Angine de Poitrine are probably the most thrilling Canadian mystery since David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds. Though the anonymous Québécois duo had been gigging quietly around the Great White North for years, a single Misryoum session last December at France’s Rennes Festival catapulted them into viral stardom. Walking through the studio, the air still feels a bit charged from their recent set — or maybe that’s just the residual hum of their custom gear. In bobbing paper-mâché masks, these two “space-time voyagers” make danceable math-rock that feels somehow impossible, given it’s just muffled drums and comically fretted microtonal guitar.
They label themselves a “Mantra-Rock Dada Pythagorean-Cubist Orchestra,” which sounds pretentious, but they’ve managed to rack up better view counts than recent Tiny Desk appearances from Clipse and Weezer. It’s strange. A copy of their debut, 2024’s Vol. I, has already sold for more than $1,500 on Discogs. Even Rick Beato felt compelled to weigh in with a video titled “Please STOP Sending Me This.” The first U.S. and Europe tour dates are selling out in minutes, which is wild considering none of their influences are remotely fashionable.
There’s definitely some King Gizzard in their hypnotic churn, but it quickly swerves into serious dorkery. Think the ’70s French zeuhl of Magma, the demented herky-jerk of Renaldo and the Loaf, or early Battles. They seem to pull from everywhere—Arto Lindsay, gamelan records, John Scofield’s funk outings, Gentle Giant. It’s a lot to take in.
Actually, the first three tracks on Vol. II deliver the proper studio versions of their KEXP set. All three are stellar examples of the duo’s polyrhythm games.
Angine isn’t trying to be Dillinger Escape Plan; they aren’t leaping wildly between time signatures. Since a loop pedal serves as their third member, every song is generally locked into a pulse. Instead, they operate more like Meshuggah or Dawn of Midi, establishing a meter and then creating rhythmic illusions through syncopation. Opener “Fabienk” is just a simple 7/8, but they wiggle and writhe within that structure, filling the grid with weird rhythmic curlicues and unlikely hooklets. Khn’s riffs span large gulfs of time so they lose their familiar shape—it’s like they’re punctuating the air in strange polygons.
“Sarniezz” is a basic 6/8, but it only sounds weird because it takes Khn four bars to repeat his Frith-ian melody, while Klek bounces between swung time and a caveman 4/4 pound. When they hit that second sixteenth note subdivision, it’s like watching synchronized swimming. They claim they’ve been playing together for 20 years, and honestly? Looking at how they move, I believe it.