RSS

It’s hard to put into words what the TUKAN experience really is, but I’ll try. Let me set the scene. A year and a half ago, during Montreal’s Jazz Fest on July 5, 2024, my friend went to see Berlioz at MTELUS. After the show, she asked the band the classic question: “Where’s the afters?” In what felt like fate, they replied, “We’re going upstairs.” Upstairs was where TUKAN was performing. I wasn’t there that first night, but the next morning, my friend called me and said she’d had the most life-changing experience. She tried to explain: TUKAN is a band that creates a live fusion of jazz, electronic, and instrumental music in real time. She couldn’t stop dancing and wouldn't stop talking about it. The fact that she went back again the following night told me everything I needed to know. I had to experience it myself.

The moment the four members stepped on stage and touched their instruments, I knew this was going to be one of those once-in-a-lifetime shows. From the first notes, I was pulled into their world. My body started moving, not with the usual concert sway of hips or casual shoulder shimmies, but with a flow that felt instinctive, like the music itself was guiding me. Montreal’s concert scene can be intimidating: crowds of stoic faces, subtle nods, and a quiet seriousness that sometimes overshadows the fun. TUKAN flipped that on its head. Their performance drew in people from all walks of life and invited everyone to let go, to dance without pretense. Suddenly, the room was alive with bodies fully surrendered to the sound. Tukan’s music builds in layers, ethereal tones stacking on one another, instruments weaving together until everything erupts in a beat drop that suspends time. In those moments, it felt like the entire crowd disappeared into a single rhythm, lost together in space and sound. With memories of Jazz Fest still burning in my head, the expectations for this night were sky-high.

After the longest introduction possible, let’s finally dive into TUKAN performance on Thursday, September 25, at Pop Montreal. I went with the same friends as last year, so we’d been waiting for their return for months. We walked into Bar Le Ritz PDB at 8:25 pm, just before the scheduled start time. Only five or ten people were scattered across the floor, and for a moment I wondered if we were in the right place. Surely that life-changing experience a year and a half ago had stuck with more people than just us. But of course, this is Montreal. The band was late, and so was everyone else. Our own anticipation made us forget what four years of living here had taught us: nothing starts on time, and nobody leaves the house before 10:30 pm. Still, the early arrival worked in our favour. We grabbed drinks and claimed a perfect spot front and center, barely a foot from the stage. At 9:00 pm, the opener, Poets Workout Soundsystem, burst onto the stage. Andrienne Amato wore a bright fuchsia Adidas tracksuit, while Andrew Whiteman, best known from Broken Social Scene, showed up in a red and white Adidas tracksuit, looking like he had stepped straight out of an '80s time capsule. Together they created fast, playful BPMs layered with groovy beats, radical poetry samples, and trippy visuals. Andrew, masked with oversized bug eyes, broke into funky shuffles and crumping moves that had me and my friends laughing. It wasn’t mocking laughter, more the kind that comes when something is so joyfully strange you can’t help but smile. That joy was the point. Their performance reminded me how fun itself can be a form of resistance. Oppression thrives on people feeling trapped and joyless, and here were two artists sampling poets like Ed Sanders, Alice Notley, and Nathaniel Mackey to argue the opposite: dancing, laughing, and celebrating are part of the fight. They even threw small posters into the crowd with QR codes that linked to a document listing all the poets and texts they had used. It was clear their goal was to educate as much as entertain, and the message landed: joy matters. Fun matters. In a capitalist system that infiltrates every corner of our lives, sometimes the most radical thing we can do is dance.

And just to make the moment even more surreal, Tukan themselves were standing right behind us in the crowd, watching their opener.

