Angine de Poitrine remain the buzz band of the year. It’s essentially now a legal requirement for guitarists to have a strong opinion on them. If only there was a way to choose a side without three days of doom-scrolling. Wait, there is… It’s Fret Buzz!
Catch me up. Who are these clowns?
Is your Wi-Fi down or something? Angine de Poitrine are a Québécois experimental rock duo and viral phenomenon. They’re everywhere. Selling out tours. Drawing record crowds at the Montreal Jazz Festival. Wigging out on Later With Jools Holland. Opening for Jack White. Poor old Rick Beato has begged people to stop emailing about them. He can’t keep on top of his inbox.
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What kind of music do they play?
A sort of stabby, scronky math-rock, using loop pedals and microtonal guitars. It’s pretty good. But the music is arguably just a footnote in their overnight fame.
Do you think their polka-dot costumes and papier-mâché masks might have something to do with it?
It seems likely. If you’ve ever thought, “I quite like rock ‘n’ roll but wish it had a soupçon of street-theatre whimsy”, this is the act for you. The lineup features a guitarist (Khn) with a proboscis you could use to artificially inseminate livestock. And a drummer (Klek) who looks like the bastard child of a dalmatian and the Pulp Fiction gimp.
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Slipknot and Ghost wear masks too. But I don’t hear you taking the piss out of them…
That’s because we’re scared they’ll send us a dead crow in the mail. I mean, what are these guys going to do – perform a strongly expressed mime?
Where did Angine de Poitrine come from, anyway?
The official PR line is that they’re 333-year-old time-traveling aliens. And they’re not a band, by the way, they’re a “mantra-rock Dada Pythago-Cubist orchestra”.
That sounds a little pretentious. Isn’t ‘poitrine’ French for ‘boobs’?
Yes. And some people would say that’s a fair description of them.
It sounds to me like they’re getting on your nerves.
Well, like I said, the music is really interesting. But the backlash has already started. Devin Townsend recently pondered: “Would they have that same attention if they weren’t wearing big clown noses?”
Well, would AC/DC get the same attention if Angus Young wore jeans and a T-shirt?
Yes! We think so. Wouldn’t they? We’ve never actually thought about that before.
So Devin has spent his entire career dressing soberly, in a bid to draw precisely no notice to himself, has he?
Er, not really. There were the white top hats. And now you mention it, I think he dressed up as a superhero in the PowerNerd video.
I mean, are polka dots inherently annoying?
They don’t have to be. Buddy Guy and Randy Rhoads’ guitars were riddled with the pox and we still love those guys. That reminds us: Khn might even have a signature Godin microtonal double-neck in the works.
What are microtones anyway?
Oh, you Westerners! Microtones are the in-between notes you pass through when you’re tuning to standard pitch. Angine de Poitrine are far too arty to be constrained by your fusty 12-semitone system.
So these guys could discover, I dunno, H sharp?
Er, sure… If Cruella de Vil doesn’t flay them for their spotted skin first.
