage, but it’s also a spiritual song,” she says. 

Gayance would also get to play a number of festivals across the pond last summer, including Down the Rabbit Hole in the Netherlands last July, where she got the chance to meet none other than Erykah Badu. “I had the most childish reaction ever,” she admits.

“I was closing the stage at 4 a.m. or something. Then, they gave me the hotel (room) for a longer time. I was like, ‘Yo, I really want to stay and watch Erykah Badu perform.’ I didn’t care about (meeting) her or whatnot. I just wanted to see her perform. 

“Because we were backstage and we’re artists, I saw her. I was like, ‘Oh my God!’ I was just emotional. I was like a kid. Also, I was kind of ashamed afterwards because I was like, ‘Wow, she’s just a human — come on, Aïsha!’ (laughs). She was just like ‘I see you, girl,’ just giving props.”

Mascarade also features some equally eclectic local artists in Hua Li and Janette King, who both appear on “Clout Chaser’s Anthem,” made together during a PHI Centre residency in Sainte-Adèle in the Laurentians; Judith Little D, who sings on “Lord Have Mercy” and “Moon Rising (10 Years)”; and electronic trio Raveen, who feature prominently on “Shore Apart” “Lord Have Mercy” and the title track — the latter of which Gayance says is a critique of white people.

“I’ve known (frontman) Éric (Séguin) for eight years now,” she says. “We hadn’t done musical projects together, but we’re always musically connected in some ways, and did some parallel collaborations… With (the title track) ‘Mascarade,’ if you think about the lyrics, I feel like it was important to have someone like Éric singing it with me. It really brings out the intention of the song.”

Though Mascarade is her first proper album, Gayance has been a fixture in Montreal’s scene for what feels like a lifetime. She first started DJing in 2013, and has also been involved with POP Montreal (working there as a music programmer) and the PHI Centre (where she curated a hip hop exhibition). Gayance has worn many other hats during that time as well, having hosted a mix series entitled WITCHES BREW on n10.as, and doing music journalism work for outlets like Radio-Canada, VICE, The FADER and Red Bull Music Academy.

She also co-directed and produced PIU PIU, a 2012 documentary spotlighting the then-bubbling Montreal beat scene comprised of local rappers and producers. That doc includes cameos and/or interviews with the likes of Poirier, High Klassified, Tommy Kruise, KNLO, Vlooper and, most notably, Kaytranada (back when he still used his old stage name, Kaytradamus).

Spending such a long time deeply involved and invested in Montreal arts and culture means seeing significant change and evolution happen before your eyes, as well as building connections with various local movers and shakers (she mentions Narcy and Stina Baudin as examples). This is despite certain aspects of the scene — government funding, more specifically — still leaving something to be desired. 

“There are so many people I’ve met from that period who are still doing amazing things,” she says. “The thing that I’m very sad about sometimes is that I feel like the government should give more money to initiatives brought up by those artists. Those people have something to say, and we should have all the resources to do and say what they have to do, and do what they have to say.”

Having spent so much time internationally in recent years, Gayance’s travels in Europe and Latin America haven’t just presumably helped her rack up plenty of Air Miles, but they’ve taught her about life and music in ways she might not have necessarily learned in Montreal.

“People’s lifestyles are more relaxed. It taught me to chill a little bit, also,” she says. “When you grow up in North America, there’s something about the fast life: you go home, you work, you don’t even eat because you’re working. I feel like that’s much more praised in North America. But in Europe, it taught me to relax a little bit. People were more chill.”

Despite her time spent thousands of kilometres away from the city that moulded her, Gayance wants to protect Montreal’s nightlife in whichever way possible. “They’re trying to shut down the nightlife everywhere, low-key, but it’s not as intense as it is in Montreal,” she adds.

“Our nightlife is very important, because this is literally the essence of the city. This is why the city is what it is during the daytime, you know what I’m saying? Montreal is Gotham City! (laughs) I would love to bring some ideas that I’ve seen in Europe to Montreal. We have a very good nightlife, and if the city wasn’t doing some crazy shit to the people, maybe it could strive a little bit more and have even more exciting things.”

The remainder of this year will be a busy one for Gayance, as she gears up to play festivals (including Horst in Belgium and Dekmantel Selectors in Croatia), perform with a live band and release a companion short film for Mascarade. She hopes to have the film — shot in both Canada and Brazil — shown in festivals and “have its own life, as well.” There’s no exact release date for it yet, as she’s still trying to find a distributor.

Gayance will also be making her return to Montreal — full band in tow — on May 20 for Mascarade’s release party at the PHI Centre, where she’ll also be showing her short film. She’ll make a stop at Sans Soleil Bar beforehand to chill with friends she hasn’t seen in a while (“I fucking love this place,” she says about the latter).

As far as what Mascarade says about where Gayance is currently at as an artist, her answer is pretty simple. “I’m just trying some shit,” she says. “That’s what I would say. I’m still experimenting — with sounds, and the whole craft of producing in general.” ■

This article originally appeared in Cult MTL. For more on Gayance, please visit her Linktree.

