Biography
In 2017, with the appearance of Signal 9, the Montreal avant-prog unit Miriodor sustained the banner they had raised more than thirty years before, counting among the earliest ensembles on the rock-oriented side of Quebec’s musique actuelle landscape. At their start, Miriodor could likewise be seen as North American exponents of the Rock in Opposition approach first shaped by European outfits such as Henry Cow, Etron Fou Leloublan, and Débile Menthol—virtuosic instrumental prog rock stripped of the pretension that undermined more prominent prog acts. A quarter-century of steady backing from the Cuneiform imprint allowed the group to chronicle its gradual artistic development across successive CDs while refusing to tailor its output to mainstream rock expectations.
Pascal Globensky on keyboards and multi-instrumentalist François Émond, handling violin, flute, clarinet, and keyboards, established the band in Quebec City during 1980; after several lineup shifts it settled into a sextet configuration by 1983. That roster—drummer Rémi Leclerc, saxophonist Sabin Hudon, keyboardist-bassist Marc Petitclerc, and bassist-guitarist Denis Robitaille—produced the debut vinyl LP Rencontres as well as the cassette-only Tôt ou Tard, the latter featuring the quartet of Globensky, Émond, Leclerc, and Hudon augmented by Petitclerc and Robitaille on three pieces. By autumn 1984 both Petitclerc and Robitaille had left, prompting the remaining four members to relocate to Montreal and carry the Miriodor narrative forward.
By 1987 the story had begun to resemble “the Incredible Shrinking Band,” since co-founder Émond had exited and Globensky remained the sole original member from the 1980 formation. Even so, the trio of Globensky, Leclerc, and Hudon—each operating synthesizers and exploring MIDI resources—generated an extensive palette of instrumental colors and maintained a texture that evoked a sizable yet never overbearing ensemble. Miriodor initiated its Cuneiform association in 1988 when the label issued the trio’s self-titled debut. Following the arrival of the CD format, that album was reissued with the quartet tracks from Tôt ou Tard that included Émond; in 1998 Cuneiform further reissued the earlier sextet album Rencontres on CD, appending the Tôt ou Tard selections that also featured Petitclerc and Robitaille.
As the 1990s opened, Miriodor appeared settled in its trio formation of Globensky, Hudon, and Leclerc with the 1991 Cuneiform release 3è Avertissement (3rd Warning), whose packaging matched the music’s intrigue: a square plastic bag containing six small cardboard cutouts—depicting the three musicians plus a hammer, paintbrush, and saw—replaced the standard jewel-box tray card. The group would continue as a trio for some time, though not with those exact members. Between 1993 and 1994 Hudon stepped away amicably to enter television production, and guitarist Bernard Falaise joined, soon emerging as one of the most versatile and celebrated figures in all branches of musique actuelle—rock, jazz, experimental, and free improvisation—appearing across numerous projects with Miriodor and others, frequently alongside Leclerc, over the ensuing decade and beyond.
On the next Cuneiform outing, Jongleries Élastiques (Elastic Juggling) from 1996, the core trio consisted of Globensky, Leclerc, and Falaise, with Hudon occupying a quasi-member role before his definitive exit. The earlier tactic of relying solely on electronic means to simulate a large ensemble was abandoned; instead the group enlisted numerous guests, notably several players from Claude St-Jean’s L’Orkestre des Pas Perdus—including St-Jean on trombone, Jean-Denis Levasseur on flute, and Ivanhoe Jolicoeur on trumpet—to introduce fresh timbres on selected tracks. That same year Miriodor functioned as more than a studio entity, performing in Baltimore, Montreal, and St-Malo, France. The Baltimore appearance occurred at ProgScape ’96, a progressive-rock event, while the following week the band played the Montreal Jazz Festival, having previously appeared at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in 1988. Festival organizers and listeners from divergent backgrounds gravitated toward Miriodor’s music irrespective of prior expectations. Jazz enthusiasts responded especially strongly, even though the compositions were typically intricate and fully notated with scant improvisation; the appeal stemmed from forward drive, melodic clarity, shifting atmospheres, unexpected contrasts, and the performers’ technical precision.
The Globensky-Leclerc-Falaise trio expanded to a quartet in 1998 upon the arrival of bassist-keyboardist Nicolas Masino, and this lineup recorded Mekano, issued by Cuneiform in 2001. Saxophonist Marie-Chantal Leclair received prominent billing, while violinist Marie-Soleil Bélanger appeared among the guests. The core quartet—collectively credited for all composition and arrangement—together with Leclair and Bélanger performed at the 2002 NEARfest in Trenton, New Jersey, where their set stood out amid otherwise conventional and occasionally bombastic prog-rock programming, earning an enthusiastic response that prompted an invitation to a pre-festival concert in 2003.
Throughout 2004 the members composed and tracked another Cuneiform project that incorporated guest contributions from Swedish composer-accordionist-keyboardist Lars Hollmer on several pieces and classical bassoonist Lise Millet. Issued in 2005 as the studio half of the two-disc set Parade + Live at NEARfest, the second disc preserved the full 2002 NEARfest performance mixed by Bob Drake. Twenty-five years after Globensky and Émond had launched the original Miriodor, the group returned to live stages in 2005 at Portugal’s Gouveia Art Rock Festival, Montreal club dates, and Ontario’s Guelph Jazz Festival; violinist Chantal Bergeron of Ipso Facto replaced the departing Bélanger, and the Gouveia concert included guest spots by Hollmer and Belgian bassoonist Michel Berckmans.
