Tag: KROY

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: ALIAS Shares Swaggering and Genre-Defying “EMPTY HEAD” with KROY and Cadence Weapon

Emmanuel Alias is a French-born, Montréal-based singer/songwriter multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, dilettante and polymath who had had a varied and rather accomplished career in music before he started his eponymous psych rock project ALIAS. 

After spending nine years studying jazz at the Darius Milhaud Conservatory in Aix-en-Provence, France, Alias relocated to Montréal in 2014. Upon his arrival in Québec, Alias landed a job at XS Music, where he worked on scores 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. In 2017, Alias 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. And he also had a stint as the musical and stage director for Ananchid.

Along with his production and songwriting work for other artists, the French-born, Canadian-based artist has managed to have had a host of different projects to accommodate his need to explore different genres, releasing punk, hip-hop and even ambient material under different monikers, before starting his solo recording project ALIAS, a cathartic psych rock project that sees him crafting retro-tinged sons rooted in fantastical, batshit crazy, hallucinogenic tales paired with fuzzy guitars and wild tempo changes.

Alias’ sophomore ALIAS album Embrace Chaos will be released through Simone Records. Embrace Chaos will feature “CURSED” and “TRUTH OR TRUST,” a woozily euphoric bop featuring glistening synth arpeggios, whirring bas synths, relentless four-on-the-floor paired with razor sharp, incredibly catchy hooks. The result is a LCD Soundsystem-meets-Psymon Spine-like soundscape that’s roomy enough for Alias, along with fellow Montréalers Virginie B and Meggie Lennon to playfully trade neurotically self-aware and vaguely paranoid verses and hooks throughout. 

Embrace Chaos‘ third and latest single “EMPTY HEAD” sees the French-born, Canadian-based artist further establishing a genre-bending and genre-defying sound. Featuring guest spots from acclaimed Canadian emcee Cadence Weapon and KROY, the hook-driven “EMPTY HEAD” features elements of industrial electronica, hip-hop and punk rock delivered with a swaggering, in-your-face aplomb.

Directed by Gabrielle Thiffault, the accompanying video for “EMPTY HEAD” features Alias at a birthday party — or some other related gathering — with a table seated by mannequins and masked people. Throughout the French-born, Canadian artist seems to lose his mind and behaves poorly.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Montreal’s KROY Releases a Slick and Darkly Seductive New Single

Camille Poliquin is a Montreal-based singer/songwriter, electronic music artist and producer who’s the creative mastermind behind the rising indie electro pop recording project KROY. Over the past couple of years, Poliquin has released material written and sung in both English and French, including her Max-Antoine Poulin-Gendron co-produced single “Chevy 85.”

Poliquin’s first KROY single of this year, “OPINEL” continues her ongoing collaboration with Poulin-Gendron, who returns to co-produce the new single. Centered around a lush, and hyper modern production consisting of twinkling keys, shimmering synth arpeggios, rumbling low end, stuttering beats, Poliquin’s plaintive vocals and an enormous bass drop, the track reveals intense contradictions rooted in heartache and bitterness with the song describing the push and pull of a dysfunctional and confusion relationship.

The track derives its name from a brand of pocket knives that Poliquin is fond of, Opinel, which can be used “for a lovely picnic in the park with Manchego and two-year-old Louis d’Or cheeses or as a murderous weapon of self-defence,” Poliquin says. “It’s a choice accessory for a Gemini, if you ask me.”

“This song came to me in a very strange moment, while I was in the process of recovering from depression,” Poliquin adds. “I was an emotional wreck, and I felt like I didn’t have control over anything. It was also the first time I felt like I was writing something from a place of pain. It’s my favourite sensation.”