Pop Montreal Festival-Highly Recommended

There are festivals and then there are festivals.  If you like great music and your a Canadian resident or happen to be visiting Canada this summer then you should seriously consider checking out the the Pop Montreal Festival. The festival is taking place September 30th through October 4th and has an impeccable line up including but not limited to Faust, Buffy Sainte Marie,  Sufjan Stevens, Yo La Tengo, Jay Reatard, Japandroids, Fever Ray, and Sam Shalabi’s Egyptian Light Orchestra.

If it is at all possible to attend this festival  you should. I know that Montreal is beautiful and great for music, but their is something that makes this festival particularity interesting-Faust.

You may or may not have heard of Krautrock pioneers-Faust, but I can almost guarantee that one of your favorite bands cite them as an influence. If you happen to be in the dark about them there is no better time to get acquainted with one of the more compelling bands to emerge in the 20th century. I grabbed this little segment about the band form Pop Montreal’s website and it more than adequately describes why Faust is so important.

“Faust are key figures in 20th Century music. In the early 70’s, along with Can and Kraftwerk, they re-invented pop music as a specifically European art-form. Virtually imprisoned by Polydor in their own studio for two years, they were able to revolutionize the whole process of musical production; they improvised with Industrial noise, generated bizarre hypnotic grooves, indulged in shockingly willful studio-based collages, and dabbled with every conceivable musical genre, sometimes simultaneously! Every now and then they found time for a burst of satirical pop, or occasional waves of delicate ambiance. Amongst those Faust have strongly influenced we must count Brian Eno, Joy Division, Cabaret Voltaire, Test Department, Neubauten, My Bloody Valentine, Julian Cope and a host of Industrial and Techno bands. The music has lost none of it’s immediacy or relevance – it sounds as if it was recorded last week, not last decade.”

If bringing Faust to North America wasn’t enough the Festival will also feature another music legend Buffy Saint Marie. Buffy Saint Marie gained recognition in the 1960’s for her protest songs.  Buffy’s music was so pensive that an overly paranoid Lyndon Johnson administration decided to blacklist her; in my opinion that is a huge complement.

Today, Buffy is an educator and fine artist who marries seemingly paradoxical themes such as Native Americans and Computers. If you haven’t heard her music, I recommend listening to the song God Is Alive, Magic is Afoot of her classic LP Illuminations.The festival will also feature live performances from some of today’s more compelling acts such as Thee Oh Sees and Kid Kola’s project The Slew.  If you are interested in attending the festival or want more information you can visit Pop Montreal’s official website here.  I highly recommend that you do. Pop Montreal is easily one of the best festivals to take place this year and it’s happening in fall so you won’t have to sweat your ass off.