Montag Sun Fat Explosion

About

“Sun Fat Explosion” is Phase 9 of Montag’s 12 month digital singles series Phases and the sharpest turn in musical direction for Antoine Bédard yet. Working under the banner of “krautrock” Montag assembled friends for a “one-night-band”. The band was comprised of frequent Phases collaborators Dominic Vanchesteing on guitar (“New Design” and “P.I.E.C.E.S”), Guillaume Éthier on drums (“P.I.E.C.E.S.”), Philippe Roberge on guitar (“P.I.E.C.E.S.” ) and Philippe’s bandmate Mathieu Dumontier on bass. Montag handled the synthesizer duties. The original plan was to build the track upon a beatbox loop but the improvised “practice jam” ended up being far more interesting and serves as the source for “Sun Fat Explosion and its continuation, the b-side “Sun Fat Explosion 2”. After the recording session Montag added sparse vocals. The title derives from a café in Vancouver with the “completely surrealistic” name of “Sun Fat Café”. This is the first single from the Phases series to be entirely improvised and Montag shares that the session yielded a “level of intensity I could never achieve on my own.”

Artist Bio

Montreal’s Montag, otherwise known as DJ Antoine Bédard, launched his first record, Are You a Friend?, in 2002. The record was released on electronic music record label, Gooom Disques, which is also home to M83. Are You a Friend?’s dreamy and minimalistic sounds were soon noticed by France’s Les Inrocks. His extensive discography, which consists of two EPs and five records, demonstrates his composing abilities.  Bédard’s talent has sent him on major tours across the world.

The 2005 release of Alone, Not Alone (his first release on Carpark Records), received international praise, including a 7.8/10 rating from Pitchfork. His third release, Going Places (2007), was well-received in Japan where he toured with Au Revoir Simone and YACHT.

Through the years, Montag has performed live at a number of music festivals such as Mutek (Montréal), SXSW (Austin, TX), Sonorama (Guadalajara), Canadian Music Week (Toronto) and CMJ (New York).  He has shared the stage with Caribou, Broadcast, Feist, The Junior Boys, Lali Puna, Xiu Xiu and Stars among others. Montag regularly collaborates on visual art installations, theatre plays, art videos and other audio art projects.

In 2012, he conceived Audiosphere, an award-winning iPhone application that allows transit users to discover local artists with use of geolocalisation. In early 2013, he worked on the original score and sound design for Pascal Grandmaison’s Le jour des 8 soleils, presented as part of the event Luminothérapie in Montreal.

In parallel to his work in musical composition, Bédard has been producing various soundwalks that explore the relationship among sound, urban environment and history. He also co-hosts and spins at some of Montreal’s highly attended gay nights, Mec Plus Ultra and Audioporn Club.