M for MONTREAL 2023 | From Beats to Bylines: Uncovering the Pulse of the 5 day festival

The wise latchkey scholar and gen-x emblem of rebellious joie-de-vivre Ferris Bueller once opined “life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”  M for Montreal turns 18 this year, and truth be told, it came at us pretty fast, but worry not dear reader, we here at Best Kept Montreal have stopped and looked around. This coming of age celebration hit us like a ton of bricks, and we might have had a few missteps along the way, but we caught most of it, so that you wouldn’t miss a thing.

The festivities really opened up on Tuesday at the “Fight the Jetlag”  industry mixer presented by Bravo Music. The night ended with a much celebrated and talked about performance by Laraw at Le Ministère. I’m going to be honest here, I totally missed her performance at Le Ministère, and I’ve never heard of this person, all I have to go on is what people said and rumor has it, her performance was incredible and it blew everyone out of the water. Her Live show was nothing as reductive as what you find online. It was a confident potpourri of hip-hop, grunge and sing-songy soulful lyricism making for an as of yet, original and unheard of experience.

Wednesday Ausgang was hosting Mattmac. A native, blind vocalist with solid stage presence accentuated by ill guitar licks courtesy of Johnny Griffin and solid scratching from his attendant DJ Pro-V, who came through with the deep bangin’ beats. Hopeful,  honest, and kind lyrics accompany an emotional performance. It’s a little west coast, and a little Hawaian. With music somewhere between 808 and Heartbreaks and ATB vs Paul Van Dyk the effortlessly combined elements emanate from a courageous frame, rocking classic Nike Air Uptempos from the turn of the millennium.

His Akon cover discussing living and sleeping in the res rang true. Haters say he wants to sound like Justin Bieber, I say,  he’s definitely giving us an honest look at what he feels behind the eyes and inside the soul and if that makes for pop friendly tracks young ladies want to groove to, this curmudgeonly old man will gladly step aside and allow the artist his moment in the sun.

Feeling the dangers of an empty stomach, our fearless leader Alistar invited us for a snack session over at Nacho Libre. This happy watering hole is the chillers loft we all dreamed of owning in the pre Y2K world. The music, the posters featuring the best pop-culture icons of the late 70’s, 80’s and 90’s including but not limited to all of our favorite action stars and super models, the nes, the super nes; everything is perfectly tailored to a generation’s sensibilities, to the unabashed glory of an era lost in time, and the nacho platter was divine.

We jumped across the street to Theatre Plaza where Audiogram presented a few bands, the main one being Elliot Maginot. We had a bit of an interview. Nice guy. We met him after the show, and he is a kind and disarmingly cool dude. You wouldn’t know it just from casual conversation but he’s got a shocking and adroit vocal repertoire. Angelic range exploring an ambitious artistic curiosity. Some of his online stuff led me to expect something somewhere akin to Woodkid and Hozier.

Dreamy, melodic aerials, high harmonies, progressive, country desert like music with a dope backing band. His vocal range is legitimately mesmerizing but what I feel I got was a bit of an anomaly. He might have been a little drowned out by the sound mix of the band. It felt like the  intro to FernGully to be honest when all the animals are waking up, “Life is a magic thing”? Like we were attending the shotgun wedding of Paul Simon & Toto’s secret lovechild with some Edwardian Sharp, Kings of Leon, Frankenstein’s Monster. And the night had somehow mated with the floor stomping bombast of your favorite Scotian uncle’s band he’s got with his buddies at the local pub.

It was like all of their usually solid and subtle elements were piled on top of each other as loudly  and groovily as possible. The Saxman is forever awesome and basically held the whole thing together, he rounds out the sound and takes it into new territory. But for some reason I couldn’t even really hear Elliot Maginot, nor enjoy the subtleties with which he usually imbues his work but ya know what? It was a good and dancy time. Just less measured and performative than I was hoping for.