After a quick instrument changeover, the lights turned red and the four Belgian musicians who make up Tukan stepped onto the stage. To paint the scene, here’s how they stood from left to right: Samuel, rocking a shaggy blue mullet, stood at the keys; next was Nathan on bass; center stage sat Alexandre, freshly buzzed and with bright red hair that glowed perfectly under the lights as he settled in at the drums; and finally, on the far right, was Andrea on guitar. Samuel started things off, laying down the first notes, and one by one the others joined in, each adding a crucial layer to the sound unfolding before us. At its core, their music is a fusion of jazz and electronic dance, with clear psychedelic rock influences, but even that feels like an oversimplification. Their sound pulls from so many genres that trying to box them in does a disservice to what they actually do. The second the music hit, I was transported. Watching it happen live is like witnessing a shared trance, each member completely immersed in their own world yet perfectly attuned to one another. The music takes hold of them, and at the same time, it takes hold of us. You can feel it ripple through the room.

As I’ve said before, and want to emphasize again, Tukan’s performance is unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed. Words fall short when trying to describe what unfolds before your eyes, and even a video recording cannot capture the sensations or emotions their music evokes. The closest comparison I can offer is that of a religious or spiritual experience. I say this not from personal experience, but from what I’ve learned as a Religion and Cultures major. I have read countless accounts where people struggle to explain their encounters with the divine, where language fails, but the experience is deeply felt. In religious settings, people often speak of embodiment, the idea that the body becomes connected to something beyond itself through feeling. For instance, when someone says they saw God, they may not mean it literally, but the emotions and physical sensations they felt made the experience real. That is what TUKAN's performance feels like. It is not just watching a show, but being overtaken by the sensations and emotions the music creates. Another way to frame it is through this idea that artists talk about called the flow state, where you are so absorbed in what you are doing that you lose track of time and thought. During the show, I entered that flow state completely. I was immersed in dancing, letting my body move without hesitation. In a society where we are constantly stimulated by our phones and distracted from simply existing, it has become harder to just be. I once saw a TikTok that phrased it perfectly: technology used to be a way to escape life, and now life has become the escape from technology. TUKAN does the opposite. Their music launches you into pure presence, where space and time pause. For those moments, it feels like being conscious for the very first time. All that exists is the band, the people around you, and yourself.

There is something different about smaller venue concerts when the artists are only a foot away. It feels far more intimate because they can see you, you can see them, and that closeness changes everything. The people around you also become part of it, shaping your own experience while feeding into the band’s as well. Everyone in that room plays a role in what the night becomes. It is an incredible feeling to stand there knowing we had all just shared a once-in-a-lifetime concert. TUKAN cannot really be compared to any other performance I have been to. They stand apart, creating a genre of their own that pushes against musical expectations and results in something uniquely theirs. As a band, and through their music, they embody this idea of collective unity. Each member brings something essential, and one couldn’t exist without the others. I was blown away all over again by the way they layered and blended their instruments right in front of us. The chemistry between them was unreal. The set flowed almost endlessly. A few songs from their last Montreal show popped up, and my friends and I definitely lost it a bit. Each track made us move in our own way, and none of us cared what we looked like.

In my long-winded way, I want to wrap this up by leaving you with a few things to think about. In a world where so many people worry about how they are perceived, there is something deeply beautiful about letting go and not having a single care. If there is only one takeaway from everything I’ve written, let it be this: go to a concert where you do not already know the artist. This is not to say you shouldn’t go to TUKAN's next show, which I absolutely recommend, but to encourage you to seek out that feeling of organic discovery. Go to a concert where you know just one or two songs and allow yourself to experience something new. That is how I found TUKAN, and it is how I have discovered many of my favourite artists. It sounds so simple, but people often get caught up in the idea that you need to know an artist’s entire catalogue to show up at their show. You do not. Some of the best musical experiences happen when you walk in with no expectations.

One final thought: live performance is often essential to who an artist is, and this is certainly true of TUKAN. A video cannot capture what we witnessed that night, and even their recorded songs on Spotify or Apple Music cannot fully convey the experience of seeing them live. Without the performance, you lose the heart of their music-making process, and that process is at the core of what makes TUKAN so extraordinary.

*Warning: reader discretion is advised while reading this article, as the subject matter of death and the holocaust is mentioned often.”

