Karkwa

The band was one of the bigger headliners for the festival, wrapping up a year-long reunion tour following the release of their 2023 album Dans la seconde. Playing at the large outdoor Fizz stage, the storied Quebec rock quintet delivered an energetic, crowd-pleasing performance spanning their 20-year archive. The enthusiastically attended set oscillated between newer hits and their early noughties anthems, all presented with a markedly psychedelic slant. It was a delight to watch the local indie darlings approach the set with such aplomb, drawing out their songs with instrumental interludes and solos.

A great headliner to kick off the Festival: the perfect blend of energy and nostalgia.

Mossaï Mossaï

One of the better bills at Le Paramount this year, French prog-rockers Mossaï Mossaï made a big impression with their first overseas gig at FME. Playing selections from their debut, Faces, the quartet wasted no time in getting the walls shaking. The group’s thundering rhythm section and psychedelic guitar work were propulsive in a way that every band opening a rock concert should be, while also never gratuitous or at the expense of musicianship. This band plays its ass off, but also makes time for poetic keyboard & voice interludes, keeps the audience guessing throughout the set. A group to watch.

Galaxie

Headlining Le Paramount, Montreal rock supergroup Galaxie delivered an hour of sheer fun. The members are all veterans of the Quebec indie scene with numerous concurrent projects on the go. From watching Galaxie play: this is the garage rock band they all go to as an outlet. Try new motifs, rock out, play for the joy of it. After 20+ years and six albums, watching the playfulness and zesty youthful energy of the Fred Fortin-led ensemble is infectious and still brings the house down. The set was replete with fuzzed-out guitar solos, cosmic synths, wrapped up in a tight blues-rock parcel. A rare treat for Quebec audiences, who were also pleasantly surprised by the band’s release of À demain peut-être earlier this year.

Peter Dreams and Moonriivr

Best known as one of the driving forces behind Toronto’s July Talk, Peter Dreimanis’ recent collaboration with Moonriivr sees him shifting into a more brooding gear. His husky baritone and black garb invite Cash, Cohen, and Cave comparisons, although these feel facile and reductive. These songs live in smoky, damp, dimly lit clubs. Propulsive rhythm backbone, dynamite guitar work: this band is dialed. Where there’s a roof to blow off, they will. Dreimanis forgoes instruments during the set, his vocals focused, passionate, fearless in their intensity. Nominally, this is an alt-country set, but the group’s stage tightness and range of influences lend a gravitas to the proceedings that eschews genre.

Bearing mention: their 2024 collaborative release is among the top Canadian records of the year. Nocturnal, poised, dramatic, Peter Dreams and Moonriivr lives at the crossroads of country, blues, folk, with the occasional cabaret flourish. Musically and lyrically adventurous, self-produced, a sonically warm album that properly sounds like it’s recorded on tape: there’s so much to love about this record. Go find a copy today.

Haviah Mighty

Although Quebec is home to a hardworking hip-hop scene, FME skews prog heavy in its lineup. Mighty, one of Canada’s foremost hip-hop talents provided a welcome change of pace at the main outdoor stage. Leaning into a spare stage set (just herself and a DJ), Haviah Mighty played an hour of uptempo greatest hits to the opening night crowd. As ever, her set was animated and moved with gusto, leaning towards poppier, festival-friendly fare. In an environment less produced and more theatrical, the mastery of her flow and wordsmithing was front and center.

Delightful to see such an important Canadian voice headlining a smaller regional festival like FME. A worthy reminder of why Haviah Mighty is a national treasure and a joy to watch.

Li’l Andy: The Complete Recordings of Hezekiah Procter

A fixture Montreal’s country scene, Li’l Andy’s latest set was easily the boldest at the Festival. A pitch-perfect pastiche of 20s/30s folk, jazz, and bluegrass, The Complete Recordings of Hezekiah Procter was an enchanting, immersive period exploration that generated a lot of buzz among festival-goers. With glimmering harmonies, period garb, and humour by the shovelful, Proctor is a love letter to dustbowl Americana that straddles music and performance art. Andy’s quartet had their small club audience rapt for a set equal parts playful, surprising, dexterous, meticulously researched, and fun. A highlight for many.

The Brooks

The Festival closer at Le Paramount did not disappoint. Before a room of music industry professionals, The Brooks delivered a technical clinic in jazz-funk. This masterclass had every audience member eating out of their hands and wanting seconds. A tour de force.

Look out for their latest album, Soon As I Can, released on 4 of October (the official launch November 8th at Café Cleopatre in Montreal).

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The event aims to bring people together as a community in a friendly welcoming environment that embraces music, art, creates space for discovery, and embraces the roots of the city. The gates opened quite early but it was a big weekend for Toronto with multiple events happening throughout so people were strolling in slowly, but those who came, showed up.

Montréal’s Busty and the Bass took the stage in the early evening for their fun blend of electro-soul and occasionally hip hop. Alistair Blu was leading the stage with the vocals, occasionally stepping away to make room for guest vocalist Mel Pacifico or to play keys. The band recently released a new EP, KARNEVAL, so naturally, we got to hear a wide range of tracks from that. Overlapping on the opposite stage was Kurt Vile and The Violators with Kurt Samuel Vile at the forefront, hiding under a mane of hair, softly speaking/singing into the mic, sharing his latest release (watch my moves) with the excited fans.

The evening continued with indie pop quartet Valley who immediately flooded the stage with their contagious energy. After Kara James jumped on drums Rob Laska stepped up to the center to perform “Oh shit…are we in love?” eventually jumping into the pit to dance with the singing crowd. The band played through a handful of tracks from Last Birthday (The After Party) with Kara occasionally coming out to sing. As Valley’s performance was coming to an end the crowd promptly moved to the main stage for Vancouver’s Peach Pit. The lemons were now mush spread around the park giving off a subtle citrus scent.

