If you’ve been checking out the newly unveiled lineup for the 2026 Montreal International Jazz Festival, one peculiar name may have caught your attention.
In case you don’t know, Angine de Poitrine — French for “angina pectoris,” as in the medical condition — is an experimental rock duo from Saguenay that performs as anonymous alien figures who speak their own invented language.
They wear oversized papier-mâché masks fitted with Proboscis monkey noses, black-and-white polka dot suits, and move through their sets with a hypnotic, choreographed strangeness that sits somewhere between performance art and fever dream.
The whole thing started as a joke: after being told they couldn’t play back-to-back weeks at the same venue, they did one show as themselves and one in costume. The costumes stuck, the alien personas took over, and the members have stayed anonymous ever since.
The music matches the spectacle. Khn de Poitrine plays a custom-built double-necked instrument — part Stratocaster-style guitar, part P-bass — fitted with microtonal frets and no front fret markers. Meanwhile, Klek de Poitrine handles drums. Together they build high-energy instrumentals that blend math-rock with microtonal scales, disco grooves, and acid techno pulses.
It’s danceable and disorienting at the same time, which sounds like a contradiction until you actually hear it.
Their 2024 debut Vol. 1 developed a cult following fast enough that physical copies started appearing on resale sites at a premium. The follow-up, Vol. II, drops April 3, with singles “Fabienk,” “Mata Zyklek,” and “Sherpa” already out.
In February 2026, a live session recorded for KEXP at France’s Trans Musicales festival went massively viral, racking up millions of views and putting them on radars well outside Quebec. They’ve since won GAMIQ Artist of the Year, appeared on Tout le monde en parle, sold out shows in New York and Rennes, and amassed nearly 400,000 Instagram followers.
Their first U.S. tour dates are booked for September 2026, and the mainstream feels like it’s only a matter of time.
Before that happens, you can catch them right here in la belle province. On June 27 at 9:30 p.m., they’ll play a free outdoor show on the TD Stage in the Quartier des Spectacles as part of the Montreal Jazz Fest.
Given where this band is headed, it might just be one of those nights you end up telling people about.
And even if world domination isn’t in the cards, a free show from two aliens in polka dot suits is never a bad way to spend a summer evening.
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