Irreverence and charm are a winning formula at FME, Canada’s most creative festival

No, this isn’t a particularly unhinged episode of The Twilight Zone. This is FME, Canada’s most creative music festival – and almost certainly its friendliest too.

Now in its 23rd year, Festival de musique émergente en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (to give it its full name) is the grandaddy of Québec’s growing number of alternative music festivals. It’s also the most remote, a full 8+ hour bus ride from Montréal in the city of Rouyn-Noranda. A seemingly endless backdrop of jack pine forests and sparkling lakes speeds by the window, dotted by occasional townships and sprawling open-pit gold mines, until, at last, we catch sight of the city’s airfield – yes, you can fly there too, but why would you? The bus is an experience, all gung-ho spirit and sporadic stand-up comedy that I’m sure is very funny if you know French. My handle on the language is pretty much limited to names of different pastries, and niche, useless phrases like oui, je suis mignon, but I was laughing all the same.

Founded 99 years ago, on land belonging to the Anishinaabe people, Rouyn was once a true-blue mining town, built on the wealth of a rich seam of copper. That operation has long since closed, but a scrap electronics smelter – one of the largest in the world – is still in operation, recovering precious metals including copper, silver, and gold. It’s a wild looking thing, like something from the Mad Max universe, or as one person I spoke to put it, “a steampunk Mordor.”

The rest of the city is happily much lovelier, with the clear blue waters of Lake Osisko at its heart. On the south side lies a peaceful botanical garden where dragonflies dance on your arms and the crickets are at their late-summer loudest. Head eastwards and you’ll find the rocky rise of Cap d’Ours, with its panoramic views of the wilderness beyond. Here, cartoonish graffiti covers most of the boulders and slabs, giving it a slightly eerie, Lord of the Flies vibe. A strange sounding grasshopper I’d never heard before had me googling “are there rattlesnakes in Canada?!?” (there aren’t – you’re welcome!), but it’s otherwise magnificent and well worth the climb.

Over on Rouyn’s main drag, movie set carnage reigns. A fallen FME sign, barricaded like a crime scene, marks the entrance to the festival [header image by Dominic McGraw]. Passing through ribbons of CAUTION tape overhead brings you on to 7th Street, home to the festival’s main outdoor stage, plus food stalls, bars, a merch stand, and the long-running Petit Théâtre, a deceptively roomy, split-level space where much of FME’s late-night programme unfolds. Dotted around the area are venues like the wonderfully named Cabaret de la Dernière Chance (a wood-panelled bistro, bar, exhibition space, and games room all in one), modern performance hall Agora des Arts, and – new for 2025 – a former curling club.

Further afield, following the curve of the lake, the festival extends to afternoons and early evenings in cafés, bars, restaurants, a former cinema, and the Rouyn-Noranda branch of working men’s club The Loyal Order of Moose – or Les Mooses, to use its more open, modern name. Throughout the four days of the festival, at short notice, other stages pop up for a brief, shining hour before vanishing again, hosting surprise sets that take place at the lake, the botanical garden, and in the car park of Chez Morasse, Rouyn’s iconic late-night poutine joint, to give just a few examples. It all feels brilliantly paced but also charmingly laidback, with show times often a little out of step with the programme. Take it from the resurrected Elvis, who waves from the window of a passing shuttle bus, FME is not a place to take life, or yourself, too seriously. My best advice? Don’t even try.

Everywhere I go in Rouyn, people seem proud (and occasionally baffled) that European journalists would travel all the way to FME, but it’s as much a mindset as it is a destination. As one festival slogan goes, “Some say Rouyn-Noranda is far – we think it depends on where you’re coming from,” and they don’t just mean geographically. “I think it takes a certain kind of person to want to come here,” says British expat Danny Payne, the festival’s long-time liaison for the international press, “and that’s why it’s always so much fun.”

In past years, FME has occasionally leaned on established international talent to get bums on seats, but it is primarily a showcase festival of sorts, platforming québécois and other Canadian artists by overwhelming majority. Like the Grammy Award for Best ‘New’ Artist, the émergente part of the festival name can be taken with a pinch of salt – some performers at the 2025 edition have been around for well over a decade – but, by and large, the FME roll call is unfamiliar name after unfamiliar name, and it’s all the more exciting for it. I have a short list of must-sees – Klô Pelgag, Nadah El Shazly, Bells Larsen – and the rest is pure discovery.