Peach Pit seemed to be the most anticipated set so far with people crowding in tighter and the photo pit packing in one by one with excited photographers. Neil Smith (vocals, guitar) seemed very calm and collected, even while whipping his hair dancing around the stage, and jamming with the band. Their chill shade of indie and surf rock is well known with this audience many of whom were gleefully singing along. The band has released an album this year, From 2 to 3, but what got everyone going was of course “Alrighty Aphrodite”.

The energy was rising and the sun was heading for the hills but the overall vibe across Garrison Commons was still very, very chill. The Halluci Nation, formerly known as A Tribe Called Red, began their set on the opposite stage playing to a smaller crowd. Tim “2oolman” Hill and Ehren “Bear Witness” Thomas are an electronic duo who produce a blend of hip hop, reggae, and dubstep-influenced tracks with a high emphasis on the music of First Nations Peoples. Their music deals with a lot of heavy issues Indigenous communities are continually faced with and in an interview with CBC 2oolman admitted We are the Halluci Nation (2016) was a “pretty mentally and spiritually draining album to make because it really dealt with a lot of hard things”. The latest record, One More Saturday Night, was released under the new name The Halluci Nation (inspired by John Trudell’s poem by the same name), it was the stuff of superheroes and outlaws. This record is a recharge in a new direction but by no means does this direction deviate from their roots and beliefs.

Set at the back of the stage behind a large video screen you could hardly see the duo but that was just the start of this mind-blowing set. For a good part of the show, the screen was showing mixed cuts from popular films – cuts showcasing Hollywood’s perceptions of the ‘Indian’ – the perceptions we are still working to dismantle. A few warm-up songs in 2oolman and Bear Witness were joined on stage by two dancers carrying the flag with the band’s logo: “The great seal of The Halluci Nation / 500 years and still drumming” lines of text wrapped around the turtle with eagle’s wings.

The dancers quickly became a prominent component of The Halluci Nation’s set performing traditional dances, breakdancing, hyping up the crowd, and waving Kookum scarves (spelling varies; there is a long history between Indigenous Peoples and early Ukrainian settlers). Midway through the show, the duo invited out a couple more surprise guests: Haviah Mighty and Odario to perform “Ba Na Na”. Naturally, the crowd went wild. Seeing all this talent on one stage was heartwarming and electrifying for everyone involved, “this is the first time we’ve all been on one stage together” pointed out Odario in disbelief.

By all accounts, The Halluci Nation played a headliner set and no energy could’ve matched theirs after, so for many of us, this was the high point and the end of the great return of the Field Trip music festival. Until next year.

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Original Classic was released in November with features from well-known artists like Juicy-J, Lido Pimienta, and Haviah Mighty, just to name a few. In light of this highly successful release Keys N Krates sat down with Quip to discuss the new direction they’ve taken and how it came to fruition.

Cait Schmitz: How has the tour been going, was it exciting being back on your home turf in Toronto with your new album?

Keys N Krates: Yeah that was a highlight for sure. I guess it’s a little weird, we played a couple of sets in September, so it sort of felt like it started then. But I guess we officially started a couple of weeks ago and playing Toronto was definitely a highlight.

CS: Is it different playing festivals vs smaller intimate concerts?

KNK: I think there are pros and cons to both. Playing a festival sometimes feels like a sprint, but there’s also something to be said about a large crowd all dancing together at a huge venue… 

The band explained how smaller clubs give them the time to explore what they can do with certain beats and really get the audience vibing to different tempos. They also spoke to how the album came to be and how their process is largely a collaborative effort and they thrive off feedback from one another as well as critiques or suggestions from select others. Almost every song includes influences from all three of the group members, but they do give space for individual creative freedoms in order to explore their own distinct sounds. 

CS: Your music has quite a blend of different influences, especially on this new album, can you speak on where you drew influences for this album?

KNK: So we had already started this album before going into the pandemic. We kind of had an idea of what we wanted to do. I think the three of us after our last couple of projects knew what direction we wanted to go in. Our last few projects were more dance-driven and we wanted to continue in that direction heading away from just trap.

The one goal they had with this project, the band commented, was finding their place in dance music and really understanding how to make people groove and dance from a more global standpoint. Safe to say that goal came to fruition because this thirteen-track album does a fantastic job of blending together house, hip hop as well as dance music.

CS: Original Classic has a ton of collaborations with some incredible artists, was it easy working with these other artists?

KNK: It was actually really great. We love working with artists who might not have done something like this within their own body of work.

Haviah Mighty was an artist they really enjoyed collaborating with because together they were able to bring out aspects of her strengths she doesn’t normally use in her own work. Her work is incredible to begin with (hence the Polaris prize) but it was fascinating to travel in a different direction together, the band shared. 

Reflecting on other collaborations  Jr Flo expressed how the group wanted to do something different with a lot of the artists featured on the album and explore what they could do when pushed into a style of music that was maybe outside their normal genre. Pushing musicians outside of their comfort zones is often when you can get the best results, KNK pointed out with passion. It would also be evident pushing the limits is something they apply to their own work, we have come a long way from “Dum Dee Dum” and this growth is an ongoing adventure.

Keys N Krates new album Original Classic was released November 12^th and is an album you won’t want to miss. The group has just embarked on a tour with dates continuing all throughout the winter and into the spring – hopefully. This band of intricate rhythms and various styles are absolutely worth the listen and their live shows are a party you will want to attend.

Images by Mitch Brown, courtesy of the artist

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