Selective Listening | Rainmen, Population II and Myriam Gendron

Every week, our music journalists add songs to the playlist of The Press on Spotify. Here are three recent titles that are in our selection.

Rainmen, 100 Miles

After celebrating the 25th^e album anniversary Armageddon last year, the duo Rainmen quietly prepared their return. The release date of Zoe Troubles is not yet known, but its first extract is promising. Split in two, the piece produced by Ruffsound (Loud, Connaisseur Ticaso) and Stack Moolah (Larry Kidd, Rome Streetz), offers unrestrained verses from Outra La Pieuvre and Naufrage. The track ends with some deft scratching from Pro-V. The video produced by Trone Films begins with a few words from Jenny Salgado, of Muzion, who recalls the impact of Rainmen on Quebec hip-hop.

Pascal LeBlanc, The Press

Population II, As you wish (Ding Dong)

Thanks to the postman Population II for the delivery this Friday of the mini-album Snake Ladderwhere we find the song As you wish (Ding Dong). Here, everything is organic: recorded during the studio sessions which brought the previous album to fruition (Free electrons from Quebec), said song is more than just a throwaway – read here a B-Side. The vocals of drummer Pierre-Luc Gratton try to stand up to muscular keyboards and a fat and overwhelming bass line. In short, the instrumentalization always comes before the lyrics at Population II and turns out – always – to be a happy mix of rock seventy and post-punk, all amalgamated with influences of funk and free jazz.

Philippe Beauchemin, The Press

Myriam Gendron, Scorched lands

We find the folk universe and the penetrating voice of Myriam Gendron on Scorched lands. This song will appear on the third album of the Quebec singer-songwriter, Mayday, which will be released on May 10 and will once again include pieces in French and English. Written in alexandrines, Scorched lands is a perfect junction between the classicism of the old French song and the slightly creaky contemporary arrangements, which adds to its postapocalyptic atmosphere, even if the finale contains a glimmer of hope. Myriam Gendron has not lost her touch and still succeeds in creating something eminently modern, as musical as literary.

Josée Lapointe, The Press