---

We spoke with the local indie/dream/jangle pop duo whose debut album Le soleil et la mer has made waves internationally, and quickly earned them a following here at home.

by Dave MacIntyre

Bibi Club, comprised of real-life couple Nicolas Basque (one-third of Plants and Animals) and Adèle Trottier-Rivard, have emerged as a force within Montreal’s music scene in a relatively short time since their debut album, Le soleil et la mer, was released last August on Secret City.

Mixing genres like indie pop, jangle pop and dream pop (as well as jazz, folk, post-punk and plenty of others in between), their tunes immediately stand out with their heavy use of reverb, bilingual vocals and glistening instrumentation. Bibi Club’s palette of influences is a diverse one, too: Stereolab, Suicide, Alice Coltrane, Air, Mount Kimbie and Talking Heads, to name a few.

Le soleil et la mer had been recorded between 2020 and 2021, during peak pandemic times. The duo attributes the delay to indecision as to whether or not to self-release the album, coupled with not having a team at the time to help guide them. 

“Because we’re a couple, we were like, ‘We need to have people to help us out, because we’ll go crazy if that’s all we do with our lives,’” Basque says. “We got lucky. We found management, then they helped us out and we sent the record around. That’s why it took a while. It’s just long. Every label and everybody in the music industry was exhausted because they had to cancel and rebook so many things. They had a pile of records that were not released, or had to be released, or that they maybe didn’t even want to release anymore.”

The past half-year since the album came out has been exciting for the duo — a busy time, of course, but one where it feels like a foundation is being built. While the logistics can be challenging at times, since the couple have children at home (one child together and two from Basque’s previous relationship), Basque says they’re “really well-surrounded” by their families and their team.

“We’ve been travelling a lot since the release, which is great. Not really eco-friendly or planet-friendly (laughs), but I’m quite happy about that,” adds Trottier-Rivard, who mentions they’ve been meeting tons of new people while touring, as the band recently performed in Brazil and have played shows in France on several occasions.

“I feel we’re learning a lot about ourselves, playing live,” Basque adds. “When the codes are different, you start almost forgetting about yourself, and you can let loose in a different way. There’s something that’s been really fun about playing in places where nobody knows who we are. It’s almost like you’re the underdog. You have to not really convince them, but invite them to be part of that musical experience.”

Their partnership started out as a musical one before gradually blooming into something more. Trottier-Rivard met Basque while she was touring alongside Plants and Animals, and while she’d also been working with their frontman Warren Spicer on an album for Ludovic Alarie. 

The two met through Spicer, and Trottier-Rivard then started coming to Plants and Animals’ sessions. She and Basque would also go to the same shows in Montreal (watching artists like Suuns and Moonface), and occasionally play together on stage. While on the road in Canada and the U.S., the two started sharing musical ideas with one another, which they’d continue upon returning to Montreal.

“I was working on some ideas by myself, but I knew that I needed someone else to share ideas with,” says Trottier-Rivard. “Nico was this huge artistic revelation (for me). I was like, ‘That’s the person I want to share those things with.’”

The two had another band prior to Bibi Club, which started as a project with video artists. “It was a bit more epic and darker, in a way,” Basque continues. “At some point, we took the time to start working on the record, and we were like, ‘You know what? We want to start from scratch. That’s not what we want to be musically.’”

After resetting their musical approach, Bibi Club released their self-titled debut EP in May 2019. The name originates from their living room where they and their loved ones — their “bibis,” aka their children, friends and family — would come and have a mini dance-party. It also pulls from the Arabic word “habibi,” meaning “darling” or “my dear” (Trottier-Rivard’s aunt is from Morocco, and would frequently call her “bibi” growing up).

“Adèle calls everybody she likes ‘bibi,’” Basque continues. “At some point during the pandemic, it was madness in the house. Through all the sounds, she’s like, ‘I think I’ve got a name for the band! What about Bibi Club?’ We’re like, ‘Ah, that feels right!’ 

“There’s also something (in the name) that felt connected to the music. There’s something a bit joyful in the music. At the same time, we always try to keep tension. So there’s the ‘club’ part, but at the same time, it sounds like it’s not a ‘happy’ project.”

Trottier-Rivard, who says that dichotomy reminds her of artists like British post-punks Dry Cleaning, adds that she and Basque are inspired by “music that has a certain spirituality or depth, but is still joyful, playful and not dark.”

As a temporary respite from their lives as parents (their kids are often around while they’re rehearsing in their basement and/or recording demos of new songs on their phones), Basque and Trottier-Rivard took LSD one night during lockdown. “It was a long journey,” Trottier-Rivard says of their eight-hour trip — no travelling puns intended.

“It had been six months. Schools were closed,” adds Basque. “At the time, we were living in a smaller apartment, the five of us, and doing school at home. We were going crazy. At some point, we booked the studio, and we were like, ‘We can’t just be parents. We’ve got to be artists.’” 