Eleanor The Great  (Currently playing in limited release Cineplex Forum, version originale avec sous-titres français (Cinémathèque québécoise /Montréal, Cinéma Le Clap Ste-Foy/Québec, Le Tapis Rouge/Trois-Rivière,  with a wider release in the coming weeks )

Dir: Scarlett Johansson

Starring: June Squibb, Erin Kellyman, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rita Zohar 

Run Time: 1hr38min 

    Eleanor the Great was never on my radar of releases of the year, but I heard of it from a work colleague at the theatre. When I first heard mention of the title and director, debut for actress Scarlet Johansson, I didn’t know if I let out a groan or a sigh, as what conjured in my mind was another historical period bio picture film just in time for award season. Johansson set her desire and aspirations from a young age for the role of director, having observed the late Robert Redford directing during The Horse Whisperer. A quick research on the film led me to a contrary thought of interest when I read June Squibb, who I found to be a delightful comedic revelation opposite Bruce Dern in Nebraska (2013), as the title character, Eleanor. Maybe this was not going to be the period piece I might have been dreading in my head from the title alone. Rather, the film delves into themes of aging, Jewish identity, dealing with grief and intergenerational friendship.

    94-year-old Eleanor (June Squib) and her best friend Bessie (Rita Zohar), for the past 10 years, have been living as roommates in Florida, where they go shopping together, exercise and enjoy each other's company through conversations. Pointing out their synchronization in an early scene when both are putting on their shoes at the same time with the same movements.  Sometimes these conversations are of the past as Bessie is a holocaust survivor, imparts her stories to Eleanor. After Bessie dies suddenly, Eleanor moves to New York to reconnect with her daughter (Jessica Hatchet) and her grandson (Will Price) in the hopes that this will help with the grief of the loss of her friend. However, her daughter is out of the house most days, and starts talking about a retirement home with a better sense of community, and her grandson seems to be occupied with his friends despite his love for his grandmother. Eleanor seems lost and invisible, missing that connection she had with Bessie

    Her daughter suggests taking classes at the local JJC community centre. Eleanor ends up going; however, instead of going into a class, she unknowingly walks into a support group for Holocaust survivors, who welcome her into the group. On the spot, she shares one of Bessie’s stories, unbeknownst to the consequences that will follow her. Also in the group is Nina, a journalism student who befriends a reluctant Eleanor and decides to make her class assignment topic on Eleanor’s life, even if it’s Bessie’s life. Eleanor distances herself at first, but, feeling alone and isolated, starts digging a deeper hole by telling stories that are not her own.  Despite the generational gap, both Nina and Eleanor bond and help each other overcome their grief and loss, as Nina has recently lost her mother. Along with this, Eleanor reflects on her own Jewish identity, having converted when she married her husband, goes to synagogue with Nina and even prepares for her own BatMitzvah.  However, as their friendship becomes stronger, their bond may become fractured upon the reveal of Eleanor’s true self. 

    The film is a bit clunky as we follow Eleanor down the path of not telling the whole truth of the matter, even though she thinks she means well. I can see how some viewers, especially survivors of the holocaust, will take issue with this narrative function of the film. It was never her story to tell, but Eleanor uses the story as a memory of her friend to help overcome the internal grief she is dealing with over that friend's loss. The same can be said for Nina, who latches on to the support group, and Eleanor, to deal with the loss of her mother. What I can commend the film for as well is the oral history preservation, as painful as it is, it is important so it does not repeat itself. Johansson worked closely with the USC Shoah Foundation for the subplot of the film about Holocaust survivors, as real survivors were cast for the support group. In summary, a solid debut on loss and grief and the friends we find along the way from director Scarlett Johansson. June Squibb is great as Eleanor when the comedy elements come in, but also helms the emotional core of the film alongside her co-star Erin Kellyman. Here’s hoping for some award recognition for June Squibb when award season comes around. 

⭐⭐⭐/⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 

Remi is the host of At The Movies, along with regular Co-Host Danny Auber,y every Tuesday morning from 9-10 AM only on CJLO 1690 AM. They cover local film festivals, have interviews with directors and actors, and talk about a new film or the classics. As well as the iconic sounds of present and past film scores and soundtracks. Follow Remi on Letterboxd.

