Corridor

Montreal outfit Corridor merges jagged, overlapping guitar lines and synthesized layers with melodic choruses, all voiced in French. During the mid-2010s the group refined its post-punk approach on assorted French and North American imprints, later joining Sub Pop for the propulsive 2019 album Junior, its third full-length. On the 2024 follow-up Mimi the band adopted a more deliberate pace, emphasizing its experimental-pop sensibilities within a noticeably polished sonic palette.

Guitarist-vocalist Jonathan Robert and bassist Dominic Berthiaume launched the project in the early 2010s. Their first EP, the six-song Un Magicien en Toi, arrived in 2013 on L'Oeil du Tigre and also included guitarist Julian Perreault plus drummer Marc-André Chapdelaine. The same four musicians tracked the more streamlined debut album Le Voyage Éternel, issued in 2015 and produced by Emmanuel Ethier, who added synth parts. In May 2016 Corridor issued the standalone single “Le Viol de Sharone,” a post-punk reinterpretation of the Knack’s “My Sharona,” marking the first appearance of new drummer Julien Bakvis.

Returning to Ethier’s studio, the band tracked its next album. The nervy, melodically restless Supermercado surfaced in 2017 via French label Requiem Pour un Twister and U.S. imprint Citrus City Records. Another standalone single, “Deux Coeurs,” closed the year and featured guest vocalist Halo Maud. Corridor embarked on a 2018 world tour that took the group across Europe, to SXSW, and across North America as support for Shame. Early the next year Robert issued his solo debut Histoire Naturelle on Requiem Pour un Twister under the Jonathan Personne name, compiling home-recorded psychedelic power-pop tracks.

Concurrently Corridor signed with Sub Pop and resumed sessions with Ethier for its third album. Working rapidly, the musicians incorporated samples and more open arrangements. Junior appeared in October 2019 on both Sub Pop and Canadian label Bonsound.

Entering the new decade, Corridor altered both its sound and working methods. With live activity curtailed by the 2020 pandemic, the trio proceeded at a slower tempo, consciously departing from the guitar-driven focus of prior releases. Touring multi-instrumentalist Samuel Gougoux joined as a permanent member, and alongside producer Joojoo Ashworth (Dummy, Automatic) the band cultivated a more idiosyncratic pop approach that added further synths, electronics, and acoustic instrumentation. The resulting fourth album, Mimi, was released by Sub Pop in April 2024.