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Hosted by Ahmad Moujtahed

Stories by Ahmad Moujtahed

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LOCAL

After struggling with limited space in the past, Montreal’s McCord Museum will undergo a massive expansion that will triple the exhibition space.

The new $180M expansion will combine the McCord and the recently merged Fashion and Stuart Museums. The plan, which was announced on April 30, proposes to build a brand new structure on top of the existing McCord Museum on Sherbrooke Street near McGill University.

The architectural firm that will design the final plan has yet to be chosen, but museum officials say some parts of the original building will be kept.

Museum officials also hope to convince both arms of the government as well as private investors to fund the project equally.

Upon approval of the project, the McCord Museum will be closed for up to three years during the renovations

NATIONAL 

This year’s flood became the worst recorded in the history of the province of Quebec, when more than 6,000 people fled their homes in a matter of hours in Ste-Marthe-sur-le-Lac; when a dike breached, and water covered one third of the homes in the small town.

After ruling out the idea of holding an emergency debate or inquiry regarding the flood situation, Premiere François Legault says the government will strike a committee of cabinet ministers to come up with an action plan to deal with the aftermath of the devastating spring floods.

Short term measures will include reimbursements for flood damage. As for long term procedures, the action plan contains measures for building infrastructure ; as well as relocating homeowners out of flood zones.

INTERNATIONAL

Celebrated around the globe each year on April 30, International Jazz Day highlights the power of jazz as a force for freedom and creativity while promoting intercultural dialogue through respect and understanding.

This year’s International Jazz Day came to a thrilling close after an extraordinary All-Star Global Concert at the Melbourne Arts Centre's renowned Hamer Hall.

As part of the annual event, two weeks of jazz performances and educational outreach programming took place in cities across the host country Australia. Thousands of students in Sydney's New South Wales public schools took part in jazz education programs at the Sydney Opera House.

Other highlights included a special Jazz Day performance at the Adelaide Festival Centre and a "Women in Jazz" celebration in Perth.

The Global Host City for International Jazz Day in 2020 is Cape Town, South Africa.

Luca Caruso-Moro

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LOCAL

Record flooding continues as communities across eastern Canada scramble to contain the impact of continued downpour.

Here in Quebec, 250 people living along the Rouge River west of Montreal have been told to evacuate.

Officials warn a nearby dam could collapse under the pressures of what Hydro Quebec is calling a millennial flood.

In other words, a flood that comes once every thousand years.

NATIONAL

A five year old missing boy from Mississauga, Ontario has been found.

An amber alert was issued on Wednesday, the suspected kidnapper was the boy’s mother.

The two were found in the Toronto Area by Peel Police, who say that as of now, there are no plans to lay criminal charges

ANOTHER NATIONAL

287 thousand Canadian children didn’t get vaccinated for measles between 2010 and 2017.

That’s according to a recent UNICEF study, which found that 20 million kids missed their shot worldwide.

The lack of vaccinations has been linked to a global measles outbreak.

The past 4 months have shown a 3-4 hundred per cent increase in reported measles cases compared to this time last year.

Ever since the success of their single “Bridges”, from their debut album Evergreen, released in 2014, New Zealand music duo BROODS has held a special place in the indie and electropop scenes. Their music has seen itself evolve from having an airy, tranquil, and soothing ambiance, to a confident and powerful rebirth in their album Conscious, to a flip to colorful and vibrant 80s sounds in their latest album Don’t Feed the Pop Monster, which came out in February 2019. Despite the variety of sounds they have experimented with over the years, everything they have released is guaranteed to start a dance party.

The show opened with British band Bad Sounds, and they were a perfect way to warm up the crowd for the main act. They had a cool retro vibe, and they brought subtle undertones of jazz, hip hop, 80s pop, and punk to their general indie sound. As in any show where the audience doesn’t know the opening act, the crowd seemed unresponsive to them at first, but soon enough, the vibrancy and catchiness of their songs brought people to their feet, genuinely enjoying the music. The feel-good experience uplifted the audience’s mood, and their use of grungy mic feedback and distortion threw everyone right back to a 90s local garage band show, leaving the crowd wanting more after their short set. Needless to say, Bad Sounds were my unexpected - but very pleasant - music discovery of the night.

By the time BROODS came to the stage, the crowd had grown to fill out the whole venue, and everyone cheered as the lights went dark and the first few notes of “Sucker” came on. Georgia, the lead singer, arrived on stage wearing a bright red cowboy hat, an accessory very representative of the shift of the band’s music towards more dynamic tones. As opposed to their performances in previous tours, they played around with echo, reverb, and canon-sounding voices, which gave off very strong house music vibes and made for a cool enveloping experience. The continuous transitions both in sound and lighting between each song were smooth and beautiful, adding to the emotional feel of their set. On top of that, Georgia’s stage presence and energy were incredible and had the whole crowd captivated.

