Montreal DIY scene

Since the late 2000s, numerous musical artists from the neighborhood of Mile End, Montreal have recorded, released and performed what the press has considered to be weird, experimental, DIY music of a variety of styles. All of these acts that are considered a part of the DIY scene initially played their music at parties only around the Montreal area, but it wasn't until the year of the release of singer-songwriter Grimes' album Visions (2012) that the subculture garnered attention worldwide.

“The noise scene is super important. I value it as music, but I think at least with my experience of Montreal it’s about doing something, making something happen, pushing things forward. It’s a lot about the community that surrounds it, so we kind of took that sentiment and worked it into our pop music thing.”

In 2007, many artists including Sebastian Cowan, Alexander Cowan, Ezra Gray and Jeff Boyd, as well as video director Emily Kai Bock, formed the artist collective and venue space Lab Synthese in Mile End, Montreal, Quebec. Acts from the Mile End neighborhood such as Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Arcade Fire are considered the DIY scene's ancestors. Kai Bock recalled the place being "really intense and beautiful." She highlighted its "glow of inspiration that filled [bedrooms] during the shows, and the rich conversations that lasted late into the night would sometimes leave me with a deep sadness that such an oasis of collaboration couldn't last forever."

Several acts of the Montreal scene started performing in parties at Lab Synthese and other venues close to it, and Dazed magazine described the live shows as "forcefully human" and "overly theatrical." The artists performed at these parties where it was more "secure" for them, explained musician CFCF, instead of touring in other places; this was because, as Dazed analyzed, most audiences outside of Montreal who didn't know these acts would never care about them. Lab Synthese was shut down on October 31, 2009, only two years after it was founded, due to evidence from police of crimes such as heavy liquor drinking going on at the venue. Lab Synthese has been compared by Chart Attack to Andy Warhol's Midtown Manhattan-based studio The Factory.

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Wikipedia