Groove Theory #26 - Two Random Dudes

The whales were nonplussed.

I could understand why. The sea was grouchy, the wind icy, the rain horizontal. They stayed underwater, while I waited above deck, sliding around on a plastic bench. And wearing shorts, for reasons I still can’t explain.

During that whale watching trip near Saguenay in Quebec I witnessed just one flash of fin. Suffice to say, I left that part of the world feeling… underwhelmed. And cold.

Turns out I wasn't paying attention.

At the same time I was questioning my wardrobe choices, a duo in the town were making some important ones of their own.

Angine de Poitrine just sold out a world tour by painting their entire bodies, refusing to speak human languages, and wearing papier-mâché masks with three-foot noses.

Their name translates roughly to “chest pain.” They describe their sound as “dissonance-induced cardiac malfunction.” They also call themselves a “Mantra-Rock Dada Pythago-Cubist Orchestra.” I don’t know what that means. I don’t think they do either. And they’re from Saguenay, Quebec.

The band is two anonymous musicians who’ve been playing together since they were thirteen. Their music is math rock meets Turkish psychedelia meets something I can’t quite place.

There are no vocals. Time signatures most people can’t follow. And microtonal guitars - instruments with extra frets that let you play the notes between the standard twelve notes in Western music. To most ears, it sounds slightly wrong. (Deliberately so.)

They’re known only by their stage names Khn and Klek, and are, by their own admission, “two random dudes.”

The Tension

Angine had a practical problem - booked to play the same venue, twice in one week. In a small town, if people recognise you from Monday’s gig, are they really coming back on Thursday? So they wore masks and played under a different name. Just for that one show, supposedly.

But they kept at it.

Four years later, they have giant papier-mâché proboscis monkey noses, full-body black-and-white polka dot costumes, every inch of exposed skin painted before every performance. They invented an alien language and refuse to speak anything else on camera or on stage. When Radio-Canada tried to interview them, they answered every question in the made-up language. In character. The whole time.

“This project,” one of them said, “is a culmination of a lot of years of inside jokes.”

I believe him.

In December 2025, they got a slot at Trans Musicales in Rennes - a festival known for breaking new acts. Seattle radio station KEXP recorded a session. Lots of bands do this. It's part of the grind.

Then, in Feburary, the KEXP video was posted on YouTube.

It got two million views in the first week. Fourteen million two months later. Their album Vol. II hit 84 on Metacritic. Streaming jumped 124%. French tours sold out. New York dates gone in minutes. Nine countries, forty-one concerts booked.

Six weeks earlier, they'd played to 100 people in Quebec.

Step Into It

Think about the last thing you sent someone unprompted. Not the article you were supposed to share for work, or the video that was clearly engineered for engagement. No, I mean the thing you couldn't quite explain - you just said "watch this" and waited.

It probably wasn't polished. Probably wasn't optimised for anything. No hook in the first three seconds, no caption telling you how to feel.

There's a difference between content built to capture attention and something that just... has it. You can feel it immediately. One is trying to pull you in. The other already has you.

But you can’t quite put your finger on why.

The Groove: Presence

Bring yourself into it

Presence here isn't about visibility - they're literally hiding behind masks. I think it's about something else: the discipline needed to get this good, the commitment to never break character, and the focus to hold it together when you can barely see your own fretboard.

Khn and Klek had to show up, paint themselves, put on the noses, and do the thing - live, in front of people, night after night, for years before anyone outside Quebec noticed.

Behind the costumes, there's serious craft. A custom double-neck hybrid - one side guitar, one side bass, both wired separately, both with extra frets. The current instrument was built by a Saguenay luthier over 150 hours. It has phosphorescent fret markers on the side and top of the neck, because Khn can't see well through the mask.

The weirdness gets you to look. But the skill is why you stay.

There's a reaction video of a popular guitar teacher watching them play. You can see several moments where he realises in ever-increasing detail what he's actually looking at.

And they're clearly having the time of their lives. Two incredibly talented people building a wall of sound in real time, layers stacking through loop pedals, no backing tracks, no band. The joy is visible even through three-foot noses.

They're creatures from outer space. Except you know they're not. Both things feel true at once, which I think is a big part of what holds our attention.

Presence is one of the five elements of Groove Theory ->

The Release

Maybe Angine de Poitrine just got lucky. Right algorithm, right moment. A couple of months ago they were playing to 100 people in Quebec, so it’s not like this was some carefully orchestrated campaign.

But I don’t think luck explains why I’ve watched them a dozen times. Or why I sent it to my Dad, and now he’s considering a going to a festival in Quebec instead of the one he was at in Wrexham last weekend.

That link has since found its way to people aged 4, 9, 23, 44, 52 and 71. (Those may be next week's winning lottery numbers. Your wire transfers can be sent to my usual account.)

Nothing about this should work - microtonal guitars, an alien language, giant noses, no vocals, no English, no faces. And yet here we are.

Maybe because underneath all the absurdity, you can tell they're having a blast. The serious craft and the ridiculous costumes aren't at war - they're the same thing.

I keep thinking about all the advice we get: smooth the edges, meet people where they are, make things accessible. And then two random dudes from Saguenay ignore all of it and the whole thing goes sideways anyway.

Presence isn’t always about being accessible - or even relatable. It can also be about being so fully committed to the thing - whatever strange shape it takes - that people can’t look away. Showing up to do the thing, again and again.

Or maybe they’re just two guys in giant noses having a whale of a time.

Howard

Extended Mix

• Saguenay stories:
  • The locals call themselves “bleuets” (blueberries) - the region is one of the world’s largest wild blueberry producers.
  • The town has a 21-metre aluminum pyramid called the Pyramid of Ha! Ha! - a monument to the devastating 1996 flood. The “Ha! Ha!” is from the local river name, which itself comes from an old French term for a dead-end path.
• First frets: Khn built the first microtonal guitar himself before the custom one. His method: "I added more frets on a guitar, with a saw."
• Serious fun: far too many YouTube comments to name check. Here are two for starters:
  • I'd argue that these dudes are actually serious as fuck about being absolute goofballs. They've obviously put an extreme amount of thought and effort into this act.
  • the only thing better that watching this for the first time, is watching someone else watch it for the first time