Live Footage: Frais Dispo at Chez Guy

Montréal-based indie rock outfit Frais Dispo — Élie Raymond (guitar, vocals), Antoine Lévesque-Roy (bass), Thomas Bruneau Faubert (trombone, synths), Charles Primeau (guitar) and Antoine Gallois (drums) — is simultaneously a rebrand and a markedly radical direction for its members, who first gained attention across both Quebec and Canada as Foreign Diplomats: As Frais Dispo, the Montréal-based band have adopted a much more collaborative songwriting approach paired with lyrics written and sung completely in Québécois French.

2023’s Teinte, the newly rebranded band’s full-length debut and 2024’s Les teints du ciel n’ont aucun sens saw the quintet firmly establishing a markedly sonic left turn, drawing more from alt-country, folk and indie rock than their previously released material as Foreign Diplomats.

Building upon the attention that Teinte and Les tients du ciel n’int aucun sens received in the Francophone world, Frais Dispo released their highly-anticipated sophomore album, Il est tard et j’ai mal partout last month through Audiogram. The album finds the band adopting a more laid-back, spontaneous songwriting approach: The album’s tracks were recorded live and on the floor, as a way to allow the songs to breathe — and to ensure a more organic sound.

As album track “Dire je t’aime au téléphone,” ends, you hear a bit of murmured voices, laughter, and a brief sigh and a phone ringing, which gives the listener a sense of being in the studio with the band — and a real warm, imperfect, human element.

Much of the album’s material came from lengthy jams and jam sessions, which the band shortened or refined when they felt necessary. “We started playing, and when I felt we had something interesting, I started recording. I played the drums one-handed to start recording on my iPhone, sometimes 10 minutes after I started jamming!” The band’s Antoine Gallois, who also served as the album’s sound engineer explains.

By working this way, the band wanted to focus more on the emotions at the core of the material rather than the technique, all while capturing the buzzy euphoria of the first studio recordings. 

The JOVM mainstays will be playing a sold-out show at Place des Arts’ Salle Claude Léveillée on Thursday, April 23, 2026, as part of SACEF’s Série Découverte. And to celebrate the occasion, the band released a live session recorded at Chez Guy that featured gorgeous, psych country-meets-Laurel Canyon-like “Dire je t’aime au téléphone,” and “Habitat,” arguably the most groove-driven, jam-like song on the album.

Simply put, it’s gorgeous songs played in gorgeous settings.

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