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NicheMTL
@nichemtl.bsky.social
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“One of my favourite things about the organ is this kind of acousmatic listening experience.”

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Vapours & Spectre: notes on Les Vespérales de l’orgue du Sacré-Cœur
NicheMTL contributor Jesse Eckerlin speaks with Adrian Foster, founder of Les Vespérales, the ambient concert series that blurs the secular and the sacred.
nichemtl.com
November 8, 2025 at 12:55 PM
“Great things are going to happen, and terrible things are going to happen. But at the end of the day, your life is valuable.”

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Last City Standing: in conversation with Natalia Yanchak
The Dears' Natalia Yanchak speaks to NicheMTL about nostalgia, and the band's ninth studio album, "Life is Beautiful! Life is Beautiful! Life is Beautiful!"
nichemtl.com
November 4, 2025 at 3:25 PM
All of life fits some pattern; there is no such thing as a random event. Zoom out far enough and you will see that what we perceive as chaos or chance is in fact divine design.

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Amethyst Deceivers
Play Recent, NicheMTL's signature column features Esse Ran, Irene F. Whittome, Daniel Lanois, James Ehnes with the OSM, plus Autechre in the dark at SAT.
nichemtl.com
October 28, 2025 at 7:06 PM
It is counterintuitive for the underground press — a publication like NicheMTL — to attempt to shed light on underground artists as well as itself via these technical means while remaining underground.

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The Underground City
The inaugural NicheMTL Massive Lecture looks at The Underground as an historically revolutionary site and what the role of the underground press is in 2025.
nichemtl.com
October 23, 2025 at 8:19 AM
“Having transformative experiences along with people who are working towards making change is a real thing. It’s not just entertainment.”

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This Continuous Spectrum: in conversation with Jessica Moss
The Montreal violinist Jessica Moss sits down for an interview with NicheMTL to unpack her collage-type recording process, and her latest album, Unfolding.
nichemtl.com
October 14, 2025 at 6:37 AM
The necessity of violence is the definitive subject at the heart of every revolution.

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Monkey Warfare
Play Recent, NicheMTL's signature column, features No Hay Banda's 10th season opener, Don Giovanni, Do Make Say Think, Ensemble Urbain, plus Africa Fashion.
nichemtl.com
October 8, 2025 at 12:17 AM
“When you don’t have money, everything is money.”

To understand how location shapes creative practice and artistic possibility, our newest contributor Anya Leibovitch spoke with working artists in New York and Montreal, two of North America’s most culturally vibrant cities.

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Dirty Boulevard: Montreal vs. New York City
Anya Leibovitch speaks with artists Markus Floats, Alex Wolfe, Willow Loveday-Little and Gavin Sewell about the dynamics between New York City and Montreal.
nichemtl.com
October 1, 2025 at 12:46 PM
The experiences in life that teach us the most are those we would have never chosen for ourselves.

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Gratitude
Autumn's first Play Recent features Suzy Lake at Bradley Ertaskiran, the OSM's season premiere, Josèfa Ntjam at Centre PHI, plus Marion Wagschal at Pangée.
nichemtl.com
September 22, 2025 at 3:31 PM
“I feel like it’s a city that is open to the world. And I think that reflects in the Orchestra.”

Read the NicheMTL interview with Marianne Perron who speaks with us about the OSM’s 2025-‘26 season, which launches with “The Damnation of Faust” tonight at Maison Symphonique.

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Forever Young: in conversation with Marianne Perron
The Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal's Marianne Perron speaks with NicheMTL about her background in music and management and highlights of the next season.
nichemtl.com
September 17, 2025 at 1:17 PM
Not only do we never step in the same river twice; each time, the river fails to recognize our feet.

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Joy & Pain
Play Recent for September features Alicia Clara, Beth Taylor, Shunk at Casa del Popolo, ~Ondes~ at White Wall Studio, plus the summer's final organ recital.
nichemtl.com
September 9, 2025 at 5:51 PM
“We’re pretty lucky in Montreal to be able to bond over something that at its core is done from an authentic place.”

Read the NicheMTL interview with Susil Sharma of Karma Glider, whose latest album, “From the Haze of a Revved Up Youth” launches this Friday at Casa del popolo.

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Cause & Effect: in conversation with Susil Sharma
Karma Glider's Susil Sharma speaks with NicheMTL about his influences, what attracted him to Montreal, and his new LP, "From the Haze of a Revved Up Youth."
nichemtl.com
September 4, 2025 at 2:22 PM
“There is no moment when I am not doing art.”

Read the NicheMTL interview with Tomas Dessureault who speaks with us about the criteria for good art, being inspired by musicians more than painters, and preparing for his upcoming solo show at Galerie POPOP.

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The Atrocity Exhibition: in conversation with Tomas Dessureault
The artist Tomas Dessureault speaks with NicheMTL about demon possession, the characteristics that make good art, and his upcoming exhibition, Peace Please.
nichemtl.com
August 29, 2025 at 9:59 AM
If we are to read any era by its music, then surely conflict and chaos must characterize the present one.

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Big Shiny Tunes
Play Recent for mid-August features the Orchestre Metropolitain, the OSM's Virée Classique, Christian Richer, Cecilia at the SAT, and Sloan in Penticton BC.
nichemtl.com
August 18, 2025 at 3:51 PM
“I don’t tend to look to art for escape.”

