The Summer of Angine de Poitrine

Seeing them at Riot Fest this year and I can't wait!

Funny to see this posted right now because I just found out about them last night. They are fantastic!!

ok...they are viral right now, but since when have instrumental bands been popular and lasting?

They are different, in an industry with now zero deviation from formula music. They have a solid niche, but they will not be Rush 30 years from now.

Their show at the Jazz Fest was something. The crowd was absolutely insane. Someone linked this on my post a couple days ago

https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/116/829/089/493/109/166/original/890884d62f47e7d8.mp4

Full instrumental bands aren't as popular as big bands like the holy trinity(Rush) but there are still a lot of instrumental acts out there with talent and staying power. For example:

Explosions In The Sky(personal fave)

Masayoshi Takanaka

Polyphia

Steve Vai

Russian Circles

This Will Destroy You

Godspeed You! Black Emperor

Many more too. Most of those acts have been playing for 10-20+ years and I'm not even naming all the ones I listen to on the regular. Angine de Poitrine has a good chance to last as long as they keep making awesome and weird music. I sincerely hope they do cause they sound amazing.

Depends on what you mean by “popular and lasting”. Rush came up in a different period. The definition of success was quite different because there was no internet, there wasn't the concept of virality, there weren't as many opportunities to attract and build an audience.

Look at Phish today. They built their following on the internet, they rose to a reasonable level of popularity, but only have one real traditional radio airplay hit song. And yet here they are 30+ years on, able to play the Vegas Sphere, and MSG. The prototype for a self-built audience was The Grateful Dead. They built their audience, they sold records, and had only a few radio airplay songs like Casey Jones and Touch of Gray.

The definition of success can be very different depending on how you look at it. Today more than ever success isn't defined in the same manner that it used to be. Streaming plays, live performance, etc. have replaced the traditional measures that Rush and The Grateful Dead came up under. Today, Angine de Poitrine can be more like Phish with a dedicated audience that will follow them.

And, as for them being instrumental, I'll defer to the (excellent) list .world provided below.

Yeah, I saw several clips from the show... Just amazing to see.

Any fretless instrument (bass, gtr, violin, viola, cello) is microtonal. Trombones as well.

A lot of popular EDM is instrumental.

Yup, didn't even think about that when I was writing. Of course, we don't typically think of them as microtonal since we're heavily invested in 12TET in the west, and typically use those instruments in a way consistent with 12TET music.

And yet they’re never used like that, so what’s your point?

We got pretty close to the front, was a good time. Somehow we managed to find a little flow of people and made it up from the back without any pushing or otherwise being shitty.

They don’t talk, so it’s not the most interactive experiennce, but the crowd was having fun. Some people made a mosh circle a little beside us.

Glad I got to go for free, and can say I was there.

Why does that matter? Can they not be said to have made an impact if they don’t last 30 years?

Also human voice.