Maïté Gray, left, and Juliane Larin cofounded 5 à Set almost a year ago in Montreal to foster connection between people over music.Karene-Isabelle Jean-Baptiste/The Globe and Mail
Within 15 minutes of arriving at a music listening party at a café in Montreal’s Saint-Henri neighbourhood in late August, I was approached by a stranger who struck up a conversation. Her name was Hanna Eik, and she’d come to the event alone with the intention of making new friends.
“I was looking for organic ways to meet people in person,” said the 24-year-old, who is originally from Norway. “ I saw this event and thought, ‘This is such a cool idea for people to bond over music.’ ”
The music is both the main draw and social lubricant at the “5 à Set” events – a series of Montreal-based listening parties where people mix and mingle with like-minded music fans. (The name is a play on the Quebec term for a postwork social gathering.)
Want a unique nightlife experience? Try going somewhere without your phone
The ticketed events, which vary in price but typically remain between $10 and $20, are held at a variety of local businesses including bars, restaurants and cafés. They range from small, low-key gatherings where attendees sit and listen to a full album on vinyl, to larger, upbeat events that may cover a genre more broadly and often turn into lively dance parties. As another solo attendee, Julian Camacho, told me: “ Socializing is a bit awkward but if there’s good music, that’s something to look forward to.”
The main idea, co-organizer Juliane Larin said, is to use music as a means of connecting with others. The concept of music as a social activity has all but disappeared in the digital age thanks to headphone culture, streaming platforms and algorithms, which create ultrapersonalized, curated music feeds that keep us listening in isolation. With their listening parties, Larin and her co-host Maïté Gray aim to revive the vintage act of intentionally digesting an entire album, artist catalogue or specific genre in a community of fellow music lovers. And they hope attendees make new friends in the process.
People gather at Savsav café in Montreal for the 5 à Set listening party. On this August night, the theme is the Best of Puerto Rico.Karene-Isabelle Jean-Baptiste/The Globe and Mail
Larin and Gray aren’t the only ones hosting communal music listening parties. In Toronto, an event series hosted by Davie Studios called The Listening Room gathers small groups to jam, listen to and discuss landmark albums at various local music venues, while Doze Hifi in Vancouver is a travelling vinyl pop-up series that sets up vintage sound systems throughout the city for people to gather, listen and socialize.
The 5 à Set party last month marked Gray and Larin’s 24th event. Roughly 90 reggaeton lovers gathered at Savsav café one evening to listen to a curated playlist titled Best of Puerto Rico. Best friends Gray, 25, and Larin, 24, started the event series last November as a way to combat seasonal depression, flex their creative muscles, indulge their love of music and offer a place to gather. It’s been so successful that they’ve since made it their full-time jobs.
“You might come home from 5 à Set on a Friday night at 3 a.m. and you’ll have danced all night, and then on Tuesday you can come and have a nice little coffee and sit back and listen to some jazz,” Larin said. They choose the artists and genres based on music they like (R&B, soul, funk, jazz, Latin music), but they also take requests from their more than 5,000 Instagram followers.
Regardless of the type of event, one thing remains the same: People show up with a willingness to mingle. Many arrive alone, and return to later events with the friends they made the first time around.
”It was always important for us to help people make connections and then we started noticing that it was just happening on its own,” Larin said. “ I think people were really craving that third space.”
Eik and Camacho were not the only ones who’d come to the party looking to make friends. In every corner of the room, there were people hugging, shaking hands and sharing Instagram handles.
Camacho, 23, is originally from Ecuador and completed his bachelor’s degree in Fredericton last year before moving to Montreal in March. He had been following 5 à Set on Instagram for a while, eager to put himself out there and attend one of their events. He was waiting for a theme that spoke to him when he saw their post for a reggaeton listening party and knew it was the right time, given his love for Bad Bunny.
“It’s a bit complicated to have a social life once you graduate, but you have to make the effort so that’s why I’m here,” Camacho said. “We can dedicate ourselves to our professional life and that’s very good, but it’s also important to have community.”
Creating an environment where people feel comfortable to attend on their own is no small feat. Gray and Larin greet every person at the entrance and regularly circulate the room, checking in on those who are alone and introducing fellow solo attendees to one another.
“We really try our best to make everyone feel welcome and not left out,” Larin said.
What makes a great bash? Partygoers and throwers share their favourite memories
Many of the partygoers make this a priority, too. Omer Othman, 28, was at his fourth 5 á Set party with his partner and a close friend, but they had intentionally split up to “avoid being cliquey” and meet new people.
“We’re human and we’re social animals,” he said. “I’m here tonight to see people be people, to really connect with others and make sure we’re escaping our everyday 9-to-5 life.”
While the reggaeton event attracted a relatively young crowd, Gray and Larin said that was likely because of the genre’s younger fan base. Typically, their events are intergenerational; past listening parties for artists such as Sade, Al Green and Stevie Wonder have brought in listeners of all ages.
“It can feel as though there is an age limit to the clubbing scene or the dancing scene and that can be limiting,” Gray said.
On top of their Montreal events, Gray and Larin have been hosting monthly listening parties at the 1 Hotel in Toronto since April, and they’re currently working on hosting an event in New York some time this fall.
They’re excited about the success they’ve found with this passion-project-turned-business, but even more so about the community they’ve created in the process.
“I think one of our favourite sentences that we hear now is, ‘We met at 5 à Set,’ ” Gray said.