Festival de musique émergente remains a fantastique and fraught francophone showcase

During of a set of playful and concussive electronic pop—the type where the beats reach into your chest and grab hold of your heartrate—a pre-recorded voice rings over the speakers:

“Do you speak French?”

“No,” the Canadian-Swiss artist responds, “but I understand it.”

It’s an equally ironic and (for me) appropriate kick-off to the Festival de Musique Émergente en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, which closes out summer in Quebec with a showcase of underground music, especially from the province, and especially by French-speakers. The pregame at L’Escogriffe Bar in Montreal eases me into the scene: local punks Thee Soreheads scream anglophone feminist theses like “I’m Not Your Fucking Sex Doll”; Balaclava from New York City bobble through meathead motorik psych-punk tunes so distorted they’re hard to decipher in my own language; then Camilla Sparksss spins beats and guitar drones on twin turntables, singing in her native English until it’s time to bid the crowd farewell, by which, of course, I mean au revoir. As she directs people to the merch table, it turns out “Backflip” was a joke. She does speak French.

The bulk of FME (now in its 24th year) actually takes place an eight-hour bus ride north from L’Escogriffe in the small city of Rouyn-Noranda on the land of the indigenous Anishinaabe peoples. For four days, the former mining town hosts 80 music acts across the streets, bars, theaters, and even parking lots, as local families and international travelers like me go set to set from afternoon until early morning. Large and well-funded enough to draw must-see indie lineups, yet small and remote enough to remain a hidden gem on the global stage, it feels like SXSW crossed with your neighborhood block party. At any given show before sundown—even for hardcore bands like Montreal’s Truck Violence—you see toddlers in gun muffs sitting on grown-ups shoulders or chasing each other through the crowds.

Rouyn-Noranda markets itself as a land of contrasts, with a tourist slogan declaring it both “douce et rebelle”—sweet and rebellious. The city offers urban convenience surrounded by wild lakes, mountains, and forests (“We’re not at the end of the world,” says a free hotel pamphlet on the surrounding region of Abitibi-Témiscamingue, “but we can see it from here.”) It hosts not only FME, but gatherings like the Festival du Cinéma International and even an equivalent comedy fest, FHE—the Festival D’Humor Émergent. It’s home to the University of Quebec and abundant natural beauty, but also the Horne Smelter, a metal processing plant which accounts for hundreds of local jobs, and which has failed to meet government-set targets for reducing arsenic emissions. In 2023, Quebec’s government relocated 200 households to create a buffer around the toxic complex. Last year, the Quebec Superior Court authorized a class-action lawsuit by Rouyn-Noranda residents against Glencore, the smelter’s multinational corporate owners.

True to the city’s nature, FME hosts a seemingly-impossible variety of acts. In the same weekend, I see Toronto singer-songwriter Charlotte Cornfield play a gorgeous set of songs for solo guitar and voice, and Japanese black metal rave band Violent Magic Orchestra crowd-surf in a strobe-lit basement. Also true to life in Rouyn-Noranda, the smelter complex looms large over the festivities; one of the smokestacks lines up almost perfectly with 7e Rue, the street hosting the festival’s biggest stages. Traffic light poles and road signs across town are pasted over with fliers that counterbalance local pride—as Rouyn-Noranda celebrates its 100th anniversary this year—with protest.

“Une Mine, Une Ville” (one mine, one city) say the informational signs that make up a local walking tour.

“Ville Arsenic,” says a guerilla poster featuring a skull and crossbones.

“100 years of pride,” says a centennial tourist guidebook.

“100 ans de pollution,” say signs on several of the residential lawns between the welcome center where I pick up my wristband and 7e Rue. I don’t speak French, but I understand it.

At an afternoon barbecue for artists, media, and music professionals hosted by Montreal record label Bonsound, I hear Hélène Barbier and her band play a set of wonderfully wonky indie rock around a backyard swimming pool. Afterwards, I sit down with the team from Mothland—the Montreal label and management company who have booked FME’s lineup since 2020—next to a jumbo chess set on a lawn overlooking Osisko Lake. The smelter complex smokes away on the other side of the water. Mothland’s Marilyne Lacombe compares the tableau to The Simpsons’ city of Springfield, with its nuclear power plant and lake full of mutant three-eyed fish.

There are even some bands that aren't playing the festival because the Horne Smelter is sponsoring it, I'm told. The team says they try to raise awareness of the situation even as they cultivate an atmosphere of hospitality; FME serves as an intercontinental networking opportunity (“We’ve seen bands coming from Atlanta and signing deals in Europe,” says Lacombe) as well as an eclectic showcase. Something about the remoteness of Rouyn-Noranda keeps unique lineups coming year after year, even if it seems odd for noise rap duo Haha Laughing to fly to Montreal from Austin and then ride the bus for eight hours to play a secret show in a NAPA Autopro garage.

“It doesn’t really make sense on paper; that’s the beauty of it,” says Lacombe.

Camilla Sparksss—real name Barbara Lehnhoff—tells me the same thing another afternoon, over watery coffee machine dregs in the lobby of the Hotel Albert. We’re both rallying after a night out until 4:00 a.m., and she’s already given another interview (in French, no less). Lehnhoff grew up in Kenora, Ontario—a small industrial town not unlike Rouyn-Noranda, she says—but now lives in Switzerland. Mothland handles her Canadian booking, and after a Montreal show in February, they invited her back for a few shows at FME.

“It’s nice to do things that don’t make sense at all,” Lehnhoff says of the experience. For context, she once flew all the way to Madagascar for a single show. On tour, she says, “You’re always kind of seeking an adventure…I imagine there are people who would say it’s not worth it to go for two shows or whatever, but for me, it’s definitely worth it. I’m always looking for trouble.”

It takes a lot to get to FME, in time and money; my complimentary travel, accommodations, and festival pass would have cost around $2,000 if I’d paid for them myself. But once you’re in town, the Camilla Sparksss kind of trouble is easy to find. Many of the sets, particularly the secret outdoor shows, are free and open to the public, announced a short time beforehand on FME’s dedicated app. You can often spot where the impromptu gigs are going to be based on where the speakers and soundboards start showing up as you walk around town. Speaking of which, FME is an impressively walkable fest, with most events happening within a few blocks of 7e Rue. You can usually catch a few minutes each of multiple concurrent sets without sweating too much—especially given the mild weather, which is refreshing to me after a long summer of Washington, D.C. heat and humidity. Seeing every performance by all 80 acts is a fool’s errand—there’s always an opportunity cost at a festival of this scale—but the curation and clever scheduling more than make up for the challenge.

Case in point, one night my curiosity gets the best of me, and despite the language barrier, I set out to see Quebec singer-songwriter Étienne Coppée’s “Show Dassin,” a tribute to 60s-70s French pop singer Joe Dassin, at the Scene Paramount theater. I get to hear a theater full of francophones sing along to every song, and by the end of a tune like “Les Champs-Élysées,” I even feel brave enough to join in. The trade-off? I miss Belgian dance punk band Mek’Dr’Dr at the Petit Théatre du Vieux Noranda, which is 20 minutes away on 7e Rue. Not all is lost, though; a day later, Mek’Dr’Dr plays in a parking lot a block away from my hotel, where singer/percussionist Sara De Wit drums on metal bowls and blows into wine and beer bottles, inviting the crowd to dance along on the asphalt.

As with Coppée, much of the lineup doesn’t just cater to the French-speaking audience—it celebrates and comments on the language itself. Joe Dassin famously performed a number of popular English songs in French: “Les Champs-Élysées” was originally Jason Crest’s “Waterloo Road,” and I’m surprised to recognize Coppée’s set closer “Salut les Amoureux” as Steve Goodman’s “City of New Orleans.” The first night’s headliner, indie pop artist Les Louanges, walks out on the main stage to a recording of a children’s choir singing “Alouette.” Indie rock band Corridor’s bio touts them as the first francophone band ever signed to Sub Pop.

In the event hall of a local catering business, I watch Montreal rapper Muhoza and singers Carson and Somaya perform with a jazz band—a communal set complete with saxophone and flute, full of vocal harmonies and with high-fives exchanged after each song. Afterwards, they head back to Montreal to play the release show for their new album, Prends soin de toi. But first, Muhoza lets me pick his brain about the language; like every single Quebecer I meet, he’s patient with my anglophone limitations. For him, French lends a particular vitality to Quebecois music.

“I think it’s the survival aspect—we are in a mass English area in North America, and it’s the fact that we’re able to speak our language and to defend it throughout our culture and music.” But he’s quick to add that Quebec has great music in other tongues, including English, Spanish, Arabic, and Haitian Creole. “In the last year, I realized how powerful is music, you know? Even with the language barrier, it brought us together to do this interview."

I don't speak French, but I understand it—or so I start to think, until Sunday's main events, which are free and open to the public. After a blistering set by Toronto rock and country western veterans The Sadies, the crowd pivots to the three-story tower of scaffolding that, for the first three nights, marked the entrance to the festivities on 7e Rue. Tonight, it's been converted into the site of the centennial celebration, which involves DJs on one level, a culinary show on another, and aerial silk performance in the street. A new French-speaking friend laughs watching me watch the projector screen that spans the scaffolding, which shows an animated bear rubbing up against a tree until a fountain of maple syrup spurts out of it. During the grand finale, popcorn starts raining down into the street in a concentrated jet from over the roof of the concession stand. I have no idea what’s going on, but I hold out my hands to catch some as people swarm around me, raising their cups and hats.

One final culture shock, as a U.S. American at FME: for most of the weekend, I find that crowds don’t mosh unless moshed at. Even in the case of hardcore band Enfants Sauvages—singer Rox Arcand hanging from the ceiling of Bar Pazzo and testing the mic by hitting herself in the head with it—they wait for an invitation from the band to start pushing. I have to take matters into my own hands at another worthy Balaclava set, but at the festival’s final show, it finally seems to happen spontaneously. Soon after Montreal punk band Taxi Girls take to a small outdoor stage off the 7e Rue plaza, the crowd starts roiling as it should. When someone tries to crowd surf, everybody swarms in to hold them; when someone falls down, they get picked up.

As the set comes to an end, singer and sometimes-guitarist, sometimes-bassist Vera Bozickovic waves a checkered flag—an international, even intercontinental signal that FME has ended—as the crowd chants “Olé, Olé, Olé” like we’re at a World Cup match. No other words are needed, in French, English, or any language; the street’s too loud to hear them anyway.