Emmanuel Alias is a French-born, Montreal-based singer/songwriter multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, dilettante and polymath whose musical career has managed to go through about four different paths before he started his eponymous psych rock project ALIAS. After spending 9 years studying jazz at the Darius Milhaud Conservatory in Aix-en-Provence, France, Alias relocated to Quebec in 2014. Landing at job at XS Music, Alias worked with Jean-Phi Gonclaves on composing music for HBO’s Big Little Lies and Sharp Objects, ICI Télé’s Une autre histoire, Hubert et Fanny and Cerebrum et Mon fils, Mariloup Wolfe’s feature film Jouliks and for a number of Cirque du Soleil productions.

Since 2017, Alias hs also worked for Musique Nomade, where he produced multidisciplinary Oji-Crie’ and Mi’gmaq artist Anachnid‘s DREAMWEAVER, which was nominated for an Association québécoise de l’industrie du disque, du spectacle et de la video (ADISQ) Award and long-listed for the Polaris Prize. The French-born, Montreal-based artist also produced singles by Q-052, Annie Sama, Chances, iskwē and Beyries‘ “Out of Touch,” off her recent album Encounter. Additionally, he’s the musical and stage director of Anachnid concerts — and he’s accompanied Beyries on stage a few times.

Simultaneously, the French-born, Montreal-based singer/songwriter, composer and producer has a had host of different projects to accommodate his need and desire to explore different genres releasing punk, hip-hop and ambient material under different monikers — until settling on his latest, eponymous project Alias, a psych rock inspired project that finds him crafting songs centered around wild, hallucinogenic stories that include the personification of dogs, dementia, the Wild West, killers, loneliness, space exploration. The whole affair sounds as though it could have been released decades ago — and as though it were released yesterday.

Alias’ debut EP It’s Not Funny So Stop Smilin’ was released last week through Simone Records. The EP’s latest single “Why Don’t You Wanna Dance” is a trippy and modern take on classic psych rock and glam rock featuring fuzzy power chords, soaring organ, twinkling synth arpeggios and a chugging, motorik groove paired with an age old tale of rejection, humiliation and paranoia that should feel familiar to the outcasts and weirdos amongst us.