Much of the credit for FME’s current buzz has to go to the curatorial team at Mothland, a Montréal-based record label, booking agency, management firm, and tight-knit family of music lovers, who have been involved with the festival since 2021. The team have founded two festivals of their own – the Taverne Tour, which warms the dead of the Montréal winter each February, and Distorsion Psych Fest, which takes place in July – but they love FME as if it was their baby too. As the agency’s Philippe Larocque tells me when we meet up later in Montréal, teaming with the festival was “like getting the keys to the Cadillac” in terms of the scope and freedom they were offered. And while there have inevitably been challenges along the way, with increasing competition and rising costs, FME remains a lighthouse of their festival season, and for all of Québec – a faithful, fun-loving guide to what’s good and who’s next.

FME of course has its sponsors – Air Canada, SiriusXM, telecoms company Fizz, etc. – but their logos aren’t splashed all over every square metre of the site. Nothing feels jarring or shoehorned in, just a natural and generous fit. And I really do mean generous. Some of the best shows I saw throughout FME were completely free to the public. If you include the surprise performances, more than a third of the almost 90 artists and bands on the programme were accessible without a ticket. Even better, because of the unseasonably warm Labour Day weekend, the festival closing party was moved from the Petit Théâtre to the outdoor Fizz stage, and any ticket holders for that specific show were offered a refund – a British festival would never!

That all sounds great, you might be thinking, but what about the music? Well, FME gets the mix just right, with everything from Thursday’s rising ‘pop girlie’ Billie du Page (think Lola Young, but without all the swearing) through to Sunday’s extreme metal showcase headlined by Despised Icon, Montréal’s “kings of deathcore.” My must-sees were all fantastic. Klô Pelgag’s Friday headline slot was as eccentric and absorbing as I’d hoped, blending French chanson with high-calibre art-pop and a freewheeling punk spirit. Performing with a full band on rotating platforms, each song brought new configurations and choreographed movements, with Pelgag lurching dramatically around the stage in wildly oversized moon boots. The retro-futuristic, synth-heavy sound of her most recent album Abracadabra plays surprisingly well with Pelgag’s more subdued moments at the piano, all adding up to one of FME’s most dynamic and emotionally resonant shows.

Earlier in the day, Toronto-born Bells Larsen, making his first appearance in Rouyn-Noranda, is keen to try out some of his newly honed French on the crowd at Agora de Arts and it goes down like a glug of golden maple syrup. There are few moments at FME as stilled and tender as Larsen and his band at their most glowing. The songs from his first post-transition album Blurring Time leave a particularly deep impression, still hanging in the air long after the lights come up.

Nadah El Shazly’s early-doors performance on Sunday also conjures big feelings. The Montréal-based Egyptian artist’s second album Laini Tani is one of this year’s must-hear records, with its vibrant, auteurish blend of Arabic avant-garde, trip-hop, and playful electronics. Performing at FME with harpist and longtime collaborator Sarah Pagé, the set goes awry midway through when El Shazly’s laptop freezes and refuses to play ball. Forced to abandon her music’s electronic textures almost completely, we’re treated instead to a breathtakingly intimate run of Arabic ballads that play to El Shazly’s strengths not only as a singer but as a phenomenal interpreter of yearning and fixation.

Homegrown québécois pop is well represented on the main stage, with Marie-Pierre Arthur and Ariane Roy both outstandingly electric, drawing big, enthusiastic crowds that seemed to know every word. Over at Les Mooses, Apacalda (aka Romanian-Canadian singer/songwriter Cassandra Angheluta) impresses with her intense and sometimes startling songs that don’t hold back from hard, unvarnished truths. Mothland artist N Nao is another great find with a performance that admittedly walks a fine line between art and amateur dramatics, ultimately landing firmly in the former camp through her sheer conviction. When she turns up again later as part of ensemble performance Les Freaks de Montréal – an homage to the city’s legendary ‘70s rock band Aut’Chose and frontman Lucien Francœur, who passed away late last year – N Nao is arguably the freakiest, committing to the bit with a firestorm of screaming.

