There are few things more gratifying for a music lover than watching a new band progress over time. This has especially been the case with Ismism - a group that has become more impressive each time I've checked in on them over the past couple years. Ismism was originally one guy named Matthew Daher, a drum performance major at McGill, who used it as a monicker for his lush ambient jazz experiments. For live performances, he added guitar, synth, bass, and vibraphone, and bam! - he had one of Montreal's best new instrumental outfits. After playing around Montreal for a while (and appearing on our podcast thrice), the band have finally completed an EP, which they will release at O Patro Vys on Saturday. I've been listening to it all week, and I gotta say, Ismism is worth your time and money. Their songs combine melodic and ambient qualities in a way that recalls KC Accidental (the late-90s band that became Broken Social Scene), Medeski Martin & Wood, and Bell Orchestre.

Below I chat with Matthew Daher about the EP, with detours into his favorite new music, accessibility in song writing, and his experience in McGill's music department.

The more year-end lists I read, the more assured I become of two things: 1. all of them are highly subjective whether it's Pitchfork or Rolling Stone or some nerd with a blog; and 2. there's nothing wrong with that. I enjoy the endlessly wide range of opinions and let other people fight over the details. Does Animal Collective really deserve this love-in it's experiencing with nearly every major music publication? I would say not, but I also don't care because I don't see lists as a competitive sport. For me it's all about reflecting on the year in music and learning about bands I missed or overlooked the first time around. Besides, Hospice by The Antlers was obviously the best album of 2009, so why bother debating it? (Sorry, I won't do that again.)

I can't pretend I saw enough shows to speak comprehensively about the Montreal scene in 2009. I realized a few days ago that I even missed virtually every big name that came through town - just off the top of my head, Phoenix, TV on the Radio, Animal Collective, Dirty Projectors, Fever Ray, Fleet Foxes, Sufjan Stevens, Jesus Lizard, Mastodon, St. Vincent, Sunset Rubdown... Really, I don't know what happened on that front. On the other hand, this was a great year for lower key shows in smaller venues, with up and coming bands (many of them local) that I hadn't heard of this time last year. Below I share my favorite moments from an exciting and unpredictable twelve months of music. I encourage readers to comment with their own concert experiences and fill me in on anything I missed.

Outside of Midnight Poutine, Greg Bouchard runs a blog called Bands I Used to Like, an exploration of his old record collection and 90s music culture in general. Tonight The Cranberries bring their reunion tour to Theatre Olympia, offering a rare cross-posting opportunity.

Between writing about music for Midnight Poutine and helping out Jeremy with the Weekend Playlist, I spend a couple hours each week combing through concert listings, checking out bands I don't recognize and checking off bands I like and want to see. Imagine the WTF?!? moment I had when I saw The Cranberies listed on Stillepost, just sitting there between weekly club nights and the normal crop of Montreal indie shows. The Cranberries? Like the Irish band from the mid-90s that wrote "Zombie" and "Linger" and probably some other songs too? Further internet investigation revealed that yes, The Cranberries embarked on a reunion tour earlier this month, playing together for the first time since their breakup (which apparently happened) in 2003. Hearing this took me back the the early 90s - a simpler time, when flannel of a looser variety abounded.

But as it turns out, that distinction goes to waking up and finding out the American health care reform bill has actually passed. Maybe it's because I've been away from home for so long, but I didn't realize the whole fiasco had moved along that far. Crazy!

And very nearly as crazy will be Dan Auerbach's performance at Le National tonight. (How's that for a transition?) The Black Keys singer/guitarist will be playing material from his solo album, "Keep it Hid," which sounds more or less like The Black Keys. He would lose originality points if not for the fact that The Black Keys write such damn good blues rock - an unfortunate rarity in indie rock circles. One important difference here is that Auerbach will have a larger backing band that can put together a wall of sound and jam it out in ways that The Black Keys can't do as a duo. When I came across this video a few months ago (below the jump), I knew I had to see him come thorough Montreal.

The art of storytelling - of literally telling a story, out loud, to a group of real people - has pretty much gone the way of the rotary phone. We exchange information all the time but rarely put any heart into it. Any of you ever read The Decameron? Imagine that scenario playing out today: a group of ten young people, secluded in the countryside, with nothing to do for ten days, decide to amuse themselves by telling stories. Our generation would probably suffer from e-mail withdrawal for the first 48 hours then start sniffing glue. Point is, we distract ourselves with flashier things than storytelling and lack appreciation for the power of the spoken word.

That's why its such a refreshing and precious experience spending time in a room with someone like Arlo Guthrie. Dude simply has a way with words. His most famous song, "Alice's Restaurant," is an eighteen-minute story about Thanksgiving Day hijinks (or about much more, depending on how high culturally literate you are) that comes off as a one man theatrical production. In fact, "theatrical" would be a good way of describing his live performances in general since they are full of witty banter and tales about his immensely interesting life.