Read the NicheMTL interview with @markmolnar.bsky.social whose most recent album, EXO, combines chamber music with shades of drone, holy minimalism, doom, ambient, and musique concrete that ultimately transcends these genre prescriptions.

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Black Bough, Green Shoots: in conversation with Mark Molnar
Although he is a classically trained multi-instrumentalist, Mark Molnar has spent most of his life outside the institutional norms of neo-classical music.
nichemtl.com
August 12, 2025 at 11:12 AM
“Montreal diners are the best and most educated diners in the world.”

Read the NicheMTL interview with the crew at Nora Gray, who speak with us about the changing Montreal dining scene and what it takes to operate one of Canada’s best restaurants.

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Scenes From an Italian Restaurant: at the table with Nora Gray
NicheMTL speaks with Nora Gray's Ryan Gray, Dmetro Sinclair, Shelby Skaberna, and Lexi Becker about the joys of running one of Montreal's best restaurants.
nichemtl.com
August 5, 2025 at 11:37 AM
There has always been a sense that products of Canadian culture were only praiseworthy if an international audience approved of them.

Read the most recent Play Recent, featuring a response to the Globe & Mail’s 101 essential Canadian albums list, and ten comparitively niche additions.

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Hang a Larry: notes on The Globe & Mail’s 101 Canadian Albums list
NicheMTL proposes ten additions to The Globe & Mail's list of 101 essential Canadian albums, a selection of enormously popular but comparatively niche cuts.
nichemtl.com
July 27, 2025 at 5:59 PM
Wisdom like fruit seems to arrive frustratingly in abundance or not at all.

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Meet Every Situation Head On
Play Recent features public performance art at Fonderie Darling, exhibitions at Bradley Ertaskiran and Centre Sanaaq, and new music from Toninato & Lecours.
nichemtl.com
July 22, 2025 at 1:41 AM
“The initial idea was to involve different people for every record, for it to be like this orchestra thing. And then Covid happened, and it became the two of us.”

Read the NicheMTL interview with Orchestroll, who speak with us about the making of their latest magum opus, Corossiv.

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Joker Moment: in conversation with Orchestroll
Orchestroll sit with NicheMTL for a freewheeling interview on the duo's triumphant magnum opus, Corrosiv, plus the future of Montreal's DIY cultural scenes.
nichemtl.com
July 13, 2025 at 1:40 PM
Time waits for no one. There is no escape within time or without it.

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The Part You Throw Away
NicheMTL's Play Recent for July features Alicia Clara, T. Gowdy and Kara-Lis Coverdale at Suoni, Renée Condo's latest exhibition, and no cosmos at Jazzfest.
nichemtl.com
July 9, 2025 at 12:31 PM
Burning a stack of money might indeed be the highest art.

And writing might be the lowest. Not to denigrate my own kind. But unlike playing a musical instrument, or making a film, almost everyone can write. Doing writing artfully is the trick.

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Are You Reading Me?
After Orwell, NicheMTL's publisher Ryan Alexander Diduck meditates on why artists create, and what compels him to pursue the unlucrative career of writing.
nichemtl.com
June 30, 2025 at 12:47 AM
Some people believe that we see what we’re looking for. This suggests that the world always meets our expectations.

Read the most recent edition of Play Recent, with notes on time, power, perception, and deliberation.

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Time & Free Will
NicheMTL's Play Recent features live sets by Erika Angell, Quinton Barnes, exhibitions at Bradley Ertaskiran and Fonderie Darling, plus new music by SANAM.
nichemtl.com
June 22, 2025 at 5:42 AM
“Art changes my life. It changes the way I think. It brings joy, unpredictability, a reason to live.”

Read the MicheMTL interview with Milly A. Dery, Fonderie Darling’s director, about stepping into her new role at one of Montreal’s most respected art institutions, and what comes next.

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Out Of the Past: in conversation with Milly A. Dery
NicheMTL speaks with Fonderie Darling's new director Milly A. Dery about inheriting one of Montreal's most respected arts institutions, and what comes next.
nichemtl.com
June 15, 2025 at 1:44 PM
It doesn’t matter whether these are good times or bad times or in between times. They won’t last.

Read the June edition of Play Recent, with notes on discomfort, conflict, and the ephemerality of it all.

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Small Parts Isolated and Destroyed
Play Recent for June features Laced at Espace SAT, "The Womb is a Tomb in Another Person" at Montreal Fringe, plus exhibitions by Alan Belcher, Jinny Yu, &+
nichemtl.com
June 8, 2025 at 7:17 PM
“The most important thing is the human relationship.”

Read the NicheMTL interview with Eli Kerr, whose eponymous gallery on St. Laurent is attuned to something in the zeitgeist of this precise place and time.

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Follow the Art: in conversation with Eli Kerr
Eli Kerr is one of Montreal's most visionary curators generating a buzz on The Main, reinvigorating a sense of novelty and delight in the city's art world.
nichemtl.com
June 1, 2025 at 10:50 AM
The most dependable way to induce a Dark Age is to manufacture amnesia.

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The Instrumentalization of Others
NicheMTL's Play Recent for late May features the Eric Chenaux Trio, La Bohème, Franz Schubert, Boar God, plus Nicolas Baier's exhibition at Blouin|Division.
nichemtl.com
May 26, 2025 at 2:25 PM