As a long time fan of BROODS, I couldn’t help but notice a change in the audience’s attitude as the band started playing a distorted and remixed version of their song “Superstar”, which was released in their first album. This was the fourth song of the set, but the first one where every single person was singing along and knew every lyric. Despite the liveliness of their newer content, songs from the last two albums were really what awakened the crowd and brought it to life - by the second song they played from their previous album, people were dancing energetically and screaming the lyrics. It was truly heartwarming to see and feel that everyone in the crowd was a long time fan of BROODS, which made the atmosphere ever more special.

“It’s time to party,” said Georgia with a laugh before closing the show with the last few songs. An amazing electric guitar solo, the enthusiastic shaking of a tambourine, and a lot of jumping around later, BROODS was saying goodbye to Montreal in their encore. Their last song “Couldn’t Believe”, which is about the happiness of being in the moment, taken from their previous album, left the audience with a sweet feeling of nostalgia.

Photo: Manvs

When it comes to TV, a series’ best episode is often what’s known as a “bottle episode,” where the entire plot takes place in one sole location (e.g. Seinfeld and the Chinese restaurant).  What makes these episodes so good is that they give the characters a chance to let their chemistry shine through without distractions.

Aux frontière du concret is L’Amalgame’s bottle episode.  The third album of the Montreal hip-hop quintet, consisting of rappers and producer Catboot, (also a producer), rappers Gary Légaré, John Ouain, and Vendou, as well as their DJ, Carey Size, is a product of isolation  The band secluded themselves from the outside world by recording the album across three chalets they rented off Airbnb.  As is the case with bottle episodes, the process managed to strengthen L’Amalgame’s already solid interplay between one another.

“I think we found our way to actually create, be more creative, and create a kind of world and vibe also,” Ouain says from a table at le 180g, a vinyl café significant to the members of the group in their hood of Rosemont.  “When you’re with all your band members 24/7 for three/four days, you develop a language when you’re writing.”

“It’s like you take four bouncing balls in a small box and they always bounce,” Vendou adds, “sometimes they cross and sometimes they hit [each other], and sometimes they hit the same point in the box.  That’s what we’re doing; just bouncing balls and bouncing off each other’s ideas.

“And to make it in the chalet is to close the box,” Légaré further adds, “to tighten the box so our world becomes smaller.  That’s where the magic happens.”

A healthy pressure comes with having only a few days booked to write an album, something that the members of L’Amalgame acknowledge and led to the album they’re proudest of.

“To write a song is not about putting 11 hours into the writing part,” Légaré says.  “It’s about letting it flow, and to be in a chalet situation where we have to do six beats in three days, you have to let it go; you have to get it done.

“I think that defines your writing in a way,” Légaré continues, “because it’s what comes first that is the song at the end of the day.  You can’t come back and change things for two weeks before recording it. You write it down and then you record it, and that’s your verse.”

With Aux frontières du concret, the band members trade rhymes over more trap-indebted beats than found in their previous work.  The change in style works for L’Amalgame though, and the group manages to put a personal spin on a genre that can be staid if done lazily, particularly on tracks like “Correction” and “Concret.”  “You see straight from the beat [that] you heard a generic trap beat, like a YouTube-type beat” Vendou explains.

The three rappers credit L’Amalgame’s “maestro” Catboot for blending the group’s funkier old-school background with the trap sonics embedded in modern hip-hop.  Like a lot of current members of Quebec’s hip-hop community though, the band sought to make music with a nod to the zeitgeist while keeping it rooted in la belle province’s own rap history.  “We want to make music that sounds like a ton of bricks, so I want to crack the concrete,” Ouain says, summing up the group’s ethos for the album.

For Aux frontières du concret’s launch show, L’Amalgame plans on pulling out all the stops, with special guests expected, new stage projections, and plenty of Gatorade bleu cool (the band’s beverage of choice).

“The best shows I’ve seen are release parties,” Ouain says “so I think we’re just gonna try to do the best show, and we’ve really been working on that for a long time.”

The stage has in fact always been central to L’Amalgame, whose members see themselves as much as a sports team as a hip-hop group due to the sheer physicality they put into their performances.

“It’s a really Quebecois-like mentality,” Vendou says, “there’s an expression that says ça c’est du sport,” meaning a task is particularly arduous to achieve.  “It’s an expression, but at the same time for us it’s a reality,” Ouain adds.

The sports-meets-rap metaphor comes through most on Aux frontières du concret’s penultimate track, “Hypemen,” where all four MCs play the role of each others’ hype man in service of the franchise that is L’Amalgame.

“We’ve all been really, especially at shows also, always relying on each other,” Ouain says.  “We always present ourselves kind of as a sports team because we sweat at shows, and it’s like a sport to us.  We always have [each other’s] back, and we’re real friends in real life for a long time.”

L’Amalgame perform at Le Ministère (4521 St-Laurent) on Friday, April 19, 9 p.m., $10/$15

Alex Viger-Collins is the host of Ashes to Ashes, your weekly dose of modern pop, every Tuesday at 1:00 p.m.