JUNOS Spotlight: Misteur Valaire

Originally a jazz quintet based out of Sherbrooke, PQ, Misteur Valaire has not only carved a ridge in the era of digital music but their simple, yet calculated portfolio of compositions will fill the crevasses of your heart in all the right places.

Prodigious childhood training and a passion for music, Misteur Valaire’s orchestral arrangement bursts in hues of pop, modified percussion lines, and skeletal shadows of electro-pop. An inexplicable bonanza of artistic soundness and cold classic experimental jam theory, this group is eye-bogglingly fun times. Indicated by sensational stage organization and role mastery, all five members impress with both traditional and electronic instrumentals.  Machinery aside, there’s no mistaking the street savvy, five-one-four mastery on latest record Golden Bombay, and with features including collaborations with Bran Van 3000, Gigi French, and Beni BBQ there’s no doubt la belle province has hit a pocket of bold, space-binding magic, yet again.

I caught up with the boys at CMW and got the low down on all things ‘Qualité‘ et al.

As a group of young jazz musicians, how did you evolve to become Misteur Valaire?

“One by one we just decided to integrate some electronic stuff .  We started with buying little machines and one by one we bought synthesizers and made the sound move.  Gille and I actually went to boy scouts together and when we were 16 we decided to start experimenting with some electro stuff.”

Had you always hoped to branch into the English community?

“Ya. But it wasn’t really like that. We don’t compose music with the goal of targeting some kind of market. We just wanted to play all around the world and it was a goal to do as many shows as possible.”

What does it mean to you to be nominated for Best New Group at this years Juno Awards?

“How exciting eh? We didn’t expect it but we think it’s great! I don’t know exactly what it means but we haven’t always had the chance to play in and around Canada outside of Montreal, so it’s a really good thing for us to be able to play in more in new places.”

How has the web helped build your fan base?

“It’s actually been the basis of our career. We launched in 2007 exclusively on the web for free. There weren’t any records for sale in the stores and two years after that we were selling over 45, 000 times that. It’s given us that chance to launch golden Bombay and after we did launched it, we started selling records in-store and both really started to take off.”

Watch Misteur Valaire’s impromptu street performance of “Ave Mucho” in Brussels: