You out of me, me out of you
We go like lovers
To replace the empty space
Repeat our dreams to someone new.
—Scott Walker
The departed critic Gene Siskel coined a descriptive neologism — “the national dream beat” — for his particular and historically specific job, a vocation that simply no longer exists.
Just as a crime reporter might follow court cases, or a food critic would cover restaurants, Siskel viewed his “beat” as the culmination of a culture’s hopes and fears, a reflection of our realities, and ultimately, a projection of collective aspirations, our aggregate dreams for potential worlds.
I think of my station with NicheMTL as a chronicler of Montreal’s dream beat. I go to your shows. I listen to your recordings. And I arrive at some interpretation of what your cultural dreams could mean.
An updated iteration of Siskel & Ebert’s thumbs-down or thumbs-up verdicts might be today’s evaluation of “tired” or “wired,” “broke” or “woke,” “out” or “in.”
In my opinion, it’s tired to assign some arbitrary numerical value to artistic artifacts and wired to present them unranked.
It’s broke to criticize anyone for aiming to create something innovative and exciting and woke to give genuine appreciation for the effort.
Cynicism is out. Sincerity is in.
The unranked list below represents what I consider to be remarkable achievements over the past 12 months on Montreal’s musical dream beat.
When it comes to these outstanding albums, NicheMTL is all thumbs and decidedly all in.
—Ryan Alexander Diduck, publisher
NPNP, Harmony in a Vacuum (Halocline Trance)
Furiously productive and immeasurably talented, Jackson Darby performs under the monikers NPNP and DJ Fire Belly, operates Personal Records, a label that produces short-run lathe cut vinyl, and also organizes the Ambient Music in the Park event series that takes place on sunny afternoons at Champs des possibles.
Darby manipulated recordings of local musicians including James Goddard and Evelyn Charlotte Joe to produce one of 2024’s most compelling albums.
Read NicheMTL on NPNP’s album launch.
Quinton Barnes, Have Mercy on Me (Self-released)
At the Backxwash showcase during this year’s Suoni per il Popolo festival, the headliner was upstaged, willingly, by Quinton Barnes, a prodigy of both lyricism and music production.
The artist previewed the deeply personal Have Mercy on Me in its entirety, flooring the audience in attendance and establishing Barnes as a force to be reckoned with in Montreal’s experimental hip-hop community.
Quinton Barnes also appears on the cover of NicheMTL’s Zero Issue in print.
Read NicheMTL‘s interview with Quinton Barnes.
VICTIME, En conversation avec, (Mothland Productions)
Post-punk has never stopped being progressive, and VICTIME, the Montréal/Québec/Gatineau-based power trio consisting of bassist Laurence Gauthier-Brown, percussionist Samuel Gougoux, and Simone Provencher on guitar and electronics, proves that there is no shortage of further territory to be explored in the noisy nether regions of modern, confrontational rock and roll.
En conversation avec is one of the most unpredictable yet aesthetically pleasing listens of the year.
Read NicheMTL on VICTIME’s album launch.
Aistis, Clay (Self-released)
With echoes of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s production values, and rivaling Brian Wilson’s harmonic and compositional complexity, Aistis stimulates more than just the auditory sense with Clay.
The album evokes all the up-and-down emotions of an archetypal road trip movie: adventure, uncertainty, pathos, and most of all, love.
Chloe Majenta’s cover art adroitly characterizes Aistis’s meandering melodies, which paradoxically always arrive right on target.
Orchestroll, Hyperwide Lustre (naff recordings)
Jesse Osborne-Lanthier and Asaël Richard-Robitaille, both talented electronic music producers in their own right, exponentially elevate each other’s potential on their debut full-length album as Orchestroll.
The duo manages to successfully navigate the interstice between mischievous playfulness and serious knees-up dancefloor business, a balancing act that few artists achieve.
Orchestroll is Montreal’s answer to Aphex Twin and Coil, boasting just as much mythology.
Read NicheMTL on Orchestroll’s album launch.
Yuki Isami, Rives (Self-released)
As a member of Polaris-nominated Montreal-based Japanese Psych Rock outfit TEKE::TEKE, flautist Yuki Isami literally blows listeners away with her classically trained virtuosity. Isami’s first solo album takes her inimitable style back to its roots in both European and Japanese traditional musical styles.
It also represents Montreal’s palimpsestic cultural mosaic, fusing elements of East and West, ancient and modern, French, English, and extra-linguistic communication.
Read NicheMTL‘s interview with Yuki Isami.
Ambroise, la première caresse goûte toujours la neige (innovations en concert)
The term “snowflake” in recent political discourse has accrued a negative, even insulting connotation.
But snowflakes represent everything that is worth admiring about nature: its delicate beauty, its ephemerality, its singularity. Apparently, no two are ever the same, an apt metaphor for the unique and magical gifts each individual person inherently possesses.
Ambroise deftly infuses vulnerability with a commanding yet graceful sense of authority.
Read NicheMTL‘s entry on Ambroise.
Erika Angell, The Obsession with Her Voice (Constellation Records)
Speaking out in society is a manifestation of the profoundest human agency.
Using one’s voice is the most basic, most fundamental, and most universal mode of earthly communication. So much so that our ears are naturally designed to hear best in the 1-4 kHz frequency range, precisely the spectrum into which the voice fits.
Before the word was written, it was spoken. And after writing in its overabundance loses all significance, the voice achieves new power in song.
Read NicheMTL‘s interview with Erika Angell.
BIG|BRAVE, A Chaos of Flowers (Thrill Jockey Records)
Loudness is undoubtedly a weapon.
For example, law enforcement authorities in the U.S. have deployed the Long-Range Acoustic Device, abbreviated LRAD, against crowds of protesters at political demonstrations, causing permanent hearing damage in participants. Sirens in Greek mythology enticed sailors with their sweet enchantments to shipwreck upon the rocks.
Playing around at the dangerous extremes of sonic pressure necessitates the utmost in unflinching bravery.
Read NicheMTL‘s entry on Big|Brave.
WE ARE WINTER’S BLUE AND RADIANT CHILDREN, NO MORE APOCALYPSE FATHER (Constellation Records)
An age-old axiom espouses, never meet your heroes. The theory goes that they will inevitably underwhelm you.
But in my experience, I have never been disappointed with heroism on any scale. The key is to choose your heroes wisely and not place unrealistic expectations upon them. Another key is to understand that everyone is extraordinary at something and to recognize and nurture the essential heroic seed intrinsic inside each one of us.
You, too, are someone’s hero.◼︎
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