Angine de Poitrine – Vol.II

You all have seen it by this point. The noses, the polka dots, the pyramids – Angine de Poitrine has taken the internet by storm. It all started with their KEXP performance from February blowing up. That led to numerous reactions online, mostly on Youtube, building up the hype of the Quebecian duo, to the point where it surpassed the niche music circles and reached the masses. As I am writing this, there’s even a cute little easter egg when you search them up on Google.

Amidst their seemingly overnight rise to fame, the band released their sophomore album “Vol.II”, adding even more to the growing hype around them. Angine de Poitrine’s sound is just as whimsical as their looks. It could be described as a mix between math rock, acid techno and microtonal ethno-jazz. Despite the overly-specific descriptors I used, the music is surprisingly accessible and upbeat. Easy to digest without compromising on the rich, diverse taste. And the fact that the public ate it up proves the hunger for authenticity in our current culture, but more on that later.

The album starts with ‘Fabienk’, currently their most popular track. Here we can see the overall structure of what AdP has to offer – creating colorful soundscapes through looping and layering funky bass riffs, catchy guitar hooks and odd rhythms. My immediate association when hearing this track was King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, specifically “Flying Microtonal Banana”.

While the formula is pretty much the same, all of the songs have something to make them stand out – ‘Mata Zylek’ is highly energetic,

Sarinezz builds itself around that hypnotic,tasty bass riff.

With the track ‘Utzp’ we’re entering polka (dot) territory. I consider it the most fun and diverse one from the album. They go all in at the end, switching up the pace and implementing “heavier” riffs.

The ethno motifs are present in each song, but most prominent in ‘Yor Zarad’. There’s that one melody in the middle that  fills my balkan soul with joy. The duo has a very western read on these oriental/eastern melodies and doesn’t try to lean into that culture too much.

The album ends with ‘Angor’, carrying a very desert psych rock feeling. For some reason it reminds me of All Them Witches, especially that dissonant sounding riff.

Admittedly, the music lacks something without the visual aspect to it. From my perspective, the whole thing can be considered as one well-curated dadaist art performance. You need to see the two alien figures jamming to get the full context.The fun noises you hear in the songs start making sense in the narrative that their outlandish looks create. It feeds your curiosity, makes you want to know more.

Ironically, the extraterrestrial looks add so much humanity to the act. Looking at Khn turn knobs with his bare foot, seeing the paint on his hands peel as the show goes on. Seeing Klek’s eyes peek through his mouth. All those details that break the 4th wall and don’t fully allow you to take the facefirst route of accepting those two as just some silly musical creatures. And that’s what I find so crucial to why it all works so well. It creates that meta of you as a viewer being fully aware that you’re an audience member to an act.

You’d see people claiming that the rise of AI slop is what created that hype around Angine de Poitrine. While that surely is a factor, I’d argue that our culture has been slowly melting into one huge homogenized mass way before Chat GPT. Thankfully, we seem to finally be reaching the point of exhaustion and that’s evident even amongst some current big pop names. Some of them dare to experiment more and put more effort into their albums as a whole body of work, not just chasing the top single positions in the charts. (ex. – Rosalia’s “Lux”)

I am genuinely excited to observe the phenomenon that is Angine de Poitrine. Hopefully they are here to stay and inspire more creativity and self-expression.

Tracklist:

1. Fabienk
2. Mata Zylek
3. Sarinezz
4. Utzp
5. Yor Zarad
6. Angor