The two had an instrumental number they’d been wanting to track whilst in the studio. “I didn’t have to sing on that song, so we thought, ‘We could get high!’,” Trottier-Rivard says.

Though it was a fun experience, their booked studio time meant they’d be going down the rabbit hole during broad daylight. By 4 p.m., the song was tracked and recorded. “We did two takes, and then it was just like, ‘Oh, that’s just too much for us!,’” Basque says while Trottier-Rivard takes a swig of water next to him and nearly spits it out laughing.

The end result of their afternoon acid-fuelled adventures? “Bellini,” the nine-and-a-half minute instrumental that serves as Le Soleil et la mer’s woozily danceable penultimate track. “That’s the LSD song,” Trottier-Rivard adds.

In case you’re reading that and asking if that’s why it wound up being such a long song, it was already structured that way beforehand. Right before COVID hit in March 2020, Basque hosted a dual-night event at Ursa (Martha Wainwright’s community space on Parc Avenue) where he and different friends would jam and improvise. Adèle was there with him one night, and already had “Bellini”’s chords locked down. Basque wrote the melody, and the two tested the song out that night. 

“A lot of friends after the show were like, ‘You should record that song! There’s something good in that jam,’” he continues. “We always had it in the back of our mind… It was improv, so I had a timer for 10 minutes. We knew what would happen at each moment. But when we recorded it, it was the inner clock! (laughs)”

Another track borne from one of those jam nights at Ursa was “Femme-Lady,” which Cult MTL placed atop our Top 52 Montreal Songs of 2022 list. While jamming there with Erika Angell of Thus Owls, Basque was working on a beat and chord progression he’d eventually bring to the studio, where Trottier-Rivard would lay down vocals.

“We could imagine a group of people singing that song,” she adds. “At some point, we invited my sister and my mom to sing at the end. It felt like a genuine thing to do, to reunite for a song and have the three of us sing together. We had our launch at POP Montreal last fall, and we had a group of friends singing this song with us on stage.” 

The “Femme-Lady” in question is also neither a femme nor a lady, but an “ugly” pineapple-shaped chandelier given to Trottier-Rivard’s sister by their mother that they randomly decided to christen with that name. “Because (Adèle’s) mom and her sister were on (the song), we kept the inside joke,” Basque says. “At the same time, there’s a meaning behind it. It resonates in a weird way, ‘femme-lady’ — it feels like it’s from another era, or something!”

Bibi Cub haven’t just been making waves locally, either. In March, they’ll be heading to Austin, TX for SXSW and Boise, ID for the Treefort Music Fest. Shows have also been booked later this spring in France, Germany and Wales, as well as for the Great Escape festival in Brighton, England in May. The duo have also headed back into the studio to record more new music (“We have a bunch of new ideas,” Trottier-Rivard says).

In late January, they travelled all the way to Brazil to perform at the SIM festival in São Paulo. Alongside fellow Montreal artist Fernie (who was born there and speaks Portuguese), Bibi Club spent an “intense” week down in Brazil’s biggest city, where they played two shows. 

“We saw some beautiful things, beautiful plants. We ate some amazing food, and also met really nice people,” Trottier-Rivard says about their experience. The duo played two showcases, including one for the Brazilian indie label Balaclava, who’ve had artists play POP Montreal in the past.

“They were asking us, ‘Do you know Beaver? Do you know Dan Seligman?’” Basque adds. “It felt like we made friends… Now we have people we know over there. Musically, it was a rich experience. We came back burnt out from the whole thing, and at the same time, enriched from all the meetings! (laughs)”

Clearly, Basque and Trottier-Rivard make quite the musical pair, and not just a romantic one, and they’ve jokingly referred to each other in the past as “both our favourite artist to work with.” So what makes their mutual musical chemistry come so naturally? They speak the “same musical language” — in fact, Basque thought Trottier-Rivard was the best singer he’d ever heard from the first time she tracked vocals next to him, and Trottier-Rivard has felt a similar euphoria while hearing him play guitar.

“Once, I cried during Nico’s guitar solo,” she continues. “I’d never cried during a guitar solo in my life. He was playing with his other project, and it’s like he was dying onstage. I started to cry. It was really moving.”

Though they bring different areas of musical expertise to the table, their skill sets complement one another nicely, whether they’re focused on the more creative or technical side of their music. Since it’s just the two of them while in the studio, it also gives them a lot of space to themselves to experiment.

“We get the chance to try things for the first time,” Trottier-Rivard says. “I’ve been trying a bit more to engineer (songs) — more than I ever did in the past, because Nico let me try.”

The dynamic of performing live as a duo is also one they enjoy, and Basque describes it as “a bit like being in a circus without a net. If one of us stops playing or singing, everything falls apart. It demands that we have to be focused and ready, but it’s really nourishing at the same time. It’s wild, so it’s fun.” ■

For more on Bibi Club, please visit the band’s website.

This article was originally published in the March 2023 issue of Cult MTL.