Montreal’s most recent large-scale festival is a stunning display for both the eyes and the ears. Three stages make up the grounds, where ice sculptures and mulled wine can be found at every turn, backed by the thump of ever-present basslines. Don’t let the cold turn you away, even if heated wine isn’t in the budget; the body heat from the crowd is a wonderful thing, and leaves you feeling like you’re (at least) at room temperature without the buckets of sweat that accompany a trip to an indoor venue. Plus, if you’re too cheap for the mulled wine or not clever enough to sneak your own alcohol past the bouncers, you can take drugs (but say “no” to drugs).

Watch out for the early start, as the first acts are on by 6:30 p.m., and the evening wraps up by midnight. While this may shift your pre-drink by an hour (or three), it’s a small price to pay, and who doesn’t have drinks with dinner anyway? Tickets are $20 “at the door,” $18 with an online purchase, and $16 if you go to a listed boutique (such as Off the Hook or Moog Audio).

Igloofest has officially begun and we’ve heard good things about the last weekend. To help the Igloofest-naive navigate the many nights of revelry still ahead, we’ve written a few short blurbs about the most promising nights coming up. The cheesy titles we gave to each evening reflect The Daily’s interpretation of Igloofest’s lineup, and are not endorsed by Igloofest.

January 24 (Thursday) –“Girls in the House”

This year Igloofest has invited serious female DJ talent to an almost-all-girls night on Thursday, January 24. Local producer Alicia Hush will initiate proceedings with a tech-house set at 6:30 p.m., followed by Miss Kittin’s throwback electroclash, and finally, the good old techno of Germany’s Ellen Allien.

If we were comparing the festival’s female DJs, Russia’s Nina Kraviz would certainly come out on top (she would also stack up well against any of Igloo’s male picks). She plays on Friday with the excellent Pan-Pot. For Thursday’s fest, our favourites are still our hometown heroes, Nymra & Sofisticated, who’ve held down Piknik and Salon Daomé for years with their rock-solid house sets.

January 26 (Saturday) – “(We) Beez in da Trap”

In some circles, this is shaping up to be one of the bigger nights at Igloofest, with a hip-hop theme that will likely attract a massive crowd. On at 8 p.m. is Kaytranada, who has been making a name for himself with an array of beats that are fantastic to funk to (funk to, guys). His remix of “If” by Janet Jackson is a particular highlight. After him comes the celebrated duo of Hudson Mohawke and Lunice, also known as TNGHT, whose music looks to be a great fit for the open spaces and contagious energy of Igloofest. Trap music, polarizing as it may be, is their calling card, and the combination of minimal melodies with in-your-face bass can only result in what many are so eloquently terming “a massive party”. This is one you don’t want to miss.

February 1 (Friday) – “Acid/Techno/UK garage/insertgenrehere”

How better to avoid hypothermia and satisfy your MDMA-induced dance-lust than a night of UK garage? Going over the classics, we’re forced to ask ourselves, was dubstep ever necessary? Anyway, local garage heads Lexis and Dr. Love will be holding down the “Virgin Mobile Igloo” while a killer trio – Montreal’s Vosper, Berlin’s Ewan Pearson, and Detroit’s Magda – will be spinning various flavours of techno and house on the main stage. This is the mixed-bag night where you’re certain to find something you like, and probably something you’ve never heard before.

February 9 (Saturday) – “Techno über Alles”

Deutschland is coming to the main stage: Tommy Four Seven and Chris Liebing will be rounding off another year of Igloofest with crisply produced minimal and tech-house beats, timed to exactly 134 BPM (just kidding). But we are not kidding about the seriousness of this night: it’s a chance to catch a glimpse of the Berlin club culture without the price of Stereo or a plane ticket.

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Fourteen lives can contain a plethora of information and experiences, and any filmmaker would tell you that squeezing a detailed portrayal of that many lives into the movie’s 150-minute run time involves cutting a great deal of material for the finished product. Indeed, this is a primary complaint for several of the volunteer subjects, such as John Brisby, who feels that the series’ original goal – to track the influences of Britain’s class system on its subjects – reduces the characters to overarching stereotypes. In a frank interview with Michael Apted, the director and narrator of the project, Brisby explains that while he was portrayed as coming from the “privileged upper class,” the death of his father when he was nine years old, and the subsequent work he had to put in to attend Oxford on a scholarship, was largely ignored. Others, such as Peter Davies, have taken long sabbaticals from appearing in the series. In fact, Davies’ reason for returning after 28 years was largely economical, not sentimental: he appears to promote his country-influenced band, The Good Intentions.

Despite these reactions, the film is largely successful at establishing a basic identity for each of its subjects, with some of these investigations leading to powerful and poignant expressions of character. Jackie Bassett, one of only four women profiled, talks at length about the deaths of many of her close family members, as well as her battle with rheumatoid arthritis. Bassett, who until the time of filming had been living off of disability benefits and contributions from her sons, had just received notice that she was no longer eligible for these allowances. Bemoaning her physical condition, she issues a direct challenge to the federal government: “If Mark Hoban (the UK’s Minister of Employment) can come down here and find me a job that I can do, I will do it.”

Most compelling of all is the story of Neil Hughes, a Liverpool boy who was homeless during the 21 Up and 28 Up installments and who finally became a District Councillor thanks in part to emotional and financial support from Bruce Balden, another subject in the film. It is with Hughes’ character that the constant flashbacks to previous films are most justified. Apted traces Hughes’ evolution from a homeless man struggling with mental health issues to a successful local politician. It is the kind of experience that most people will never get to see up close, and the nuances of his complex character are fascinating to behold. At one point, he explains his decision to abstain from parenthood: “No matter how sweet and caring the mother may be, the child will have to inherit something from me, and that is not fair to it.”

