Life is often an amazing journey. Like the night. Every day, I pinch myself, because I would never have thought of composing music. Music was for me a dream that I did not allow myself to dream. A taboo dream in a way. I had to go over my own barriers to see that it was possible. And the night played a major role in this course which anchored me well in the music.
First, as a teenager, from a dormitory town, I listened to university and community radio stations in Montreal on my Walkman at night. It was during the nocturnal shows that I most often heard — and discovered — the different variations of electronic music (we weren’t yet using this term at the time, but that was it nonetheless) and what played in clubs. A few years later, it was my turn to appear on the radio waves of CISM (the radio of the University of Montreal on the FM band), a very beneficial and inspiring passage.
When I started composing music, at the turn of the 2000s, I was really into ambient and experimental music. Then, little by little, I began to find my comfort in making beatsfrom beats who bounce the big. From my basement in Mile-End, Montreal, I immersed myself in creation until the wee hours of the morning. When I came out of it, it was to share everything live, first, then little by little, even more and more, by being a DJ in small bars and theaters in the metropolis. A scene DIY (do it yourself, or do it yourself), as they say. A stage where anything is possible and where the conventions of popular music and the industry do not format the momentum of creation. It is another network, another dynamic, and I am very indebted to it.
I understood the beauty of being a DJ, the fine psychology that it involves, the messages that we send, the atmosphere that we guide, this fragile balance that we build in relation to people in the same space as self. The time of a set or an evening (because sometimes I can play sets of 5 hours), I manage to bring people elsewhere, to make them discover tracks that they do not know and or to surprise them with tracks they know by recontextualizing them or just by taking a path they had forgotten.
In Quebec, there is a kind of bizarre bias within government authorities and, more broadly, within the general population, on what is considered artistic and cultural and what is not. There is thus a tendency to believe that a show that starts at 7:30 p.m. and ends at 9 p.m., with people seated, has greater artistic value than the performance of a DJ in a room where people are standing. and dance from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. However, both are equally essential to the music scene, or should I say to the cultural industry, because it is now the economic benefits that are most often calculated to justify the value of such and such a thing.
The audience can be an integral part of the performance; it doesn’t have to be static all the time. And that’s the hidden beauty of a dance party: there is no central point to pay attention to, like in a rock or song show, because the said “show” is everywhere and invisible at the same time. . Music plays, people dance and have fun together. They contribute to the atmosphere. The DJ then becomes an energy channeler, a smuggler who takes note of this atmosphere and who interacts with it.
It is obvious that my artistic career owes a lot to the night. It is a space of freedom and spontaneity that allowed me to develop and give my creations and my albums greater maturity. Over the years, I have had the good fortune to count on several regular dance parties such as Bounce le Gros, Karnival and, currently, Qualité de luxe, which has been running for over eight years. I also have a special thought for certain events: Bridge Burner (with Sixtoo, Khiasma and POP Montreal) which took place under the Rosemont/Van Horne viaduct in 2007, 2008 and 2009.
As Montreal at the top of the night begins on Wednesday with Open Microphone, an evening of citizen consultation at the La Tulipe theater on their relationship with the night, I dare to make a few wishes here. For the future, I am thinking of a decentralized nocturnal cultural Montreal with several neighborhoods that have their places, their communities and their active scenes. Going out at night on foot in your neighborhood and walking back is always a joy, whether on a hot summer night or on a cold winter night when soft snow filters the sounds as it falls.
I am thinking of multiplying initiatives such as the NON-STOP pilot project organized by MTL 24/24 as part of this same summit (an event combining two days of nocturnal culture without interruption for more than 24 hours at the SAT, from 21 to 23 May) or the Nuit blanche à Montréal, now well established, which could multiply throughout the year with smaller editions or even multiply in other cities in Québec.
Finally, I am thinking of urban planning that really takes into consideration the cohabitation between nightlife venues and present and future residents. It is possible to improve and deepen the approach and reflection on the constant transformation of the city (and the building and renovation permits that go with it) to avoid unfortunate situations. Because the night, like life, is well worth the astonishment.