«--Previous Post | Blog Index | Next Post--»

My New Favorite Streaming Radio Station: Montreal's CISM

Allo, le Riff. I just got back from a quick little DJ tour of Canada, eh, and on this jaunt I had the opportunity to play in Montreal for the first time. Turns out Montreal isn't unlike San Francisco, strangely at odds with North America but not quite European, culturally vibrant but chock full of homeless, except there they ask for change in French. In addition to Paul's Boutique and tasty Portuguese grills, one of my happiest Montreal discoveries was CISM/89.3 FM, the radio station of l'Université de Montréal. I'm not sure why it was so good, exactly; perhaps its focus on musique en français works as a kind of limiting factor allowing a wider creative freedom within that zone, or maybe French music in general is just really awesome right now. But there was something uniquely Quebecois about CISM's playlist--with Paris obsessed with the latest fashions in dance music, CISM is a happily grungy alternative, shifting between soaring indie rock, wobbly dancehall, avant-garde electro and bouncy hip-hop. My French is terrible, but the DJs' Quebec accents are strong enough to be amusing even to the uninitiated, which is a little bonus bit of entertainment. Thankfully, the station is actually kind of professional, with some solid production and a good compressed sound. Moreover, if you don't catch the name of that last song, they include archived playlists on their website for your convenience. Of course I wouldn't be telling you this if they didn't have a high-quality online stream: go to their website and click "écouter en direct." Alternately, after the jump, check out some of the Quebecois artists I heard over the course of a couple days' listening.

Posted by Party Ben on 10/01/08 at 1:04 PM | Comments (0) | Email | Print

 facebook