GAMIQ Awards Gala 2013

Here's one I made earlier...

Sunday evening saw the 8th annual Quebec Indie Music Awards (or Gala alternatif de la musique indépendante au Québec GAMIQ) at Montréal's Plaza Theatre. As featured in this very Blog, several of our favourite Quebec-based artists (Chantal Archambault, Forêt, Groenland and Les sœurs Boulay) were up for awards on the night...
 
Due to this Blog's obstinate refusal to have anything to do with Facebook, the live web streaming option was of limits - and so, in a repeat of our remote following of the ADISQ Gala - this Blog once again took to the Twittersphere...

Chantal Archambault's "Les élans", which this Blog reviewed back in May lost out in the award for the Country/Americana Album award to Tire le coyote's "Mitan", while despite being nominated in two categories, Forêt once again went away empty handed. Their dark, brooding, un-nerving yet atmospheric highly recommended debut album losing out to Suuns' "Images Du Futur" in the Indie Album category.
 
While I'm hoping that both artists will be gracing future posts - as well as featuring in this Blog's End of Year Awards - I suspect that it's scant compensation...

Groenland work out who gets an antler... (Photo Cindy Boyce)

Now in an earlier post post I'd queried the categorisation of Groenland's genre-defying "The Chase" as a "mere" pop album (the category it was nominated for). However the album deservedly picked up an award - "The Chase" is an exceptionally crafted and mature album that deserves a far wider audience outside of the band's native Canada - and it's in English, so there really is no excuse... (As an aside, the title song features on the latest British Airways "You-rope" web commercial - which as well as a cool song also features some cool sights of the uber-cool city of Barcelona...) 

And the band weren't done. Not just content with one award, they also picked-up the Revelation of the Year Award - pipping both Forêt and Les sœurs Boulay in the process...  

Meanwhile Melanie and Stéphanie get a pair each...

Speaking of whom... It's probably safe to say that 2013 has been a pretty momentous year for Gaspésie's Melanie and Stéphanie Boulay. The sisters released their debut album to universal acclaim back in March, picked  up awards at both the ADISQ's "Other" and Main galas... and were nominated for no less than seven awards at the GAMIQs...

They repeated their success of the ADISQ's "Other" Gala, picking up the Folk Album of the Year Award and then going several better, as they deservedly picked up the evening's headline award - Artist of the Year... So in case you didn't already know it already, the Sisters have most definitely arrived!

All in all there were nineteen categories awarded during the evening's events and a full list of all the nominees as well as the eventual can be found on the GAMIQ bilingual website.