Angine de Poitrine are on the duvet of Billboard Canada, with a canopy story that provides an inside look behind their rise.
For the reason that starting of 2026, there’s arguably been no hotter band on this planet. They’ve earned hundreds of thousands upon hundreds of thousands of streams, reward from idols from Jack White to Shania Twain (extra on that later), bought out concert events in seconds and, with someplace within the neighborhood of 100,000 followers, even set a file for the most important crowd at Montreal Worldwide Jazz Pageant since Stevie Marvel in 2009.
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Looking on the viewers, the band’s supervisor, Sébastien Collin, was amazed on the turnout — not simply due to the dimensions of the gang, however the truth that they’d come to see this band. Instrumental microtonal math-rock isn’t the type of music that normally attracts numbers, however Angine de Poitrine have proven there’s an urge for food on the market for adventurous, virtuosic and simply plain bizarre music. The band’s mixture of looping pedals, double-necked guitar/bass and virtuosic musicianship is a sight and sound to behold.
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“Once I was backstage, I used to be actually blissful to see so many individuals having fun with complicated music and heavy rock riffs,” he tells Billboard Canada. “With so many individuals there of all ages, it’s unimaginable that it was solely individuals who like that kind of style that have been there. It’s a lot wider. It reveals that possibly there will probably be some extra openness to actually good concepts and actually good music.”
Nobody might have been ready for the favored explosion when the band’s KEXP efficiency video went up in February, 2026. It went viral practically immediately, and the band, then largely unknown exterior of their house province, racked up hundreds of thousands of streams. At present, the YouTube video sits at 17 million views. “A worldwide breakthrough just isn’t one thing you may plan for,” Collin says.
He says the second it went up, his inbox exploded. In a single day, he had messages from venues, festivals, merchandise producers and followers from all around the world. The Vol. II album was deliberate for launch in April, simply two months after the video went up. The band needed to act shortly. With so many eyes watching, how would they meet the second?
The ecosystem round Angine de Poitrine was rising quickly. They needed to discover the proper companions to press the vinyl, distribute it, assemble Khn de Poitrine’s customized guitars, make merch and posters for every present, e-book concert events all through the world, register for publishing and determine subsequent steps — all at a way more monumental scale than they, or most individuals within the music business, could possibly be prepared for.
The largest choice was whether or not to launch the album on a file label. Everybody needed to signal Angine de Poitrine. That’s not an exaggeration.
“I can say that each main and many of the huge indies all contacted us. Smaller indies, too. It was fairly a rush. I used to be having round 10 conferences per week, all on the label aspect,” Collin says, breaking into fun. “It was fairly enjoyable to have a number of them saying how lengthy they’d been following Angine de Poitrine, whereas the fact was lots of them had found them two days in the past.”
Collin compares the expertise to hurry courting, however with the additional strain of getting to get married on the finish. The clock was ticking they usually had to choose. In the long run, they selected to go together with nobody. They’d do it how they’d been doing it since day one: independently.
“We would have liked to speak to all of the labels to decide on none of them,” he says.
Learn the total Angine de Poitrine cowl story right here. — Richard Trapunski
Canadian music is making noise worldwide, whereas Canadian listeners devour music from all over the world.
Luminate has launched its 2026 mid-year report, monitoring modifications and traits in music consumption within the U.S. and all over the world all through the primary half of the yr.
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In response to this yr’s report, Canada stays one of many greatest forces within the business, rating at No. 4 as the highest world exporter of music worldwide
That stated, it slips down from its No. 3 spot final yr, touchdown simply behind South Korea and rating behind the U.S. (No. 1) and the U.Ok. (No. 2).
Canada presently ranks as one of many nations with probably the most various make-up of its music consumption worldwide, with 90% of its streaming exercise pertaining to music from 10 completely different nations of origin.
That statistic displays the variety of the nation. Latin music’s recognition all over the world continues with waves in Canada. Unhealthy Bunny earned his first Canadian No. 1 music and album this yr following his Tremendous Bowl halftime present efficiency. Ok-pop is big, with the viral hit “Golden” from the Ok-Pop Demon Hunters soundtrack additionally spending 5 weeks at No. 1 in Canada. BTS has additionally had a chart-topping comeback. The Punjabi wave has been reaching new heights, with artists like Karan Aujla, Diljit Dosanjh, Cheema Y and Gur Sidhu persevering with to rack up increasingly chart data and spectacular streaming statistics in Canada.
That’s to not point out music from south of the border. Canada is the highest importer of American music this yr, a pattern made evident by the domination of U.S. hits on streaming and the Canadian charts.
Canadians are additionally consuming extra music throughout the board this yr, with all codecs seeing a major rise. In comparison with 2025, whole album consumption is up by 3.2% with a rise of two.3 million album equal items, on-demand audio music streams are up 3.6% with a rise of two.7 billion streams and bodily album gross sales soar 4.2%, with a further 100,000 copies bought throughout albums, CDs and cassettes. Within the U.S., BTS and Ok-pop are driving a key uptick in CD gross sales, with a 16% total surge and a 6.7% enhance even upon excluding the broader Ok-pop catalogue.
Learn extra right here. — Stefano Rebuli
