Thursday, May 22, the Quebec duo took the stage at the Confort Moderne in Poitiers, in an electrified, feverish atmosphere, before heading on to conquer larger stages. This grand musical carnival will go down in the annals.
That evening, the Poitevin crowd had a rendezvous with Klek and Khn; a meeting that was completely unlikely, even downright improbable. Because Klek and Khn form Angine de Poitrine, the masked dada duo from Quebec who broke the Internet with microtonal riffs — 15 million views thanks to a hypnotic video shot at Trans 2025 — a true viral phenomenon, provoking the enthusiasm of Jack White, Dave Grohl, and Mike Portnoy; triggering countless sociological and musicological analyses to explain the how and why of the affair; filling venues in London, New York, and Japan… And on the other hand, well, there is Poitiers; Poitiers that isn’t exactly the cradle of rock ’n’ roll; Poitiers that, however, goes first, before Paris where the band is awaited in the fall (November 21 and 22 at L’Élysée Montmartre, already sold out.) And somewhere, one finds it utterly punk.
Punk, good-natured. At the Confort Moderne, the city’s SMAC, there are people of all ages; ten-year-olds with their parents — parents who, unlike their offspring, arrive in disguise (handmade polka-dot shirt to match Khn’s attire, oddly improvised) —, rock aficionados still in the game despite a touch of aging and a bit of a belly (Vernon Subutex vibes), twenty-somethings at the peak of their vitality, folks who look like they work in construction, punks with dogs, punks without dogs, math-rock enthusiasts a tad nerdy, fans who will rush off afterward to La Rochelle (La Sirène), where the group is expected the following day.
It’s this whole beautiful crowd that streams into the room, where the heat already feels like a thousand degrees. The crowd jostles a little. Between the DJ’s tracks, voices begin to rise. And they raise their arms in the air, forming a triangle with their hands — the rallying sign of the group’s fans, with its little Raëlian je-ne-sais-quoi (Raëlian Dada Neo-Cubist). Still nothing. Still nothing. Still laughing… There they are! The odd little contraptions. But what odd little contraptions they are! Those noses… There’s Khn’s, the guitarist; immense, perfectly white, standing at attention. And that of Klek, the drummer; which droops and whose flabby appearance evokes the sex of an exhausted baby elephant at the end of a long, long walk across the savannah.
Highbrow Music
Time for the usual onomatopoeia, those eight-bit rumbles. Angine de Poooooiiiiitriiiiiiiiiiine. And here we go; bass — kick drum, landing on the solar plexus. Pow. Pow. Pow-pow. Pow. Pow-pow-pow. Random, or nearly so. It sounds like Morse code. Where is the first beat? Is it in 4/4? 5/4? 7/4? (Perhaps the guitar is in 5/4 and the drums in 4/4, and everyone finds themselves on the 21st measure.) Oh no, we don’t understand anything… Not a problem. Because something is happening. Because it’s moving forward. So we stomp, we bounce, we sway (without really managing to dance). Because it starts to get louder and louder. Knh’s riffs are played on the guitar, looped, relooped, and then picked up on the bass, on the underside of the neck, and suddenly the sound becomes enormous. Klek never loses the thread on his hi-hat.
This music is erudite. These two lunatics play music so complex that they (they?) allow themselves the luxury of being so impeccably precise. Yet any hint of seriousness is systematically shooed away, thanks to these costumes, these noses, the poses they strike between songs, lifting their feet, their hands, doing whatever… And there is also something medieval in these pieces (one wants to dance the bourrée, from time to time, in a strange way). But it is hot. It is terribly hot… Will we manage to last until Fabienk, the kind of catchy tune, with that disco-deconstructed bass line? Yes. Yes, finally. Here is Fabienk, at 115 dB.
Guaranteed tinnitus. Tinnitus that we will cherish when leaving the venue, and late into the night, when it will be impossible to fall asleep.