This being the first concert I've attended solo, I had no idea what to expect walking into Studio TD last week to see Nourished By Time. Showing up fifteen minutes before showtime to a practically empty room made me feel too visible, too seen. But people pooled in, and it allowed me to observe the demographic and feel present in the room, alone but part of a collective. 

Standing in the spaced-out crowd, I noticed a dad and his daughter joking together at a table and an older couple in front of me with arms around each other. A familiar face walked through the crowd, and it took me a second to realize it had been Marcus of Nourished By Time (himself!) making his way somewhere in the back of the crowd to watch the opening act. 

Zsela paralyzed us all with a sound that moved through every inch of the space. She paired the smoothest of voices with a bass that felt like the building would collapse on us with every drop, but the crowd stood hypnotized, swaying and staring at her fluid presence. She snapped us out of it by requesting two deep breaths from the room, and I knew that I was in for something spiritually awakening. 

Nourished By Time had a similar effect, immediately getting to business with his first song off of The Passionate Ones, “Automatic Love”. The first thing that drew me to his stage presence was a pink scarf he kept with him, dancing with it and taking ownership of the stage more and more with every movement and verse. I’m not exaggerating when I say he never. stopped. moving. And neither did I, something I didn’t think I’d be capable of, being so self-conscious just a moment earlier. It was when he played “Daddy”, probably my absolute favourite song of his, that I felt the energy rise significantly around me. Some of us were jumping up and down, and I didn’t even care to think of how silly I must have looked because it felt so necessary, especially with his next song being “9 2 5”, the most fun track off the recent album. He tied his scarf around the wire of the mic right near the top, and proceeded to raise it in the air above his head and then slung it over his shoulder, allowing the long pink scarf to drape over him as he worked the keys. Someone at the very front was filming with a PlayStation Vita, which put my little digicam to shame. 

“It’s all for him” is what I have written in my notes from that night. He danced as if he were the only person in the room, alone with his music and himself. As he sang “Max Potential”, the lyrics mirrored his act and album concept so accurately: “You’re not passionate at all, and that’s all on you.”. Songs like that make you want to lock yourself in your room for days and never stop creating. The older gentleman who was with his wife from earlier was in front of me and was wearing a backwards hat that said “(art)”, and I thought, “yes! yes! exactly!”. 

With a diverse demographic, the most heart-wrenching (yet unavoidably danceable) music, and the fueling of passion in your heart, Nourished By Time is a performance everyone

should see if they wish to be reminded that we should all be working towards something greater than ourselves, and that you should never stop moving.

   “So you got the FME virus and you’re here for the cure,” remarked one of the many volunteers who make the festival possible. That cure? A sonic elixir composed of music, music and more music. Over the four days of Labour Day weekend, August 28th through the 31st, the northern Quebec city of Rouyn-Noranda served as the incubator for the vaccine. So began the twenty-third edition of FME, Festival Music Emergent 2025.    

  The first dose of the anti-virus arrived on Thursday with a trio of bands at the Cabaret du La Dernière Chance. Leading off was Crasher, a three-piece electronic punk band fronted by Airick Asher Woodhead on lead vocals, Kai Thorpe on bass and this evening, the driver of the band, Tyrin Kelly, on drums. 

  Neysa Mae Barnett and Emile Larroche are UTO, an electronic pop duo from Paris, France. Dressed in da-glo neon green outfits with matching glow-in-the-dark electronic keyboards, they offered up cuts from their back catalogue and from their latest release, More Heat to the Fire Part of Fire, and yes, parts of the show were fire, but parts of the show could have used a bit more heat. Although, to the band's credit, in the black light-lit venue, it all appeared quite futuristic, so that was pretty cool.   

