Torngat Who else but Julie Doiron?

The Pop Montreal festival, now in its third year, is becoming many things to many people. Most importantly, it is a bold declaration of a Canada's stake in contemporary independent music -- and to me it's a shining example of what a music festival should be: run by a bunch of diehard music fans, for a bunch of diehard music fans, away from the glare of mainstream labels and media types, in a cosmopolitan city that knows artists won't come near it during the snowy chill of winter, and therefore embrace it.

A brisk Wednesday night kept me from pounding the pavement too hard -- instead, I stuck with the Mintaka Conspiracy showcase featuring The Firebird Suite, The Champagne Kiss and Mia Verko at the unfortunately named Cafe Chaos. (Original headliner NOXAGT was held back at the border and performed a hastily arranged show in New Jersey instead.) While only a handful of punters turned out to see Chris Broach (ex-Braid) abandon his past and focus almost entirely on material from the recent The City At Night disc, there was a very appreciative pocket of dancers thrilled by the electro-pop direction of the one-time king of angular indie-rock.

Thursday night was the first truly packed schedule of the festival calendar. The Black Keys, Death From Above 1979, Billy Talent, Despistado, Q And Not U and Les Georges Leningrad were all competing for my attention. I opted instead for Torngat, an instrumental three piece that makes more noise than a small army. They were the one truly breathtaking discovery of Pop Montreal, appropriately confined to a new venue that sprouted overnight above a burnt out textile warehouse. The band's reputation preceded them in the form of high praise from one of my friends, and I was stunned by their brand of post-rock-cum-chamber pop. Imagine the most joyous moments of the Rachel's oeuvre fused with the accessibility of Belle & Sebastian's most spellbinding melodies. In terms of the excitement in the room and the amazed response of the crowd, it was everything Godspeed You Black Emperor used to be, minus the politics and pretense.

I capped off Thursday night by dashing over to Casa del Popolo's Endearing Records showcase to catch the closing songs of Aaron Booth's set (featuring Michael Feuerstack on lap steel guitar), after which the darling Julie Doiron took the stage for a solo set of her lovely lullabies. Remarking that she wished we were all comfortably in bed so she could sing us to sleep, Doiron gave an appropriately intimate and captivating performance.

Friday night was a whirlwind of Canadian content, with The Paperbacks (Winnipeg, MB), King Cobb Steelie (Toronto, ON), Illuminati (Toronto, ON) and Constantines (Guelph, ON) taking precedence over Beans, The Unicorns and The Besnard Lakes (all of whom I'd been lucky enough to see at different points over the last year anyway). Truth be told, a bit too much fun was had by your trusty music correspondent, and not much remains in terms of the memories of this evening, apart from a sore throat, no doubt secured by screaming along with the Cons into the wee hours of the night.

Saturday's early evening screening of the new documentary Jandek on Corwood was the perfect prescription for my aching bones (I spent the day moving my girlfriend into her new apartment). Though the film sometimes suffered from an excess of pseudo-poetic landscape imagery (and one awful interview reenactment), Chad Freidrichs's debut was rather accomplished. Interviews with music critics and Jandek obsessives communicated the mysterious fascination with the equally mysterious artist, and regularly injected some humour into the proceedings via oddball views. The film should be highly recommended for any and all fans of outsider music.

Franz Ferdinand. That was next on my plate. Though I was loath to huddle with the masses in Metropolis and stare at the current "it" thing, the opportunity to see "Take Me Out" performed live was too much to pass up. And even if the crowd was a dreadful mess of hipsters and industry folk, outnumbered only by moshing college guys, there was a great energy to the night that built on the band's performance in Montreal last spring. With the cooler-than-you Scotsmen still wailing away, I raced down the street to Club Soda where the highly anticipated DJ Vadim vs. Kool Keith face-off was about to take place. Or not.

Even after overly long opening sets and hours of delays, there was no sign of Kool Keith -- nor was there when I left the venue a little before midnight. The crowd was pissed off, almost everyone was utterly confused, and the ghost of the failed Plastikman performance at the Mutek festival hovered over the venue. Bumping into a friend in the wee hours of the morning after a missed opportunity to see the stunning solo stylings of Great Lake Swimmers, I was informed that Kool Keith didn't take the stage until nearly 2:00 a.m. I'm glad I didn't wait around.

Sunday's performances from An Albatross (the heaviest band on the continent?) and Magnolia Electric Co. were relatively well attended, considering both the newly reformed Mission of Burma and local hero Melissa Auf Der Maur were headlining their own shows at venues across town. Truth be told, I was feeling incredibly run down at this point -- I forgot my camera, briefly confused the venues and headed in the wrong direction, and barely (just barely) made it through the first half of Jason Molina's set before being forced to call it a night, my stinging head full of cigarette smoke. But in the end, I can't think of a more appropriate way for the third annual Pop Montreal to wrap up. Though it still suffers from growing pains -- the organizers have to find a way to balance ticketed admittance with walk-ups and festival passes -- Montreal's indie-rock festivus far outshines Toronto's NXNE and will only grow in profile with year after year of bona fide successes. I'm glad I didn't let apathy get me down and ruin five nights of good ol' rock'n'roll.

Article and photos by Mike Baker.