In some circles, Pop Montreal is the Superbowl, the World Series and the Special Olympics of music festivals all rolled into one. The climax of the cultural calendar, coming in just after the kids have settled into their school year. Blow off those midterms baby, we’ve got a five-day bender lined-up for you.

Covering the illustrious and the obscure, Pop Montreal aligns itself nicely with the Square Quotes mandate. Evidenced so clearly in the nepotistic, depotistic, masochistic and narcissistic conversation we had with festival founder Dan Seligman and his protege Andrew Rose. Andrew is also half the brains behind Secret City Records, known for providing ample musical fodder for the Polaris Prize.

Continuing with this theme of incestuous back-patting, we also sat down with Parlovr, an up-and-coming local act turning the heads of 8-year-old girls and 89-year-old men alike. Parlovr recorded their debut full-length here, at Digital Bird Studios, under the tutelage of the increasingly Phil Spector-like Martin Horn.

Jay Watts III got on the phone with David Feinberg, a filmmaker who shot out of the gates with some in-the-line-of-fire documentaries he did with Vice magazine’s broadband channel, VBS.  I spoke to him late.  Jay spoke to him last month about his experiences filming “Toxic Linfen“, a 6 piece series documenting a week that he and the VBS crew spent in Linfen, China: a coal industry town in Shanxi province that used to be known in typically hyperbolic Chinese phrasing as “The Modern Fruit & Flower Town,” but is now so polluted that it could yellow Donnie & Marie Osmond’s smiles in under a minute, and bears the dubious title of “The Most Polluted City in The World.”

As always, there’s music - sweet, blessed, beautiful music!  Rita Lee’s Agora e Moda, Yoko Ono’s Uh Oh, Parlovr’s On The Phone and Vetiver’s Houses.

Also, for those in Montreal, Square Quotes will be hosting a DJ night and episode launch party at Korova, 3908 St. Laurent.

 

 Square Quotes Episode 9: Tales Out of School [81:21m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download