M appeal

>> The world is watching
at M for Montreal

FEATURED: Creature

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

The hype around Montreal’s indie music scene has subsided, certainly, but it’s hardly dead. It’s clear that for the organizers of the two-day M for Montreal event, the M could stand for “momentum” as well. In fact, now entering its second edition, M for Montreal is witnessing its own forward motion.

While the general public is eagerly welcomed to the two night-time showcases, the main target audience is delegates from festivals and media abroad, flying in for more than just poutine-related stomach-aches.

“It’s all about trying to showcase the best export-ready Montreal bands for very specific international tastemakers,” says Envision Management’s Ryhna Thompson, stepping in as general manager of M for Montreal this year.

“Export-ready,” Thompson explains, means, “they’re at a level, performance-wise, that they can compete against other international acts, but also that they have some sort of support around them—a label, a manager—so that they can play on the opportunities that come up.” The acts that qualify this year include Creature, the Hot Springs, Karkwa, Thunderheist, Torngat, Priestess and numéro#.

Avalanche Productions’ Sébastien Nasra, co-founder of M for Montreal, recalls the genesis of the event with a laugh—“A couple of pints of lager in London with my friend Martin Elbourne, my partner and co-founder in this thing.” Elbourne, programmer of the Glastonbury and Great Escape music fests in the U.K., planned on a pit stop in Montreal when he and several colleagues made their annual pilgrimage to New York’s CMJ fest, and proposed that Nasra whip together a low-key, private one-night showcase of local acts.

“When I came back from that trip, though, my head started spinning,” says Nasra, and in a mere two months, he’d assembled the inaugural M for Montreal night. Did it serve its purpose? Just ask Patrick Watson, the Besnard Lakes or DJ Champion.

“It started as this funny idea and then became this pilot project,” says Nasra. “After doing it in Montreal, I really felt there was something there—the formula, the feedback we got.” Offshoots at MIDEM in Cannes, SXSW in Texas and a night in L.A. followed quickly, and now M for Montreal comes home, substantially larger.

“This year, what we’re doing is way more organized and structured—we’re going from seven bands to 16, 16 delegates to 35, media partnerships with NME, Inrockuptibles and Der Spiegel, the three biggest tastemaking magazines or Web zines in Europe right now.”

Nasra and Thompson are justifiably proud of the quality and originality present in Montreal music, and moreover the ever-increasing interaction between the two linguistic cultures here, and they’re psyched to be sharing this with the right people from around the world. “We’re playing the role of a filter for them,” says Nasra, “and we want them to come back every year now, and know that whatever has the M brand is what they’re looking for.”

On Monday, Oct. 15 at Studio Juste Pour Rire
(with Plants & Animals, Priestess, Bloodshot Bill
and numéro#) and Cabaret (with Chocolat,
We Are Wolves, Torngat and Breastfeeders),
and on Tuesday, Oct. 16 at Studio Juste
Pour Rire (with Krief, Hot Springs, Elsiane and
Creature) and Cabaret (with Shapes and Sizes,
Karkwa, the Stills and Thunderheist),
all shows at 7 p.m., $17.50