  Festival veterans Bibi Club, out of Montreal, Adèle Trottier-Rivard on vocals and keyboards and Nicolas Basque on guitar, closed out the evening. The duo showcased their latest work, Feu De Garde. They were clearly having a great time powering through their hour-long set that was more aggressive and much more amplified than the highly produced studio album. Quite often, guitarist Basque could be found prancing all over the small stage, hamming it up, even invading the space of Trottier-Rivard while she was lighting up the keyboards. All to the great delight of the adoring, appreciative, packed house.

  Breaking away from the art pop theme of the first day, Population II hit the main stage Friday night. With Pierre-Luc Gratton on vocals and drums, Tristan Lacombe on guitar and keyboards, and Sébastien Provençal on bass proved that old school rock and roll is alive and well. Blending psychedelic rock and funk, the Montreal trio spun tight jams often just on the edge of control.

  Friday, the first full day of the festival, had scheduled the highly anticipated appearance of the band Solids at Cabaret de la Dernière Chance. The punk duo of Xavier Germain Poitras on guitar & vocals and Louis Guillemette on drums & vocals were returning to the stage after a five-year absence. From their performance, one could see that they had built up a lot of pent-up energy over those five years as they blasted through their critically acclaimed album, Blame Confusion. The packed, stifling hot venue appreciated every moment of their return to the extent of even demanding a couple of encores that the band wasn’t really prepared for.   

  Pounding a riff into the ground until it screamed for mercy, Montreal’s experimental rock trio Yoo Doo Right got the ball rolling for the Solids set with a hot, high-energy performance of their own.  

  FME is famous for its pop-up, impromptu concerts that take place throughout Rouyn-Noranda. Often held in an alley, park or parking lot, the city becomes encased in music. Frequently heard in the background, the music floats adrift in the breeze, past with one left wondering or even searching for the source. Garage/ pop band La Flemme provided such an event Saturday afternoon when they could be heard along the boardwalk. Like Sirens of yore, the calling of the band's groovy rhythms was able to lure unwary bystanders away from their shopping and onto a nearby bench.   

  A day earlier, a tad before midnight Friday ,Baby Berserk took over the parking lot of the local poutine establishment. Hailing from Amsterdam, the pop trio seemed quite at home with the DIY nature of the event. Clad in a bright red raincoat, lead singer Eva Wijnbergen was definitely not lost in the woods when, while pumping out disco-infused synthpop for the ages, she climbed up a nearby lamp post. Much to the delight of the bemused viewers. 

   Toronto’s OBGMs (The oOohh Baby Gimme Mores) graced the main outdoor stage Saturday night. Powered by drummer Colanthony Humphrey, guitarist Simon Outhit, bassist Joe Brosnan and the vocals of Densil McFarlane, the OBGMs fuse punk, rock, and hip-hop. McFalane often jumped into the amped up crowd as he belted out songs from their much-acclaimed album, The Ends.   

  In hindsight, everything that happened Saturday night seemed to lead up to the late-night, last show of the evening that was being held in the dank, spooky basement of Petit Thèâtre du Vieux Noranda. Unaware of what was about to happen, soaking in the goth atmosphere, like a deer in the headlights when the few houselights dim, then a suppressed atom waiting to explode from its nucleus that goes by the name, Baby Volcano, erupted onto the FME scene.  Combining Latin American rhythms with hybrid-pop, the Swiss-Guatemalan artist melded music and dance into a trippy, strobe lights-accentuated psychedelic frenzy. Singing in both French and Spanish, and a background in contemporary dance, Baby Volcano is the nom de guerre of artist Lorena Stadelmann. 

  Sunday, alas Sunday, the final day of the festival, filled with ominous dread, the end of FME for another year. To help soothe the soul, there was an afternoon concert by Vancouver’s Empanadas Illegales. With their jammy salsa cumbia rhythms and infectious grooves, the sextet provided the perfect musical backdrop for a lovely Sunday afternoon in a park. Or in this case, the city's botanical gardens. The band, Jaime Millan guitar, Ricardo Perez guitar and vocals, Andrea Milagros maracas, Jocelyn Waugh trumpet, Alonso Benavente Fortes congas and percussion and Daniel Ruiz drums, timbales and vocals, had the smiling crowd dancing to their beat all while munching on the complimentary corn roast. 

