Evidence Weird Rock Is Cool Again: Angine de Poitrine

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1:10Progressive rock is known for complicated rhythms, technical musicianship and tunes that aren't exactly built for the radio. So why is this weird two person band from Quebec suddenly attracting a massive audience with exactly that kind of sound? They're called Angine de Poitrine and they've become viral. They've won two Polaris prizes and they're now selling out shows internationally. Check them out online. I just saw them in New York and the concert was well quite a scene. Anyway, their rise is happening alongside a major rush reunion tour, which raises this question. Are listeners suddenly hungry for more adventurous rock again to answer that question? We are here with Alex Carpenter and Musicology Professor at the University of Alberta. Alex, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. I saw this concert a few weeks ago and I wanted to talk about Angine de Poitrine on this show. But they're indescribable, at least for me. I'm not a Musicology Professor. They're incomprehensible. Walk me through what this band is for someone who's never seen them.

2:10For sure. Well, I would say my introduction to them was probably the same as everybody else's. And these weird videos started popping up randomly in my Facebook feed. I wasn't really paying attention to them and people will do a lot of strange things to get clicks and get attention. So I was peripherally engaged with it. I play in a couple of bands here in Edmonton and one of my bandmates early in the summer said, I got tickets to go see Angine de Poitrine. And so we went to see them. And so I think I mean my initial experience. I experienced them live. I wasn't really interested. But I went to the show. There was a lot of energy at the show. There was a lot of excitement. A lot of people in costumes. I was very curious about it. And I think I had sort of a kind of a schizophrenic experience because I got wrapped up in that.

3:13The sort of the fan energy and the excitement of the show and the visuality of the show. But I was also experiencing it as a musician. And my experience as a musician was kind of like, what are they doing? And how are they doing it? Well, the guy is using an electronic device with some pretty amazing footwork to get all kinds of guitar loops and bass loops going. The instruments themselves are the instrument itself is microtonal, which for someone who's not a music nerd, all you need to know is it's got more notes than a regular guitar and bass. They're dressed up like polka dot aliens. They don't speak. They're from outer space, probably given the sound. It sounds like it's at the fringe of something that's genuinely new. I mean, there are bands that kind of sound like them. But it's not a well explored branch of music or genre of music that they're playing. It sounded new to me as someone who's not a music nerd. Are you excited about what seems like a new sound? Finally, after all these years?

4:15Well, I'm not sure. I think what's exciting maybe is, yeah, there seems to be, if not an appetite for it in the audiences. There's an openness to it. And there's a patience for it as it's instrumental music, which is pretty rare for instrumental music to generate this kind of excitement. It's Quebec Wa, post rock instrumental music, which is itself, I mean, it doesn't get more niche. The fact that there's a hunger, because I live in the US, that the American audience is looking for a Quebec Wa, post rock instrumental band, which is a genre I just learned from you right now. I repeated it like I knew people love them and that they've blown up. Yeah, it is amazing. Music, I mean, you were talking about the technology, the technology is part of it. The foot choreography is part of it because the guitar player, I mean, he's playing a custom instrument with a guitar on the top sort of attached to a base on the bottom. It requires what's called a looper or a loop station at his feet and then an array of volume pedals so that he creates these loops in real time and uses the volume pedals to bring them to bring the sound forward or to bring it to bring it back sort of out of the mix.

5:34I guess what's interesting about it or what's what's the progressive element is the weirdness of the time. So the rhythm, the meter, how the music's counted. So that's what I was doing when I was watching them. I gave up eventually, but I was watching going, I was just counting and just trying to figure out how everything lines up and it lines up in sort of irregular numbers. If that makes sense, so we're not counting in fours or twos like we would with rock, but we're counting in 13s or 21s or something like that. Yeah, rather than one, two, three, four, one, two, you're counting to 13 and then 11 and then four and then three and then eight. It's off meter or odd meter, I guess. It's poly meter. So the guitar player plays a bunch of different loops. Each one is sort of in a different counting, counting in threes or fours or the phrases are of different lengths. But I think getting back to this question, what makes it interesting to people or what is engaging for people is not... It's the complexity, but what's interesting about the music is how the loops all line up.

6:39Because eventually they do. Some people call the genre math rock because it's these different layers of loops of different legs. But you don't need to learn math to enjoy it, folks. Not at all. It gets super... So when it's out of phase, when the loops are out of phase, that's when it sounds really spacey and really wonky. But then it lines up. The guitar and the bass and the drums, they lock in and then it gets super funky. And that's why you see audiences just bouncing up and down like they're having the time of their life. Alex, we've been geeking out about the complexity of the music. Let's talk about the vibe of the band. These guys won't do interviews, at least not as themselves. They dress up in these bizarre costumes that light up in sync with the music. They've got a real visual vibe. Pokedouts are heavily featured. Do you think this is a part of it too? It's almost like a lore or a buzz about them because it's not like there's some musicians who can just be interviewed and be normal people. Yeah, no. I think that's true. You know, you're asking, what is it that's sort of progressive?

7:40And they're really... They're really comprised of a bunch of different elements that are not new in and of themselves. So looping technologies, 25 years old, there are other bands, duos in particular that make this kind of music. And bands have been doing the kind of anonymous space alien thing for a long time. I mean, KISS. KISS is sort of a prime example, maybe, of a band that traded on its anonymity for a long time. But I think maybe what's sort of interesting about them at this moment, about Angin Du Potsklin is bringing all of these elements together. And nobody saw it coming. I don't think. When I think of the band Rush, I think of them as like one of the most mainstream of not mainstream bands or something. Like their music is complex, has odd meters, uses weird elements, maybe not as much looping. But they're doing a tour right now. And there's a lot of interest in that. Do you see any kind of connection right now between the two and where people's musical tastes are these days?

8:44Well, that was kind of my original thought. I was at Angin Du Potsklin and then afterwards was sort of reading comments and stuff, watching clips and reading comments. And the odd person would go, would say in the comments, they're the new Rush. Oh, that's interesting. You put them both on the progressive rock spectrum. You know, there are different points on the spectrum. And yeah, Rush has a legacy of radio hits for sure. But I have to wonder whether there's something of the same impulse, that kind of patience and that engagement with long form songs, long instrumental sections, virtuosity, irregular meter, all of that kind of thing. I don't know how well the comparison holds up, you know, the closer that they get together. But yeah, it was a phenomenon I was curious about. And the fact that they're touring at the same time. They're selling out and people are so excited about these two bands. Two Canadian Prague rock bands at the same time is pretty weird.

9:47Well, if our appetites are in fact increasing for this more creative, complex music, I want to see like Olivia Rodrigo or Taylor Swift tour with Angin Du Potsklin. That would be quite the show. Sure. Well, thanks for talking to me about this amazing band and helping me put to words what they're like. Because I found myself struggling so hard to describe them to friends. Alex, thanks for being on the show. My pleasure, thanks. Alex Carpenter is a musicology professor at the University of Alberta.