You cannot escape Angine de Poitrine. You see polka dots every time you scroll. All your muso pals have sent you their KEXP session multiple times over (current view count: 14 million). You see the drummer’s dangling nose in your dreams/nightmares.
The Quebec-via-outer-space duo are one of the most talked-about bands on the planet. Accordingly, their debut UK shows are completely sold out. Desperate fans are camped outside, scrounging for spare tickets as stage time approaches at Bristol’s 330-cap Strange Brew. It is, quite frankly, an unreasonable amount of hype for a microtonal looping duo that isn’t even on the accessible side of math rock.
But when Khn de Poitrine (guitarist/bassist) and Klek de Poitrine (drummer) wobble onstage, papier-mâché heads flashing, a giddiness sweeps over the crowd. It’s like a children’s TV show come to life. But with 7/8 time signatures. And a double-neck guitar/bass that gets carted from show to show in a sleeping bag.
The duo’s songs hit different live – not least because the PA volume is absolutely cranked in Bristol. Opening with slow-burning Vol.II closer Angor, Khn builds his loops with the dexterity of a surgeon (albeit not one you’d trust with your triple-bypass surgery). It’s a thrill to watch someone deliver such precision-engineered weirdness with the difficulty level ramped up to 10: ridiculous costume, double-neck and bare feet? That’s brave.
But Angine de Poitrine are virtuosos of the weird. The microtonal loops that slither throughout tracks like Mata Zyklek are gloriously wonky. In between songs, the pair communicate via head-mounted mics that transmit their clicks and yelps in Muppet-like fashion. I laughed every single time. It breaks up the pummeling grooves and slippery riffs. Most importantly, it makes complicated music fun.
ADP lore dictates that Khn and Klek are not in fact Quebecois buddies who have been jamming together since they were teenagers. They are 333-year-old time-travelling aliens. But, honestly, to deliver these songs to this level for 70 minutes straight, they may well have had to play together that long.
There are some dangerous loop manouvers on display – Ed Sheeran strumming four chords on an acoustic, this is not. And while loops can be limiting – it’s harder to launch into a whole new section on a dime – they are also the band's greatest strength: you hear each layer individually as it builds, and that repetition makes the complex guitar lines digestible. The fact it’s locked to a grid means there’s a constant pulse to groove to. And there are enough half-time pentatonic riffs to get the metalheads banging.
With this tour, Khn has established himself as the greatest polka-dot guitar hero since Randy Rhoads and Buddy Guy. The guy has legit jazz chops, and his fluid microchromatic runs, tapping bursts and head-spinning riffs turn guitar tropes on their heads.
You can pick out influences. Ababa Hotel’s extended solos, built over the most bone-headed loops of the night, are especially John Scofield-coded (the band have named Scof rock-jazz fusion classic Überjam as one of their primary influences). Spasmodic thrash bop Utzp could be an And Justice For All-era Metallica cut – the two-hand tapping in Khn’s solo even nods to Kirk Hammett’s One leads. The guy can shred. But he’s flat-out refusing to pick any of the notes you would expect.
For all the alien back story, you could buy most of Khn’s pedals from a Guitar Center (presumably an intergalactic branch). He makes deft use of glitchy short delays (Boss DD-8), pitch doubling (MXR Bass Octave Deluxe) and – that most difficult of effects to actually use in a song – ring modulator. He even uses the Behringer Moogerfooger clone, ferchristssakes.
Certain corners of the internet have dismissed Angine de Poitrine as a gimmick, but tonight’s performance proves that their musicianship is no joke. The costumes are a Trojan horse. They are a gateway to the weirder corners of the guitar universe – math-rock, freeform jazz, noise rock.
We need gateway bands. It’s how genres grow and the next generations of musicians are inspired. There hasn’t been this much buzz about an instrumental band since Polyphia, and that is good news for guitar (and, presumably, sales of double-necks).
Angine de Poitrine’s sudden, unlikely success may be the direct result of social media culture, where the thumbnail is everything, but they have the ability and the songs to back it up.
Right now, there’s a big question mark over how you follow up such a life-changing groundswell of hype. Collaborations? Comic books? Vegas residency?
Whatever happens, Angine de Poitrine have forever made the guitar world a weirder place. They’re the 333-year-old time-traveling aliens we never knew we needed.
