The very first night at Les Foufounes Electriques on Rue Sainte-Catherine makes one thing clear: Montréal doesn’t live off its past. Even if everyone keeps telling me that Nirvana once played here. These clubs thrive on what’s happening now, not on what the walls have witnessed. Three hours, two stages: alternative, New Wave, hardcore, reggaeton, electro-clash, noise rock and hip-hop. Nothing sounds like anything else – and yet, somehow, everything fits together. Not because Montréal has a unified “sound”, but because the air burns at every show.
Since 2006, M pour Montréal has been the early-warning system for exactly that energy. Mac DeMarco, Grimes and Patrick Watson all had early shows here. This year’s headliners BadBadNotGood played here back in 2014, to maybe a hundred people. This year: 80 acts, 15 venues, five days. These ten are the ones that stayed with me.
PISS
We stood there at the end – speechless, wrecked, with tears in our eyes. What happened? PISS happened. The Vancouver quartet take no prisoners. Only three demo tracks exist so far, their debut album is expected in 2026 – but live, the future is already obvious: hardcore that collapses into whisper. Vocalist Taylor Zantingh speaks about violence, about bodies, about what remains. In between: Andrea Dworkin, sampled. Radical feminist rage carved into precise tempo shifts. Anger condensed into poetry. At one point she asks: »How can you act opposite to this emotion?« You can’t. No one here can.
Angine de Poitrine
Instead of saying thank you, they form a diamond with their hands and place it against their foreheads. The crowd responds. They drop to their knees in rhythm, rise again. The crowd follows. Angine de Poitrine from Saguenay turn post-rock into ritual.
Khn de Poitrine and Klek de Poitrine wear black-and-white polka-dotted papier-mâché heads with dangling noses, speaking in onomatopoeic nonsense. Gimmickry? Of course. But it works – the costumes pull every gaze towards them, and then the music arrives. Primus-like bass, Tinariwen-like scales, Don Caballero-like playfulness. Their album Vol. 1 came out in 2024 (digital only). What could sound complex becomes a happening. Post-rock for people who can’t stand still.
Computer
Computer from Vancouver make the overwhelm of a generation audible. Seven people, seven instruments – everything except an actual computer. On their debut Station On the Hill (October 2025, Dine Alone Records), math rock, post-punk and hardcore fuse into a dense wall. Yet out of the noise, individual parts push through, become tangible, then dissolve again. Like life itself: to hear the individual inside the cacophony. »Numbing is not my intention / Life is what I choose«, they sing on »Now in a Vacuum«.
distraction4ever
distraction4ever from Montréal are masters of the copy. Nothing about their cold/minimal/New Wave is new – and that is exactly why it feels so current. No Future is back. The Cold War is back. Emptiness is back. So is the aesthetic: cool and shadowy, functional like a Siberian housing block; Ian Curtis’s gestures, the look of a young Blixa Bargeld. But Beau Geste and Splitshift aren’t performing references – they mean it. And maybe that’s the new part: the copy is no longer gesture but diagnosis. »Does anybody feel what I’m feeling?« they ask on »Reason to Live«. The answer: unfortunately, yes.
Boutique Feelings
Boutique Feelings is the solo project of Montréal’s Karim Lakhdar. Hip-hop that refuses the frame: experimental like Anticon, soulful like The Roots, but built on oud, trumpet and flute rather than samples. Lakhdar raps about warmongering, disinformation, self-sabotage. The fractures of our time, distilled into beats. His debut Shwaya, Shwaya has just been released on Mothland, featuring Sam Shalabi (The Dwarfs of East Agouza) on oud and Django Vives on trumpet. Live at La Sala Rossa, Lakhdar performed with his band Atsuko Chiba, joined by flautist Vanessa Ascher. A solo project on paper, a collective on stage.
Mike Shabb
An early highlight of the festival: Mike Shabb. »If it ended now, the trip would’ve been worth it,« someone says after the set. The Montréal rapper and beatmaker filters the hallmarks of traditional hip-hop through the cultural mix of his city: jazz, dance and diasporic African influences. Technically immaculate, in both production and rap. His 2024 album Sewaside III landed on the longlist of Canada’s Polaris Music Prize, with features from Nicholas Craven and Boldy James. Active since 2018. Now is his moment.
Truck Violence
Hardcore with poetic depth. Truck Violence from Montréal released their album Violence on Mothland in 2024; the vinyl edition arrives in 2025 via Southern Lord. The band makes the rift between rural and urban hearable. Vocalist Karsyn Henderson grew up in western Canada and lives now in Montréal – the music lives inside that in-between. Post-hardcore and sludge metal meet bluegrass and banjo. Loud, then quiet, then violence again. Rootlessness as sound. Henderson asks questions with no answers: »Is anything ever truly going to be good?« »Is there a point where I’ll have security in my art?« Existentialism galore.
Misc
Oscar Peterson is Montréal’s most famous jazz musician. The pianist would have turned 100 this year. Misc keep his legacy alive – but in their own way. The trio of Jérôme Beaulieu (keys), Philippe Leduc (bass) and William Côté (drums) play jazz rooted in bebop but surrounded by hip-hop beats and samples. The piano lines feel classical; around them, everything grooves modern. They’ve released five albums, most recently Beat Bouquet on Spectacles Bonzaï.
Patche
Patche translate electronic music into a band format. Five musicians: modular synths, drum machine, harmonica, electric bass, drums. The pulse is straight 4/4, the spirit is krautrock: hypnotic, trippy, intensifying over time. Bass and drums play intricate patterns, perfectly synchronised with quantised synths. The result is an urgent groove that refuses to let up. Machine meets body, and ecstasy follows naturally. Their new album Mode was released on 17 October 2025 by Montréal label popop Records.
Hologramme
Strobe-light storms at the SAT on Boulevard Saint-Laurent. Hologramme blasts his techno beats into the crowd, flanked by both analogue and digital gear. Montréal’s Clément Leduc aims for the big stage: Fred again, Röyksopp, Jamie xx. At times he polishes a floor that’s already clean. But then deep house, UK garage or industrial textures flash through, adding friction – and that’s when it hits. The potential is there. Also here.
