By Ryan J. Nims
In the mid-1990s, I was driving home from my college campus one day and tuned into KTRU, Rice University’s student radio station. I was greeted with a song called “The Gentle Man” by Los Angeles noise rock band Slug. It’s a nine-minute instrumental track featuring odd tunings, two bass guitars, and a somewhat unsettling atmosphere. It unlocked something in me and I realized that music can be atonal and not particularly melodic and still make the listener feel something. Since that moment, I’ve had an ear for experimental music.
Now, if you’re even partly tuned into modern pop culture, you’ve probably heard of Angine de Poitrine. They are an anonymous French Canadian duo dressed in outlandish costumes with large-nosed and polka-dotted masks. Visual aesthetics aside, Angine de Poitrine plays very technically proficient music utilizing just drums and a double-necked guitar/bass and looping pedals. Their sound can be called microtonal math rock.
So, what is microtonal math rock? In Western music, sounds are separated into specific notes or tones. But sound does not conform to regional rules and there are notes between those notes–the so-called microtones. For instance, by changing the fretting on a guitar, notes become accessible that would not be on a standard instrument. Math rock refers to a style of music that uses odd time signatures, alternate tunings, and jazz textures.
When Angine de Poitrine started going viral, weird was their brand from their music costumes to the alien language they use in interviews. Whether you love it or hate it, Angine de Poitrine is unlike anything you’ve experienced before.
The band just self-released their second album, Vol. II in 2026 and physical copies sold out in hours. Their first album, Vol. 1 from, also self-released in 2024 is currently on its fourth or fifth vinyl pressing and consistently sells out.
Avant-garde music may bring to mind things like the shrieking of Yoko Ono or the modernist works of John Cage, but “avant-garde” doesn’t have to be a bad word. I think Angine de Poitrine is unlocking for many people what Slug unlocked in me as a teenager. People are getting exposed to music that they may have never sought out and liking it.
Time will tell if Angine de Poitrine has the staying power to keep people engaged, but the fact that people are noticing and seem to be genuinely interested in this style of music is promising. I’m not saying that Angine de Poitrine’s internet virality will experience the mainstreaming of math rock, nor spark interest in microtonality (check out Australia’s King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard who have been playing in the microtonal sandbox for nearly a decade). But who knows, we may have a renaissance in the coming generation if even a fraction of their new followers seek out other forms of experimental music. There’s so much out there to discover that doesn’t fit into the mainstream musical canon.
ATO Records announced an exclusive partnership to reissue the band’s music in the U.S. on vinyl and CD with preorders for a planned release of Vol. 1 and Vol. II on June 12th.
And in an era where popular music is endlessly formulaic and meticulously polished with computer effects and studio trickery, this duo of time-traveling aliens in polka dots are making music that’s unique, a little raw, and refreshingly human.
If Angine de Poitrine or avant-garde music is of interest to you, tune into KOOP’s Sunday night lineup starting at 6 pm with Virtual Noise for progressive rock, 7:30 pm with Autobahn’s Kosmische musik and ending with experimental and noise with Commercial Suicide from 8:30 to 10 pm.