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Angine de Poitrine.HO/The Canadian Press
The dissonant chords and avant-garde choreography of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring were so unfamiliar to theatre-goers that they sparked riots at the ballet’s 1913 Paris debut – or so the legend goes.
More than a century later, when Quebec math-rock sensation Angine de Poitrine recently appeared on Tout le monde en parle, the province’s must-watch Sunday night talk show, they provoked the modern-day equivalent. Which is to say that many, many people left angry comments online. Several wondered what the world was coming to.
The uproar may have been a reaction to the fact that, when interviewed, the duo spoke only in an alien language of grunts, rasps and squeals. Or perhaps it was because of their elaborate polka-dot costumes, complete with oversized headpieces that completely obscure their faces (think Monty Python and the Holy Grail on acid). It could equally have been outrage over their music, a breathless rush of sound that is somehow both anxiety inducing and hypnotic.
There’s no doubt Angine de Poitrine’s consummate strangeness has helped propel them from Quebec’s alternative-music scene onto the international stage. The drummer and guitarist from the province’s Saguenay region are selling out shows in Toronto, London and New York, with ticket resales going for hundreds of dollars. Preorders of their second album, released Friday, sold out within hours.
Though normies may take offence to their weirdness, Angine de Poitrine’s fans have found in them a kind of solace. Amid the rise of AI-generated music, theirs is an artistic expression too odd to have been concocted by anything other than humans – or “space-time voyagers,” as they claim to be.
The Saguenay duo – they go by Klek and Khn de Poitrine – have made music together for 20 years, since they were teenagers. Just before the COVID-19 pandemic, they launched Angine de Poitrine (“angina pectoris,” or chest pain, if chest pain rhymed). They released their first album in 2024.
But it wasn’t until this past February that the band became a viral phenomenon, thanks to a set recorded by Seattle radio station KEXP and published on YouTube. The 27-minute video has been viewed seven million times.
Their music is no less striking than their appearance. Khn performs with a custom double-necked guitar-bass that allows him to play microtones, the small intervals between the notes on a piano. They’ve cited Middle Eastern music and Indonesian gamelan as influences. To create layers of sound, Khn operates a looper pedal with bare feet (painted white with black polka dots), while Klek keeps up a frenetic pace on the drums.
It’s difficult to describe the resulting music, which the band has helpfully termed “Dada Pythagorean-Cubist mantra-rock.” The sound is frenzied and mesmerizing, the microtonal harmonies keeping the listener slightly off-balance. It “defies being categorized,” said Chris Lackie, a 54-year-old handyman from Nevada who has created one of multiple Facebook fan clubs devoted to the band.
Since the KEXP performance, the group’s popularity has exploded. They’ve sold out coming tour dates across Canada and internationally, including in New York , Los Angeles, the U.K., France and Belgium. Ticketmaster is offering resale tickets for their Toronto shows at more than $500. Vinyl copies of the band’s first album have sold for as much as $2,000 on Discogs, an online music marketplace.
“I never would have imagined it would turn out like this,” said Philibert Bélanger, artistic director of non-profit concert venue La Petite Boîte Noire, in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, which will host the band later this month. “I’m still amazed.”
Angine de Poitrine played the venue for the first time last summer, when they were still largely unknown outside Quebec alternative music circles. Even then, Mr. Bélanger said, he noticed something cult-like about their audience. Khn and Klek have a signature symbol – a triangle formed between raised hands – and fans reflect the sign back to them during their shows.
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The band dresses in elaborate polka-dot costumes, complete with oversized headpieces that completely obscure their faces.HO/The Canadian Press
This year, Mr. Bélanger is facing unfamiliar challenges, including how to get the band out of the concert hall without being accosted. He’s planning to hire additional security. “We’re not used to dealing with this level of popularity,” he said.
The show was announced in December and sold out in January, before the band took off. Mr. Bélanger said he’s now hearing from distant acquaintances and fans south of the border hoping to get into the 100-person venue. Some have offered him cash.
Mr. Lackie’s fan group has grown to more than 15,000 members since he launched it in mid-February. Half are Canadian, but others are from as far as Greece, Morocco and Australia. Many are Gen X-ers “opposed to anything that’s made by AI,” and to all music they deem generic, he said.
“This is just so different from what’s out there,” he said. “Just crazy different from what’s been put out before.”
As the hype has grown, so too has the hunt to uncover the true identities of Khn and Klek. Their manager, Sébastien Collin, said he’s taken steps to remove mentions of their real names online, while their website was recently updated to warn fans that Angine de Poitrine is “an anonymous art project.”
“Any speculation regarding the identity of its members is unverified, is not endorsed by the group, and may constitute an invasion of privacy,” it says.
Meanwhile, the group is trying to figure out what to do with a spotlight they could not have imagined just weeks ago. Mr. Collin said they’ve been approached about films and documentaries and about lending their image to commercial brands and comic books. There’s no chance, he said, that Angine de Poitrine is just a flash in the pan.
“We’ll have to see where this goes,” he said. “It’s like the possibilities are endless.”
