M pour Montreal presents: Martha Wainwright + Groenland

Martha Wainwright

Rialto

November 16 2016

Martha was the opening act of M pour Montreal festival this year.

The festival was created to help our local talent shine in front of promoters from all around the globe.

Martha is a one of a kind artist that I love to go listen to, but mostly watch because she is quite the entertainer.

She is really funny, talented, great at storytelling, quite a good musician, goofy, but she also looks like she has ADHD.

It is a great part of her charm that at every show she forgets the lyrics to her songs or how they start or forgets parts of them while playing. She usually asks someone or restarts the song. She has a great sense of derision about it and it is great to watch her for that alone.

Since the festival is all about promoting artists so they can shine elsewhere, i wonder how promoters see Martha when she cant even finish or start her own songs...

But I really like her and always up to see her shows when she is around.

That night Martha was joined on stage by a piano player, a stand-up bassist and her cousin for some songs.

She showed up dressed to impress in a ... jumpsuit!

During the set she played a mix of new songs, covers and few older songs.

On Traveller, she was joined by her cousin while her pianist was playing instruments at the same time.

She goes on to play a weird song, but with her usual craziness it just works out great.

The next song is the first time she plays it live and the first time playing it with the bassist so it ends up magical obviously with a Martha touch.

She played a song for Safia Nolin which is a cover of a Gerry Boulet song and singing it with a charming french quebecois accent to accentuate that it is a Gerry song. 

It is funny and great to hear.

While playing the song, Martha asks forgiveness when she misses a few chords, but it doesnt matter to her and she continues to play nonetheless.

She then speaks to the crowd in her usual half French half English sentences and mentions it in the middle of it all which makes it more funny to everyone.

Her next song is one of those songs that she just recorded, but cant remember how it starts.

She argues a few minutes with her pianist and the laugh about it.

"Franci" was really great live with an intense guitar riff mixed with her great voice.

It doesnt matter that she missed a few beats and lyrics because it is that good.

"So Down" is also really good, played with an electric guitar and since the song is played really fast with a lot of beats it feels fresh since it is a departure from most of what Martha usually plays.

The synths also add a lot to the song mixed with the different tempo of the song which goes fast then slow and starts again strong.

She wanted to play "Francis" which is a new song written by her brother Rufus, but she couldnt remember the lyrics.

She asks her entourage to see if anyone printed out the lyrics, but no one did..."fuck!"

She decided to try and improvise if needs be...so of course she couldnt remember the lyrics and does her improvisation and ends the song quickly with super fake lyrics. 

Great little moment with the crowd because of this.

After a few other songs, she did an encore which meant it was almost time to go unfortunately.

She sang a Leonard Cohen song with lyrics on a piece of paper to end the festivities.

Great show and looking forward to her next one in April!

Setlist:

 

Groenland

Rialto

November 16 2016

I like Groenland and i've seen them once at Osheaga and also opening for another band not long ago.

The only difference that night was that everyone was sitting on chairs at the Rialto...

You might think it's not a big deal, but it is since the group offers an energetic electro/jazz/pop performance that you need to dance too to really appreciate fully.

This show is also used to promote them worldwide as part of M pour Montreal.

The performance was really good and energetic.

On stage were quite a few musicians including a cello player, violinist, someone on the synths, a bassist, drummer and the singer.

We heard quite a lot of good songs that could ignite some great parties and the crowd was there to clap along to the beats.

The singer had a great deep voice and the bassist was having quite a good time jumping around.

Overall good show and great opener band for Martha.

Exploratory day: Bjork Dj Set

Bjork (Dj set)

October 26 2016

Cirque Eloise

The Red Bull Music Academy organised this event where Bjork was going to do a Dj set for 3 hours over 2 days in a very small venue in old port Montreal.


I was going to go to this event for a few reasons:
-I've been following Bjork since the Sugarcubes
-Bjork has been creating such a wide palette of music
-I tought i would discover a lot of new music
-i was going to a club event to dance all night



Needless to say that Bjork was quiet most of the night and letting her music make statements about herself. She was masked and playing in a forest setting from a small corner of the room which was the weirdest aspect of the night.



I was going to the first set of the festival so i didnt know what to expect at all.

The show started with 20 minutes of birds chirping and singing then finally followed some soft singing and really atmospheric.


Throughout the night as an effort to be able to listen to some of this stuff later i was trying to Shazzam the songs which tended to be more difficult than i had expected...



At some point she started to have some songs with more beats and thats when she started dancing.
Those beats werent easy to dance to for anyone in the room other than Bjork who seemed to be really into it. I guess you really had to be in her head to understand.

After more than an hour, some beats were normal enough to be able to start dancing for a bit until it all switched to really experimental music.
Bjork was combining a lot of samples to create new music throughout the event like a real dj would do and thats part of what i expected from the night.



As time went, she played song with more rhythm and more played some pop songs such as Ariane Grande which was a big surprise and a big departure from everything that we came to expect from the evening or Bjork.



The last half hour of the show when most people had gone, she started playing whole songs with not a lot of sampling but probably just what she wanted to hear.

She left by waving her hand goodbye and she never said a word the whole set hidden behind her cat mask.



That night she played 3 hours of music fetching from all spheres of music from electro, industrial sonority, classical music, minimalism, Pakistan soufis singing, hindouist traditional, african mandingue percussions, indie pop and R&B.


Too bad for Bjork that a good part of the crowd couldnt really get into the music but it was good to hear what she was inspired by.
The crowd dispersed quite early around 11pm with only few left when she "said" goodbye at 12:03am.





Shazzamed:

-shara worden "death speaks no1"

-robbie basho. "Salangadou"

-peder Mannerfelt "limits to growth"

-Arca "snakes"

-serpentwithfeet "four ethers"

-Rahsaan Roland Kirk "inflated tear"

-Sampha "plastic 10c"

-Mala "kotos"

-w0rm "b612"

-compton white "mainland"

-lanark artefax "virtual bodihes"

-odeko "tsundoku"

-arca "vanity"

-teengirl fantasy "lung"

-abida parveen "aaj rang hai"

-aby ngana diop "ndadje"

-anohni "4 degrees"

- cadenza feat avelino "no drama"

-anohni "obama"

-pygmies ""nzombi"

-ariane grande "into you"

-nao "bad blood"

-usha uthup "i will survive (party cover)"

-jeremih "planes","oui"

-reshma "lambi judai"