A KEXP session, papier-mâché masks, and a homemade microtonal guitar. Meet the most talked-about band on the internet this month.
The masked Quebec duo Angine de Poitrine have been all over my algorithm these past few weeks.
When they first started appearing in my feeds, the costumes and the viral framing made me make a quick judgement that their virality wasn’t about their music, it was about their visual representation.
The masked duo in polka-dot suits look is a strong one, but I think I just didn’t trust Instagram to surface something fresh I actually wanted to hear anymore without a novelty angle. Which is kind of problem for someone who has spent 20 years recommending music to people on the internet. Welp.
Meanwhile the band’s KEXP session continued racking up millions of views, as I put it down as an algorithm-friendly gimmick – one to revisit maybe – but the kind of thing designed to generate clicks rather than genuine listening.
A snap judgement maybe, but one made as I’m already drowning in a sea of great new music to check out that I barely get to write about anymore.
The algorithm’s movement towards quick-hit dopamine through any means necessary – often polarising – means that I trust it less to bring me joy, and to bring my “simple content based on stuff I like” brand to others. Undoubtably, the internet has a habit of elevating novelty over substance, and there’s recent precedent for that.
Glass Beams arrived on a wave of similar visual intrigue, all mystery and mystique, and while the aesthetic was immaculate, the music itself never quite matched the promise of the presentation. At my most cynical, I think Glass Beams are only where they are because they are more Eastern-influenced take knockoff band in the psychedelic slipstream success of Khruangbin. At other times, I don’t care about that – the vibe is just nice, and who cares if people are just enjoying it.
But back to the psychedelic, math-rock microtonal Canadians.
The sheer visual strangeness of Angine de Poitrine felt like the reason to be sceptical rather than curious.
It wasn’t until two other people I trusted in music recommendations personally mentioned Angine de Poitrine to me this week that I pushed past the preconceptions and had a proper go at them.
Ok, Fine. Angine de Poitrine are GOOD – it’s fun, it’s janky math-rock – i used to love this stuff a lot – and you probably did too – sure just last week I was listening to Battles early EPs, which is pretty similar to some of this stuff, and you can hear some of the bass thumping vibe of the recently-returned Adebisi Shank on some of Angine de Poitrine’s music.
Ireland loves it some math-rock bands.
The math-rockers have grown up and are now math-rock dads, as the top comment on the Youtube video suggests “my wife isn’t going to appreciate a single second of this.”
Or…
“I’m a big fan of whatever is wrong with these two.”
OK, who are Angine de Poitrine?
Angine de Poitrine are a two-piece from Saguenay, Quebec. For anyone outside the Quebec festival circuit, they seemed to appear from nowhere, but Khn (guitar, bass, looping) and Klek (drums) have been playing together since their early teens. That’s around 20 years of musical partnership before the world caught up with them.
The name translates to angina pectoris, a chest pain or heart condition caused by insufficient blood flow. Fitting, maybe, for music this wound up and tension-filled.
The Origin of the Masks
The look that’s made them so distinctive started as a practical joke. In 2019, a friend who managed a venue needed a last-minute booking and they put themselves forward. The problem was they’d already played the same venue earlier that week under a different project name. Worried no one would come to see them again so soon, they covered up with masks and costumes. The anonymity was never meant to be permanent, but it became central to the project, allowing both members to work on other music within the local scene without being recognised.
The costumes have evolved into something genuinely striking. Oversized papier-mâché masks with giant noses, full polka-dot suits, matching backdrops. It reads like a collision between performance art and prog rock theatre.
Why the band went viral now?
In early February 2026, Seattle indie radio station KEXP uploaded footage of Angine de Poitrine performing at the Trans Musicales festival in Rennes, France. Within weeks, the video passed 3.5 million views (a month later it’s at 5 million). Reaction videos flooded in. Guitar nerds, jazz heads, prog fans, and people who hadn’t thought about music like this in years were all sending the same link to each other.
The reason it spread so fast comes down to a few things working at once. The visual spectacle is immediately arresting and genuinely strange, but the music doesn’t let you leave once you start actually listening. Rick Beato said he was receiving 25 emails a day about them. Cory Wong and Mike Portnoy both publicly flagged the video. When musicians of that calibre start paying attention, things accelerate fast.
Angine De Poitrine hadn’t actually made a lot of videos on their Youtube channel since they started – there’s just two on there now – a trailer and one live rooftop set from Pop Montreal- so it was really only the KEXP session, a high profile platform, that gave them the worldwide visibility.
What makes Angine de Poitrine unique
Strip away the masks, the viral numbers, and the reaction video pile-on, and what you’re left with is a duo who have spent two decades developing a musical language that genuinely doesn’t sound much like anyone else.
Mantra-Rock Dada Pythago-Cubist Orchestra. Microtonal cardboard anti–arena-rock.
The guitar is where a lot of the singularity lies. Klek built the band’s defining instrument himself by sawing extra frets onto a guitar to create a microtonal double-neck guitar and bass hybrid. He brought it to Khn with the disclaimer that it made absolutely no sense. They started playing it together and immediately started laughing. That instrument became the centre of their sound.
The result is a dense, disorienting mix of math rock, prog, jazz and Zappa-like complexity, informed by years of listening to Indian, Japanese, Arabic, Indonesian and Turkish music. The focus is on the friction between notes, using microtonality not as an effect or novelty but as the actual language of the music. Comparisons have landed on King Crimson, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Gentle Giant, and Sun Ra, but Angine de Poitrine sound genuinely like themselves.
The Demand and What Comes Next
Their 2024 debut Vol. 1 became the most sought-after record on Discogs in recent weeks, with used copies selling for around $600, sitting ahead of Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny in terms of demand. They have since signed with booking agencies in the US and UK.
Their second album Vol. II is out on next Friday, April 3rd, 2026, preceded by the singles ‘Mata Zyklek’ and ‘Fabienk’. US live dates follow in September.
So watch out for more tour dates as this energy is not going back into the fizzy bottle it came from.
Angine de Poitrine Tour Dates 2026 – Europe
MAY
1 Centre d’Expérimentation Musicale, Chicoutimi, QC (SOLD OUT)
2 L’Ouvre-Boîte Culturel, Baie-Comeau, QC (SOLD OUT)
10 Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, UK (SOLD OUT)
11 Electric Ballroom, London, UK (SOLD OUT)
12 Strange Brew, Bristol, UK (SOLD OUT)
14-17 The Great Escape, Brighton, UK
16 Pelpass Festival 2026, Strasbourg, France
18 UBU, Rennes, France (SOLD OUT)
19 Théâtre Paul Scarron, Le Mans, France (SOLD OUT)
20 La Lune des Pirates, Amiens, France (SOLD OUT)
21 Le Vecteur, Charleroi, Belgium (SOLD OUT)
22 Le Confort Moderne, Poitiers, France
23 La Sirene, La Rochelle, France
24 Bulomatik Festival, Loperhet, France
26 Magasin 4, Brussels, Belgium (SOLD OUT)
28 France – TBA
29 Le Grand Mix, Tourcoing, France
30 Bon Moment Festival, Nancy, France
31 Italy – TBA
AUGUST
28 Meo Kalorama 2026, Lisbon, Portugal
SEPTEMBER
3-6 End Of The Road, Larmer Tree Gardens, Dorset, UK
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter, and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
