Men I Trust by Mathieu Rompré
Talk about trust issues if, from the get-go, most people – self-professed learned people at that – can’t decide if a band is indie, dream pop or electropop. Thankfully, for Canadian outfit Men I Trust, the assurances are in the sound.
And that sound happens to be pop. Pure, glorious, laid-back pop. Sweet but never diabetic. Formed in Montreal, Quebec in 2014 by two childhood friends later joined by a third member, Men I Trust, with their minimalist beginnings, do write in a way that would fit with the overlapping worlds of indie pop, dream pop and electronic music. But again, they make charming, inviting pop in the best sense of the term.
So much so that in a very short time, founders Dragos Chiriac (keyboard and bass) and Jessy Caron (drums), and their 2016 vocalist-guitarist recruit, Emmanuelle Proulx, have attracted a loyal base by sticking to their indie and DIY guns. They’ve released four albums, a pair of EPs, and over a dozen singles through digital platforms, with a French Canadian label, Return to Analog, handling physical releases.
For a band that found ears through streaming, they are a pleasure to experience live, with a quelque chose spécial that hints at roots in bedroom projects and immediately encloses the audience in a veil of intimacy. (Okay, it’s beginning to sound like “dream pop” might be the most accurate way to describe the band.)
Their latest long-player, 2021’s Untourable Album, a product of the pandemic, and synth-heavy, lends itself to that dreamy lo-fi mentality. The 13 tracks weave a hazy introspection-conducing web that is as oddly relaxing as it is fit for slow dancing.
Band members started working on the album with zero thought of how it might fare on the road; hence the name. “We wanted to take the opportunity to work on new and different material, without necessarily intending to play these songs live,” they said on their Tumblr. “We wrote freely, as if we were suspended in time with no external attachments.”
The band spent the better part of March and April 2023 touring though Australia and Asia, making stops at the Clockenflap festival in Hong Kong, the Wanderland festival in the Philippines, and doing gigs in Singapore, Thailand and Japan. They will finish up their U.S. tour in Florida (Orlando), before hopping over to Europe in July for dates in Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Germany and the UK, among others.
Triathlon
Men I Trust will be joined on a trio of Florida dates by New York-via-Savannah, Georgia indie psych outfit Triathalon.
Formed in 2010 by high school buds Adam Intrator (vocals and guitar) and Chad Chilton (bass), followed by Hunter Jayne (keyboard) during college, Triathalon also reach out to you through an auditory haze. Their reverb-laden guitars, smooth bass lines and Intrator’s soulful voice draw inspiration from genres including and by no means limited to surf rock, psychedelia, and contemporary r&b. Theirs is a refracted, nostalgic sonic space.
According to the band, their latest album, 2022’s Spin, is a good combination of their previous five albums and three EPs – going further to describe in to Wonderland magazine as “running through a transparent tunnel underwater on acid.”
Like the Untourable Album, Spin was developed during the pandemic when the band was encouraged by the shutdown to pour their energies into the 13 compositions that make it up. It was also recorded live, imbuing the tracks with a breeziness that makes Spin perfect for sitting around reminiscing.
An evening with these two bands might not prompt you to trust all men or re-check the dictionary to see how “triathlon” is spelled, but you’ll experience real delight, and any accumulated stress you walked through the door with will likely be gone by show’s end, and when you drift off after returning home you might dream glorious dreams. Maybe that’s what it means to make bedroom pop.
Men I Trust and Triathalon perform an all-ages show 7pm Wednesday, June 14 at Revolution Live in Fort Lauderdale. menitrust.tumblr.com triathalon.band ~ Abel Folgar