Hard-hitting psych-rock trio Population II, whose latest album Maintenant Jamais was a contender for the 2025 Polaris Prize, also make several appearances throughout the festival, including Les Freaks de Montréal and a surprise show with Texan rocker Nolan Potter and Mothland band Yoo Doo Right, cleverly titled Yoo II. Drummer and vocalist Pierre-Luc Gratton is an instantly appealing frontman, commanding the groove and controlled chaos of the band’s frequent eruptions. This year’s FME hosts two other 2025 Polaris Prize nominees: synth-pop duo Bibi Club, a real-life couple who heat up Cabaret de la Dernière Chance with a slick and sensual performance that’s impossible to look away from, and high-octane, Black-fronted punk band The OBGMs, who whip the main stage crowd into a frenzy – albeit a friendly one. “Look out for each other,” singer Densil McFarlane urges from the stage, “Let’s go motherfucking crazeee!”

FME offers up plenty of other addictively rough-edged sounds throughout the four days, with Marseille’s excellent La Flemme and Montréal’s Poolgirl at the poppier, brattier end of the spectrum. Amsterdam’s Baby Berserk are the talk of the festival thanks to a surprise show in the Chez Morasse car park that sees the band’s Lieselot Elzinga swinging off a streetlight, while Boutique Feelings’ ear-catchingly warped hip-hop plays just as brilliantly outdoors as it does within Cabaret’s dark belly. I was also impressed by Magi Merlin, whose self-proclaimed ‘broken R&B’ sounds remarkably well put together, despite a few issues with sound along the way. There’s no shortage of fire in her belly as she and her band power through an unpredictable set that dips into everything from neo-soul and glitchy electronic pop to ‘90s throwback drum and bass.

More fiery still is Swiss-Guatemalan artist Lorena Stadelmann who goes by the name of Baby Volcano, and that’s no idle boast. Her late-night appearance in the basement of the Petit Théâtre is a masterclass in building a mystery. Leaning confidently into performance art, she mashes contemporary dance, costume, and detailed sound design with an intensity that sometimes borders on possession. Then, when the storm of her electronic hip-hop finally breaks, vulnerability wells up in the form of a stripped-down acoustic section – a fresh breath of mountain air before Stadelmann’s raw energy once again erupts.

Massive props are also due to Montréal’s own Afrodiasporic club collective Moonshine, who shake the Petit Théâtre from the foundations up with a wildly diverse and thundering, almost two-hour set. Vancouver-based Empanadas Ilegales are no slouches in the getting-people-moving department either, firing up the 7th Street crowd with an irresistibly swinging blend of cumbia and salsa. Only a statue could remain unmoved, but when it comes to sheer charm offensive Japanese-Canadians TEKE::TEKE are hard to beat. The theatrical psych-rock group of seven is fronted by the inimitable Maya Kuroki, champion face-puller and lightning ball of energy, and they seem to want to go all night. Pulling from their two albums, various EPs, and this year’s videogame soundtrack for Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, the band blast through their scheduled finish time and just keep playing. Even when the lights come on past midnight, they still make time for one more jubilant song.

From the TEKE::TEKE marathon, it’s over to FME’s final sprint where artist/producer Xavier Paradis (aka Automelodi) closes things down with a magnetic display of jet-black synth-pop. Fresh from announcing a new EP, Cavallo – the first new Automelodi music since 2019, out in November – Paradis is on fine form, stalking the stage like a raven, building towers of song that stamp an avant-garde sigil on euphoric and propulsive dance. Those who went on to the late-late karaoke may well have seen Elvis putting in a request slip for “Hound Dog”, but this old man called it a day.

It would be corny to name it a dreamlike state, but there was something ever so floaty about that final night in Rouyn, like riding on a wave that refused to crest until long after the sunrise. Strapped into the backseat of a minibus bound for Toronto, I catch a glimpse of a T Rex roaring at the Monday morning sky, with FME in large, blocky letters bidding a silent goodbye. As the bus revs out on to the highway it feels as if I’m being stretched like toffee, pulled reluctantly out of the past days’ wild and cup-refilling sphere.

Some say Rouyn-Noranda is far – and they’re right, absolutely. But if you’re coming from a place of sincerity and silliness, a place of curiosity and care, FME has the joie de vivre and substance to make you feel at home.