  With the famous metal extravaganza and closing concerts not until late into the evening hours, there was still time to catch the last of the unscheduled pop-up concerts. This one was being held at a picturesque stage along the lakeside boardwalk of Parc Trémoy. For those who missed her extraordinary performance the night before Baby Volcano was scheduled. Sprung from the familiar confines of an atmospheric, dark, dank basement and exposed to the bright sunshine and an all-age audience, the band seem to take it as a challenge to escape from their norm. Singing in both French and Spanish with a background in contemporary dance, gone were the trippy strobe lights and some of the artistic frills; in their stead was the depth of their repertoire. Donning a blonde wig and channelling, much to the surprise and applause of the audience, Baby Volcano’s alter ego of sort, a classical flamenco guitarist.    

  The big closing event featured Les Freaks de Montréal and their homage to legendary Quebec band Aut’Chose or as they say, “Un bummage à Aut’Chose.” Featuring the star-studded collective which brought together members of Voïvod, GrimSkunk, Groovy Aardvark, Tricky Woo, and Entre Aut’. Joining them for this special night was a who’s who of the festival lineup. Putting their own take on the classic songs, Montreal art pop artist N Nao and Pierre-Luc Gratton from Population ll were just two of many to join in the celebration of Aut’Chose. The concert certainly lived up to the hype, but unfortunately for the following band, they raised the bar quite high that not many could match. 

  From the classic rock of Aut’Chose to the bizarre Psych/Fusion of Montreal band TEKE::TEKE. Or was this FME’s version of And Now For Something Completely Different? The psychedelic rock septet fuses Japanese folk, Brazilian garage and psych rock. “While gazing at the sky one afternoon, TEKE::TEKE vocalist Maya Kuroki saw a cloud that looked like it had a bite taken out of it. The word that came to her mind, Hagata. Something profound: a trace, a mark, or a presence left behind, a sense of duality—of being in-between worlds.” This was taken from the band's press release used to describe their album, the music they perform and just by chance, maybe even the festival they performed at. 

  The metal show, always Sunday night, an FME icon in its own right, scheduled Montreal’s deathcore legends Despised Icon to end the trio of metal bands (Digital Ghosts and Scorching Tomb were the prior). Pounding the metal pavement for twenty-odd years, the band did not show any signs of slowing down. Dual lead vocalists, Alex Erian and Steve Marois, pummeled the sold-out theatre with machine gun-like short wrap style vocals behind the crashing, mosh pit frenzied beats of Alex Pelletier on drums, Sebastien Pichè on bass and Eric Jarrin on lead guitar.

  For those who refused to call it a night, there was one last chance to dance, to sway, to postpone the inevitable. Automelodi at the small outdoor Fizz Stage. The alley is dark, the stage afire in red light while the fog machine works overtime. The dense electronic grooves of Montreal synthpop songwriter/producer Xavier Paradis seem to be the perfect match for the moment. Then it ends abruptly without warning. Our hero leaves, exiting into the dark night. No encore, no more FME. The brain and body reel, longing for sensory overload. The late-night DJ turns up the volume, pumping out the beats for the few remaining stragglers. The kids dance and shake their bones while the old folks drink the last of their beer and stare at the barren festival site. Despite the DJ’s best efforts to keep the antidote flowing, the FME virus could already be felt lingering in the Rouyn-Noranda air. In a last-ditch attempt to fight off the infection, highlights of the festival, memories of the last four days, attempt to serve in lieu of the vaccine. The past, even one so soon, proves to be a placebo at best. For Festival Music Emergent is always about the future, and the real cure is still a year away at FME 2026.  

  Tristan Lacombe (keyboards ) and Pierre-Luc Gratton (drums) of  Population II.

  Baby Volcano and friends.

 Les Freaks de Montréal “Un bummage à Aut’Chose”

Densi McFalane of the OBGMs out among the faithful.