Priestess have long been pretty important to me. They're the first metal band I saw in concert, the first I got into after moving past classics like Metallica and Sabbath, and as it turned out, the first I had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing. Shortly after returning to Montreal in September I went out for beer with Mikey Heppner (lead vocals, lead guitar) and Vince Nudo (drums) to discuss their forthcoming album, their musical development, and a few other interesting bits of miscellanea (like where Mikey first discovered Black Sabbath; the answer... will shock you!).

They also let us listen to "Racoon Eyes," a song from the forthcoming album, which you can hear below the jump.

Does anyone remember when I commented on the abundance Pop Montreal acts with the word "teen" in their name, then predicted that next year would see an explosion in all things whale-oriented? Well, it turns out I wasn't completely making that up. The mp3 blog Heart on a Stick published a two(!)-part alphabetical list of bands with the word "whale" in their name, entitled "A Goddamned Guide to All These Goddamned Whale Bands."

Here's part 1: (A-N)
...and part 2: (O-Z)

You sleep in too late one day and suddenly it hits you: you've missed a maddening amount of what Pop Montreal has to offer. That super secret free show just ended; another one is about to begin but you're too tired to jog there in time. Tonight nearly a dozen bands you wanna see are playing within a two hour time span and quantum technology does not yet provide the time warp capabilities to catch them all. Everyone, welcome to my Saturday afternoon, when I fully realized how wonderful and frustrating Pop can be at the same time. With the ridiculous number things to see, everyone comes out of Pop with their own story - their own version of how things went down. Here's a bit of mine.

Pop Montreal can get very expensive very quickly. If you don't have a pass, each show is gonna set you back about $10 (or possibly much more for headliners) and that adds up if you switch venues a few times in a night. If you do have a pass... it's pretty awesome until you remember that you dropped at least $85 on that sucker. Can't a music lover get something for free in this town? The answer is a big "yes!" (Note: recently updated.)

I'm not Wikipedia or anything, but if you asked me to name Calgary's top export, I would say it's music. With bands and artists like Women, Azeda Booth, Chad VanGaalen, and Braids, Calgary has been churning out enough of its distinct brand of ambient pop to give oil and beef a run for their money. Among the many Calgarian acts to put down roots in Montreal are Jane Vain and the Dark Matter. Singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jamie Fooks came here after releasing the band's first album, Love is Where the Smoke Is (Rectangle Records, 2008), and formed a new lineup with Markus Lake, Andrew Davidson and Nathan Curry. After attending a couple of their energetic live performances (and joining them for one awesome karaoke party), I've come to the position that Jane Vain and the Dark Matter are one of Montreal's most promising up and coming bands. This is why I was so happy to hear they had finished recording a new full-length album last week.

In the interview below, Jamie Fooks (with a little help from Andrew Davidson) tells me about recording the album and gives insight into her move to Montreal and the band's current direction. What started as a casual e-mail exchange turns into a candid, in-depth portrait of an indie-rock band that has entered a very exciting phase in its career. Black & white studio photos taken by Kendra Gee.

Midnight Poutine writer and concert addict Greg Bouchard will be living on the East Coast for the remainder of the summer, painfully far away from Montreal's music scene. In this series, he will pick one show per week that he would attend if he was in town, and then invite readers to comment with their own reviews. Let him live vicariously through you.

I'm going to begin by admitting that I have a huge crush on Oklahoma's Annie Clark, aka St. Vincent, and that this is part of my reason for wishing I could attend her concert at Sala tonight. I'm thinking maybe I could impress her with my nunchuck skills or bow fighting skills and we'd get married and start a farm together, or perhaps a general store. Something folksy like that. Okay, I'll stop now. Obvious good looks aside, St. Vincent is a juggernaut of song writing and guitar playing talent, a former student of the prestigious Berklee College of Music and ex-member of The Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens' touring band. Her two critically acclaimed albums, Marry Me (2007) and Actor (2009), have solidified her position as a must-see and must-hear artist.

Midnight Poutine writer and concert addict Greg Bouchard will be living on the East Coast for the remainder of the summer, painfully far away from Montreal's music scene. In this series, he will pick one show per week that he would attend if he was in town, and then invite readers to comment with their own reviews. Let him live vicariously through you.

Some concerts should come with a warning label. Where underground legends Jucifer are concerned, the picture above is intended to serve that purpose. What you see is a wall of speakers and amplifiers that dwarfs any guitar rig I have ever seen outside of an arena. It is probably capable of creating the loudest sound you will ever hear in your life. Seeing this monstrosity in action should be enough to warrant going to the concert; but as it happens, Jucifer are gonna play some pretty ridiculously good tunes through it too.