Quebec Indie Music Awards

So blog posts are a bit like buses (and so it appears, Award Shows)... You wait ages for one and then along come a posse in quick succession!

So with the dust now settled on the ADISQ Gala, attention now turns to the annual Quebec Indie Music Awards (or Gala alternatif de la musique indépendante au Québec GAMIQ), the 8th edition of which will be held at Montréal's Plaza Theatre on November 17th.

Now as I've already blogged, I don't pretend to be much of an expert, but GAMIQ does seem to come across as a bit more "edgy" than the ADISQ - sort of a more "NME Awards" than either "The Grammys" or "Brits."

Quebec-based artists and albums released on independent labels between June 2012 and May this year are all eligible for nomination, although there are some noticeable provisos which lead to automatic disqualification - which I assume prevents the Quebecois-equivalent of One-bleedin' Direction hoovering-up everything in front of them:

• The artist has reached the TOP 40 in either the French or English-language charts
• The artist has been nominated at the ADISQ's "Big" Gala in the Female Artist of the Year, Male Artist of the Year, Group of the Year or Popular Song of the Year categories, or nominated in the Canadian Music Award's JUNO Artist of the Year, Group of the Year, Album of the Year or Single of the Year categories
• The artist's albums have, since 2006, appeared in the annual Quebec top 50 charts

Having not reached the level of acclaim (yet), several of this blog's favourites have been nominated in the following categories:

Artist of the Year:

Les Soeurs Boulay

Songwriters of the Year:

Mélanie Boulay and Stéphanie Boulay

Show of the Year:

Les Soeurs Boulay

Song of theYear:

LesSoeurs Boulay “Mappemonde"

Video of the Year:

Les Soeurs Boulay "Par le chignon du cou" (Directed by: David Valiquette)

Breakthrough Artist of the Year: 

Forêt

Groenland

Les Soeurs Boulay 

Country/Americana Album of the Year: 
Chantal Archambault ”Les élans”

Folk Album of the Year:

Les Soeurs Boulay “Le poids des confettis"

Indie Rock Album of the Year: 

Forêt "Forêt" 

Pop Album of the Year: 

Groenland "The Chase"

It's getting to become a bit of a nominations-laden year for Mélanie and Stéphanie Boulay. Having already picked-up awards for Best Folk Album at the ASIDQ's Alternative Gala and Breakthrough Act at the main Gala, the sisters have been nominated for no less than seven GAMIQ awards.

Having stumbled by accident up the girls’ eponymous EP, which I subsequently guest blogged about, I eagerly awaited the release of their first album and was already totally smitten by the time that I of my less-than-objective review for Guuzbourg's acclaimed Filles Sourires Blog.

The thing that really strikes me about the sisters is the way that their voices and harmonies are almost telepathically intertwined. There's a quality in the pitch-perfect vocals that is reminiscent of a certain Simon and Garfunkel at their prime. This bewitching talent is ably demonstrated in the video below as the Sisters perform "Des shooters de fort sur ton bras" at the launch party of their debut album earlier this year: 

Meanwhile, the equally wonderful Forêt and Groenland are both nominated for two awards apiece. Both are nominated in the Breakout category (along side Les Soeurs Boulay - which is a case of Déjà vu for Émilie Laforest and Joseph Marchand after last Sunday's ADISQ Gala) as well as deserved nominations in the Indie Rock and Pop Album categories, respectively.

Forêt's eponymous debut album is as an electrifying and atmospheric an album as I think I've heard in a very long-time; dark, brooding, un-nerving, but at the same time strangely uplifting and reassuring. Painting an aural landscape like nobody since the Cocteau Twins, but with an added undercurrent of Portishead's urban menace thrown in for good measure, I doubt that there have been many better albums - in English or French - released this year. The video below, for the song “La Cage", conveys just how haunting their sound is:
 

Montréal-based Groenland's album is nominated in the best Pop Album category - a strange pigeon-holing for an outstanding album which is an ambitious and impressive symphony of expertly-crafted indie-pop, which borrows from and is influenced by genres as diverse as electronica, jazz, classical and country-folk. It is testament to the band's collective maturity and creative self-belief that "The Chase" refuses to be constrained by musical norms and constantly pushes against these perceived boundaries to create a seamless masterpiece, which the band demonstrate in this live studio video, providing a taster as to what this truly multi-talented group are all about:
 

Chantal Archambault is deservedly nominated in the Country / Americana section for her album "Les élans". A previous nominee at both the ADISQ and GAMIQ, with "Les élans" Chantal carefully blurs the lines between country and pop, resulting in an immediately accessible album which while never forgetting it's roots doesn't try and ram them down the listener's throat... I suspect that people cleverer than I would call it her cross-over album. Me? I’d just say that it’s a shining example of the contemporary French-Canadian country-folklorique scene that deserves as much attention (and column inches) as it's neighbour to the south...

Here Chantal performs "Tomber Frêle" from the album live on Télé-Québec's "Belle et Bum"... 

As mentioned, the Gala is held on the 17th and I’ll be covering the  awards evening in a future post.