Breaking Bandeapart.fm

I’m not gonna front like Radio-Canada’s Bandepart.fm was my go-to. But it came as a blow when the Québécois web radio station for “emerging” music was PR-matically “folded” into the much tamer Espace.mu yesterday.

If you give a colis about local and provincial culture; if you aren’t hung up on archaic politico-linguistic points of etiquette; if you aren’t an ardent anti-CBCite fostering an ancestral bone to pick with their in-house bean-counters; bref, if you care more about local culture than overblown hype, Bandepart’s absence may hit you in a place you otherwise take for granted.

If you go the step further and recognize that the markets Radio-Canada holds jurisdiction in, funded by our federal tax ducats, are unique hotbeds of artistic development with a reachable niche audience, it isn’t hard to feel how bummed-the-hell-out a significant number of developing Quebec artists are today.

BAP, as a platform for Quebec artistic expression, was as apolitical as the CBC gets, which admittedly doesn’t say much in this of all provinces. But I’d be curious to know whether Alaclair Ensemble, launching their sophomore album tonight, or K6A (featured in this month’s print issue of Cult MTL and opening for Canadian rap heavies and CBC music golden children Shad and Buck 65 next Friday) think that shit matters more than the availability of Bandepart as a progressive, inclusive medium reasonably enough with their own values as creators.

It definitely matters that a Conservative government with long tentacles has displayed — to wit here at least twice, if you believe the rumours about the closing of the Mirror — a suspicious tendency to prey on purveyors of new, current and relevant voices, public or private, by inflating what has unfortunately become conventional wisdom: print media is a dinosaur, and public broadcasting must fall under the axe for the greater good of Johnny Paycheck.

The logic is that if you’ll believe that, you’ll believe anything, because these interests know that the digital age is actually coming for them next.

Here’s what’s coming for you right now:

Thursday – As mentioned, QC-to-MTL and beyond’igans Alaclair Ensemble flih-piu on new meanings to old ideas, launching Les Maigres Blancs d’Amerique du Noir sans-rehearsal of new material, according to conglomerate delegate Maybe Watson, who promised a once-in-an-Alaclair experience in interview with Cult MTL.

The album title is an obvious play the title of Pierre Vallières’s controversial statement on colonialism and classism in Quebec. How did the band settle on this hilariously witty title?

“It was first said during a freestyle session in France — in Trouville, to be precise,” Maybe Watson explains. “It’s a nice play on words, so we kept it. Definitely a statement. Our intentions musically remain towards reaffirming peoples bodies thru le brizzassage de fizzoules in order to amincir le peuple, but we are politically engaged as well.”

The brizzassage begins at 21h30 at Cabaret du Mile End.

Friday – It’s a Rap Music Party! with CL, Shelz, Vincent Pryce, Agua Negra , Doomar Brown and more at Piranha Bar. You ever seen that movie with the piranhas? I’m that old lady that said it would happen.

Saturday – Artbeat Montreal presents the Waxiology Sessions with “vinyl exchanges all night” to the call of Booty Bakery’s Phil Sparkz and Bongiovanni, De La Rap’s Toast Dawg, Tehu and Mark the Magnanimous.

If you ain’t got a vinyl to trade or a second to spare in polite convo, Mayday lights it up as she does each week at Please Me, with Tronald Trump as her trusted companion for the week.

And for old-school techno freaks, Zombie Nation takes a bite outta le Belmont with guests Mini and Cherry Cola.

Monday – Cult MTL co-presents the prowess of Flying Lotus’s considerably glitchy wingspan at the SAT.

Wednesday – The populist puppetry of Socalled manifests itself in a new show at le Rialto, with a Cult MTL feature coming next week to whet your whistle. ■

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