Fahrenheit 514

>> Making friends with Montreal’s Montag

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

Every few months, something pops out of the local scene that really grabs me. The latest is Montag, whom I’d already got a head start on via the charming Natacha’s Recordings comps. Some may know Montag as Antoine Bédard, others, particularly Britpop buffs, as CISM radio host of seven years Jetboy. By ’99, his strict regimen of Britpop had loosened to include indie soft-pop from all over—“From Takako Minekawa to the High Llamas, the Sea and Cake to Tarwater.”

After a stretch DJing at Quartier Latin and Laïka, Bédard got the bug to start doing his own music. “I guess it’s when I met Broadcast,” says Bédard, “when they played for the first time in NYC, that something really changed. I was already a big fan, and when I met them in person I realized how simple, open-minded and not at all pretentious they were. They became some sort of role models. I could look at them and think, this is what I want to do!”

And so he did. The most current result is the excellent Are You a Friend? CD on the French label Gooom. It’s a boy and his laptop once again, yet refreshingly warm and original—neither glitchno minimalism, electroclash punktronica nor post-rock prettiness, though it owes a small debt to each.

“I’m known to be a huge Stereolab, Broadcast and Plone fan, and that is still true, but the music they like influenced me even more. Raymond Scott, for example, is someone I admire a lot. He built all his electronic instruments in the ’50s and made his living by writing advertising jingles that turned out to be short, electronic-music masterpieces.”

Ennio Morricone and Lalo Schiffrin get props as well, though Montag’s work is writ small, not large. In that respect, his tunes are dead in line with the humble gems of his colleagues at Natacha’s. Previously, Bédard had steered clear of most local activity excepting Pest 5000 and Starbean, and later the Dears and Stars (for whom he designs Web sites). “But it was especially when I met the Natacha’s Recordings ‘family’ that I realized how many talented and friendly people make music in this city! I told myself, I’ve finally met some people I can connect with, both mentally and musically! What is clear among the Natacha crew is that it’s not that much the style of music you’re into that matters but rather the spirit you have when you compose it.”

The name Montag, by the way, is more than just a “hooked on Teutonics” thing. “Montag is a character that I discovered through Truffaut’s cinematic adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451. I chose that name because I think there are many common points between us.

I’m fundamentally convinced that our society isolates people from each other and, by multiplying the ways of communication, we all end up talking in the ‘language of modern emptiness.’ People don’t have much to say anymore, and those who dare express their opinion are rarely taken seriously. The same thoughts occur to Montag in Bradbury’s novel. He decides to run away from a society that criminalizes books and aims to make all the population think the same way. I guess that’s exactly what I’m doing by playing music—it’s a great escape. I recommend it to everyone.” :

With Toog, Shy Child and the Russian Futurists at Jupiter Room on Friday, Sept. 27, 9pm, $6

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