In short, if you are interested in exploring the human experience in any shape or form, go see this movie. It is an expression of life, the existential impact of which will reverberate in the memories of those who see it for years to come.

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ABC: MTL is the third in a series of exhibitions which focus on different eras in the city’s history, with the current installation acting as a contemporary window to life in Montreal. Over ninety contributions have already found their way into the gallery from an ongoing call for submissions, taking different forms such as pictures, movies, graphs, and more. Content varies significantly from space to space. Pushing aside a thick curtain after perusing a room full of carefully arranged photographs, I found myself alone in a screening room, where one could watch a short film shot outside an abandoned Montreal racetrack where U2 held a performance last summer. There is clearly no shortage of material for this exhibit, as the city and citizens of Montreal are depicted in ways that are both mentally stimulating and physically fascinating. One multimedia submission consists of a long rectangular graph mapped out with an array of shapes, colours, and scribbled notes; it is only when you put on an adjacent pair of headphones and watch the scrolling screen below them that you realize you are looking at an incredibly intricate presentation of the “sound of the city,” mapped out before your eyes.

A sense of underground expression pervades ABC: MTL – literally, as several submissions explore the prevalence of alleys and worlds under street level (led by the SYN collective), and figuratively, with several prominent pieces reflecting times of protest or civil unrest. This is not an exhibition aimed toward trumpeting the popular commercial successes of Montreal as a city, but rather its multifaceted nature as an ever-changing urban centre, where the power of human expression is understood as an absolutely necessary force. One series contains a set of four TVs, each playing one of four different short films involving genocide survivors who have settled in Montreal. Another is comprised of four large simple pictures, each of a police officer’s face looking out from behind the clear face shield of a riot mask. With the student protests of the last year fresh in my mind, such pieces reminded me of the humanity that can be found on both sides of the legal divide, as well as the existence of strife far greater than our own.

That said, the exhibit includes some submissions and subsequent write-ups that would take no less than a Cultural Studies major to appreciate, or even understand. One particular picture of a street beside a tunnel, displaying nothing but a couple of cars, pedestrians, and an overhead train, comes with a description that is replete with buzzwords such as “conceptualize,” “volatile,” and the dramatic title, “The Tunnel of Death.” While many of the exhibit’s submissions are thought-provoking, and some breathtaking in their scope, evidence still suggests that no art show is without pretension; there will always be artists who seek to infuse meaning where there is none to be found. Regardless, I would recommend a visit, especially if your knowledge of the city is sparser than it should be (like mine). ABC: MTL – A Self-Portrait of Montréal has the same characteristics as the city it’s examining – thoughtful, provoking, and full of hidden gems.

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ABC: MTL runs at the Canadian Centre for Architecture until March 31, 2013. For opening hours and admission information, visit www.cca.qc.ca/en/visit.

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Goose Hut is the brainchild of Harris Shper, with fellow members Evan Shper and Rowan Cornell-Brown. Harris Shper is a Montreal musician with a passion for creating tunes with a distinct dichotomy in mind. “Whenever I write music with sad lyrics, it’s always to a happy tune, and the opposite way too,” says Shper, looking every bit the part of a burgeoning Montreal musician with a big curly mohawk, coffee in one hand, cigarette in the other. “I think the most important element in any music I know is the songwriting. There are endless ways to create music, but at the end of the day, we just like to make sure that the songs come across, and are nice to listen to.”

If their involvement and reception in recent festivals is any indicator, listeners are finding that Goose Hut’s music is very nice indeed. Playing at both NXNE in Toronto and POP Montreal this year led to sterling reviews from attendees. One blogger went so far as to declare that the group is “talented enough to make certain other Montreal natives extremely nervous that they may be outdone in their pursuit for another Grammy,” and another stating “I can’t imagine anyone disliking Goose Hut.” Yet Shper sees no distinction between playing for one type of crowd versus another. “Whether or not you’re playing to industry folks, you still have to just play like you’re playing to a crowd of people who just want to see it and be there.”

Despite the accolades, the history of Goose Hut is a short and simple one. “It started last summer, and it was just me writing music in my bedroom, basically,” says Shper. “I used to play music with other bands, but I wanted to do something on my own, and then the live show kind of built itself around the songs that I had made there.”

These live performances, however, are markedly different from the recorded material: “Our live sets are definitely more energetic than a lot of the recorded stuff, which is more lo-fi, bedroom stuff, but with the live set we try to have a big party.”

The group put out a four-track EP in April titled “Throw It At Your Dads House,” made available online with a pick-your-price mode of purchase, and material for a full-length album is accumulating behind the scenes. “Probably next year [is when] we’ll do the full-length – we might do another EP before that. We’ve been touring most of the summer so we’re just getting back into writing more tunes and stuff.”

These include songs such as “Bad Time,” with lazy summer synth hooks that get catchier every time you listen to them, and the title track of the EP,   “Money Money Love Love,” which sounds like the next infectious indie tune to back up an Apple commercial. These guys know what they’re doing, and it’s about time Montreal music aficionados catch on.

Goose Hut has an upcoming CultMTL Halloween show on October 31 at the Royal Phoenix, and if you like what you’ve read or heard, I strongly encourage including it as an addition to your busy Halloween lineup.

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