The British James’ have evolved over time into an entire genre of their own. I can’t tell if it’s Blunt, or Morisson or Bay that’s playing at any given time, but it felt as though whatever viral predilection had infected them, had also spread to our hometown hero Maginot. The purple and neon seafoam lighting scheme wasn’t helping.

The night ended back at Ausgang with Boy Golden. They really gets the whites going. It was like an honest to goodness hootenanny. Line dancing and all. Real salt of the earth country shit. For a moment Boy Golden’s music transported me back to a Wilson era, old fashion deep south picnic/cookout with all the requisite hootin’, hollerin’, spittoons, torches and shotgun shells. It’s not really my bag, and the security guy looked like he was having an embolism but the canvas kicks, oversized boots and white sneaker crowd were stomping hard, and the tight pant legs were kicking up a storm.

Like any coming of age, this year’s M for Montreal was a topsy-turvy concoction of both the ill and iller. The kind of highs, lows, and laterals that capture a moment in a flash. It’s a frame that shows a picture of what’s to come. Giving us a reason and countless examples to enjoy, root for, and promote Canadian music. Beyond the blur two acts really percolated through.

At first, the words Peter Dreams may sound like a mid 80’s CBS drama series nestled between Touched by an Angel and St-Elsewhere, but it is in fact the chosen nom de guerre of one of Toronto’s most captivating, assured, enthralling, and explosive musical voices on his new solo venture. Dreams, who’s real name is Dreimanis, was at Sala Rosa on Thursday, at a crazy late hour. We witnessed the debut of his solo project and if stage presence and talent are any measure of success Peter’s is one dream I believe in.

Every song feels like an old classic. Intense though measured, warm yet furious, electric and clean, while volatile and eruptive. It’s like witnessing a powder keg ignite in slow motion,  the plumes of sharp wood shards, and curling smoke flaming out across the room in perfect bliss before the speed is ramped back to real time.

The way he shares space with his instrumentalists from Moonriivr is perfection. Every member of the ensemble is given ample space to shine creating a tight, curated, improvised bonfire. Peter conveys something of a trapped tiger on stage, equal parts Gord Downie, Silver Jew, Tom Waits, and Nick Cave. Like Jack White who’s balls dropped lower after a lifetime of drink, smoke, heartache and strange decisions. Like a gravelly voiced Charles Buckowski and Dane DeHaan are having a psychotic break and the result is a parallel universe of heart wrenching karaoke hits everyone wishes were staples already.

Flash forward a couple days and M managed to end with a bang! What can be said about Cartel Madras who’s ink has been steadily spilling across Canada since 2019? Soulful, street and dangerous, with machine gun flows, and the DJ constantly dropping bombs, it was the first time that day I didn’t think ‘ceasefire’.

Words like an explosively hype punch to the face come to mind. Youthful, complimentary, playful and all around a lovely fun time? A kick to the balls and punch to the gutt?

I’d also like to mention an unsung hero of the duo, their DJ and producer who is at the heart of the party. And they are a party. Cartel Madras are what I wish people knew young people were like. They’re what I wish young people always showed themselves to be. They’re a loud brazen blend of balls-out fire, cultures and creativity, with kind hearts on their sleeves, sharp minds, eyes that see and a “we’ll cut you if we have to” demeanor. Courageous, and dangerous, yet kind.

Sometimes 90’s dance electronica, sometimes Run the Jewels, old school Azealia Banks, M.I.A with trip-hop and breakbeats steaming through. Workout music, do-you music, dismantle the oligarchs and patriarchy music, happy hardcore, let’s fuck music.

The internet doesn’t do them justice, their live presence is where they shine. So catch them if you can wherever they may be. They cover all the bases. Fun, chatty, lighthearted onstage personas, they welcome you in while making the party feel like an afterparty, full of jumpscares, fear & loathing, and a lust for life, they are the present, and the future, and the perfect representation of a world that itself seems to be coming of age anew.

Getting here was hard, but the next part is even harder, surviving with our lust for life intact, Goodluck M for Montréal, may the sun never set on the good times you provide. Good read? check out my other anecdotes here.