Montag P.I.E.C.E.S.

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About

Entering the third phase of Montag’s twelve-month project we see Canadian born Antoine Bédard embrace his French side, hooking up with friend and musician Pierre Lapointe who contributed to lyrics on P.I.E.C.E.S. “Pierre accepted to write some lyrics for the song after we had a beer – I remember it was not so long after the wrap-up party for the New Design video. A few days later, he had the text ready for me.” Montag set the scene for the subject matter, giving Pierre the starting point with the expression “pièces détachées” meaning detached pieces. Pierre expanded on this, exploring themes of feeling weak, being torn to pieces, and about wanting to love someone but not quite being ready for it. The resulting musical output sees Montag at his most ‘Live’ sounding yet incorporating real bass, drums and guitar but not forgetting Montag’s signature arpeggiating synth sounds to create a track that’s upbeat in sound but more somber in content than his previous work.

Artist Bio

Montreal’s Montag, otherwise known as DJ Antoine Bédard, launched his first record, Are You a Friend?, in 2002. The record was released on electronic music record label, Gooom Disques, which is also home to M83. Are You a Friend?’s dreamy and minimalistic sounds were soon noticed by France’s Les Inrocks. His extensive discography, which consists of two EPs and five records, demonstrates his composing abilities.  Bédard’s talent has sent him on major tours across the world.

The 2005 release of Alone, Not Alone (his first release on Carpark Records), received international praise, including a 7.8/10 rating from Pitchfork. His third release, Going Places (2007), was well-received in Japan where he toured with Au Revoir Simone and YACHT.

Through the years, Montag has performed live at a number of music festivals such as Mutek (Montréal), SXSW (Austin, TX), Sonorama (Guadalajara), Canadian Music Week (Toronto) and CMJ (New York).  He has shared the stage with Caribou, Broadcast, Feist, The Junior Boys, Lali Puna, Xiu Xiu and Stars among others. Montag regularly collaborates on visual art installations, theatre plays, art videos and other audio art projects.

In 2012, he conceived Audiosphere, an award-winning iPhone application that allows transit users to discover local artists with use of geolocalisation. In early 2013, he worked on the original score and sound design for Pascal Grandmaison’s Le jour des 8 soleils, presented as part of the event Luminothérapie in Montreal.

In parallel to his work in musical composition, Bédard has been producing various soundwalks that explore the relationship among sound, urban environment and history. He also co-hosts and spins at some of Montreal’s highly attended gay nights, Mec Plus Ultra and Audioporn Club.