They make weird abstract music and wear costumes. I don’t there’s anything to get, but for sure it’s not a joke or an ironic internet thing. It’s just a subgenre that has been pretty popular in local scenes for more than a decade, but had evaded the attention of the general public until now.

Musicians tend to like it because it’s actually very technical. It may sound repetitive if you gloss over the details but it’s packed with trick-shots and complications, which are necessary because of the weird setup they have. It’s a whole brainy thing about finding your way out of self-imposed constraints.

Not sure there’s much to understand.

They are two genuine guys from the extended Montreal punk scene making super diy rock. They like micro tonal stuff, so they make micro tonal rock. They have silly outfits because it’s fun to make your friends laugh and be goofy, and also because it protects privacy and creates a cohesive world.

The centralised internet is stupid so algorithms designed for virality and capturing attention picked up on them through some kind of fluke and now they are known throughout the world.

They are great and talented, but there’s no reason more people should know of them more than of Lipona, New Junk City, Catbite, Oh The Humanity! or any of the myriad other great punk and adjacent bands out there.

Microtonal looping alien math rock. It’s niche, but still rock and roll to me. You don’t have to get it. On the other hand, I’m catching them on tour later this fall. Should be fun!

After reading your description I had to look them up, and wow they fuckin rock! I started listening to a set they did on KEXP recently, just to try to get an idea of their sound. But I actually ended up listening to the whole thing. To answer your question, no I don’t think they’re trolling. They’re just a couple of lovely weirdos with mad skills.

Here’s a youtube link to the session if anyone else is interested.

A lot of Lemmings have already tried to explain the appeal of AdP. I’m not going to pile on. Partly because I don’t want to beat a dead horse. And partly because I don’t “get it” either. Or more specifically, I couldn’t get lost in the music the way I wanted to. And I gave it an honest shot. But here’s the thing. This isn’t the first time that’s happened to me. It actually happens to me quite a lot.

As a weekend hobby, I like to get high and just listen. An album, a live set, whatever I can find. Any genre, any era. And why some people connect to music that does nothing for me, and vice reversa, is something I’ve chewed on for years. It’s a massive topic and I won’t pretend to have the full answer. But there’s a line of research worth mentioning here. Especially given your feeling that this is all a giant joke and everyone’s trolling you.

To oversimplify, we don’t listen with fresh ears. We learn what music “sounds like” over our whole lives. There’s a study on this. Six-month-old babies could pick apart complex Balkan rhythms just fine. By twelve months, that ability had already narrowed to the rhythms they grew up around. Adults raised on Balkan music keep both. The rest of us lose the ear for it. And this just keeps going, every new thing we hear, we hear through all those accumulated biases. Eventually you hit music so far removed from your frame of reference that it barely registers as music at all. For you, that day came. And that’s okay.

But if you want to break down that wall, you can get closer. When I find music challenging, I look to its influences. Branches of the tree nearer my own roots. Then I work my way back from there. The catch is you can’t go in trying to prove it’s bad. For lack of a better phrase, you have to listen with sincerity.

Anyway, thanks for coming to my TED talk. Hope you keep giving new music a chance.

Some people, myself included, find diatonic music in 4/4 predictable and boring. This is the sort of music that appeals to people who know a lot about music and music theory, precisely because it skirts the edges of the “rules” and subverts expectations while having a sort of internal consistency.

I’ll compare it to stand-up comedy. I’m a huge fan of Norm Macdonald, but I know plenty of people who don’t think he’s funny because of his deadpan delivery and rambling shaggy dog setups. But that’s precisely what makes him so funny and why other comedians consider him a genius. He subverts the “rules” of comedy to create something refreshing in a landscape of stuff that all feels the same. It’s easy to understand the appeal when you’re well versed in the “rules”, but it just seems chaotic when you aren’t.

AdP is like that. The weird time signatures, microtonality, and deviation from the chorus-verse structure make them very interesting to people who understand rhythm, scales, and structure. If you don’t have a solid understanding of those things, you aren’t going to understand what they’re doing or why they’re doing it, any more than you’ll understand why Norm Macdonald tells a rambling 10 minute story that culminates in a corny pun unless you understand the principles of comedy.

So, there are good explanations as to why they are popular, and not a joke even slightly.

What AdP have done is combined:

• Pop rock using looping tech and really tight percussion / guitar work
• Some very technical playing, especially using microtonal instruments with a 24 tone scale
• A dada-esque aesthetic to make themselves standout
• Created a lore that allows them to preserve some privacy

So, no, the music is not a joke. It’s real music, made by musicians that have been performing together since they were ~13 years old (over a decade at this point). If you listened with a critical ear you might realize that many of their pieces are actually satirizing the clichés of pop-rock music. The aesthetic is made to be fun and get attention.

I’ve written a bit more about them here: The Summer of Angine de Poitrine.

Oh, and FYI—if this is a joke, it’s one of the most successful jokes in nearly 20 years. They smashed the attendance record set by Stevie Wonder in 2009 for the Montreal Jazz Festival.

All art is subjective. But there are certain types of art that are less accessible–you either need to have an uncommon taste, or you need to have a deep knowledge of the type of art to appreciate it.

I felt the same way when I first heard jazz bop. Just sounded like noise. Then I played in a jazz band for three years, and by the end of that time, I had a much stronger appreciation for that music. Not because the music was different, but because I could hear more in it than I could years before.

Angine de Poitrine is kinda similar. Some people love it right away, but most of us hear it and it sounds like random noise. But there’s a reason they’ve become popular, and once you get into it a bit more, you can hear some of the cool stuff they do.

For the record, I don’t listen to AdP much, but I’ve been doing music long enough to have an ear to appreciate them.

If you want more info, Charles Cornell does a great breakdown of their music and suggests why people like them so much. Worth a watch.

Not everything is for everyone, and that’s ok.

The music sounds like LSD fueled song intros looped together without ever reaching a chorus

See, you do get it. There’s some great dirty riffs and microtonal scales from the band you can’t not look at. Also, not everything needs a chorus.

Well, I for one disagree with your assessment, but I SINCERELY thank you for posting it. I have a new thing to enjoy. This band is awesome!

The fact that it’s like nothing we’ve ever seen or heard before is the point, and in today’s world of unlimited generic AI-produced slop, it’s pretty awesome. You wouldn’t be writing a post like this if they were doing the same thing as everyone else.

I get that it’s not for everyone. They’re not my favorite band or anything. But I appreciate what they’re doing because it’s fun and surprising, and they still somehow make it catchy.

Music should be fun.

i’ve read your comments in this thread, and you’re definitely a troll and ragebaiter yourself. replying to everyone and figuratively calliing this shit. i guess “rap is not a real music” bait is no longer in style

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I think they are really good. I like progressive metal like Tool, Karnivool and Messuggah so it’s right up my alley.

I think the costumes and back story is a fun joke. The music is fun too.