September 2007 brought a performance at Le Festival des Musiques Progressives de Montreal, during which Hollmer joined on accordion for “Talrika,” a piece he had written for Parade. Two years later the band was booked for another FMPM appearance in September 2009 to present material from its seventh Cuneiform album, Avanti!, released that May. Prior to that engagement the quartet opened for Van der Graaf Generator at Quebec City’s Festival d’été de Québec in July 2009, augmented onstage by saxophonist Pierre Labbé, who had contributed tenor saxophone to Avanti!. Labbé also appeared with Miriodor at the subsequent FMPM show, which proved to be the festival’s final edition; shortly afterward the organizers announced its conclusion despite rising attendance. Around the same period the ProgQuébec label issued Live 89, a collection of live recordings made two decades earlier by the Globensky-Leclerc-Hudon trio.
Miriodor resurfaced in autumn 2013 with the Cuneiform studio album Cobra Fakir, returning to a trio format reminiscent of the Jongleries Élastiques period—Falaise, Globensky, and Leclerc—yet without external guests; the members multi-tracked guitars, bass, keyboards, banjo, and turntable (Falaise), keyboards, synths, and piano (Globensky), and drums, percussion, keyboards, and turntable (Leclerc) to explore fresh territory while preserving the band’s signature complexity, melody, atmosphere, and engagement. Bassist-keyboardist Nicolas Lessard participated in the live debut of Cobra Fakir material at North Carolina’s ProgDay festival in August 2013, and the quartet of Falaise, Globensky, Leclerc, and Lessard also performed a release concert at Montreal’s Le Belmont venue in October. By the May 2017 arrival of the aptly titled Signal 9—the group’s ninth album—Lessard had become a permanent member. For more than three decades Miriodor has sustained its singular musical journey with fire, wit, drive, and spirit.
Pascal Globensky on keyboards and multi-instrumentalist François Émond, handling violin, flute, clarinet, and keyboards, established the band in Quebec City during 1980; after several lineup shifts it settled into a sextet configuration by 1983. That roster—drummer Rémi Leclerc, saxophonist Sabin Hudon, keyboardist-bassist Marc Petitclerc, and bassist-guitarist Denis Robitaille—produced the debut vinyl LP Rencontres as well as the cassette-only Tôt ou Tard, the latter featuring the quartet of Globensky, Émond, Leclerc, and Hudon augmented by Petitclerc and Robitaille on three pieces. By autumn 1984 both Petitclerc and Robitaille had left, prompting the remaining four members to relocate to Montreal and carry the Miriodor narrative forward.
By 1987 the story had begun to resemble “the Incredible Shrinking Band,” since co-founder Émond had exited and Globensky remained the sole original member from the 1980 formation. Even so, the trio of Globensky, Leclerc, and Hudon—each operating synthesizers and exploring MIDI resources—generated an extensive palette of instrumental colors and maintained a texture that evoked a sizable yet never overbearing ensemble. Miriodor initiated its Cuneiform association in 1988 when the label issued the trio’s self-titled debut. Following the arrival of the CD format, that album was reissued with the quartet tracks from Tôt ou Tard that included Émond; in 1998 Cuneiform further reissued the earlier sextet album Rencontres on CD, appending the Tôt ou Tard selections that also featured Petitclerc and Robitaille.
As the 1990s opened, Miriodor appeared settled in its trio formation of Globensky, Hudon, and Leclerc with the 1991 Cuneiform release 3è Avertissement (3rd Warning), whose packaging matched the music’s intrigue: a square plastic bag containing six small cardboard cutouts—depicting the three musicians plus a hammer, paintbrush, and saw—replaced the standard jewel-box tray card. The group would continue as a trio for some time, though not with those exact members. Between 1993 and 1994 Hudon stepped away amicably to enter television production, and guitarist Bernard Falaise joined, soon emerging as one of the most versatile and celebrated figures in all branches of musique actuelle—rock, jazz, experimental, and free improvisation—appearing across numerous projects with Miriodor and others, frequently alongside Leclerc, over the ensuing decade and beyond.
On the next Cuneiform outing, Jongleries Élastiques (Elastic Juggling) from 1996, the core trio consisted of Globensky, Leclerc, and Falaise, with Hudon occupying a quasi-member role before his definitive exit. The earlier tactic of relying solely on electronic means to simulate a large ensemble was abandoned; instead the group enlisted numerous guests, notably several players from Claude St-Jean’s L’Orkestre des Pas Perdus—including St-Jean on trombone, Jean-Denis Levasseur on flute, and Ivanhoe Jolicoeur on trumpet—to introduce fresh timbres on selected tracks. That same year Miriodor functioned as more than a studio entity, performing in Baltimore, Montreal, and St-Malo, France. The Baltimore appearance occurred at ProgScape ’96, a progressive-rock event, while the following week the band played the Montreal Jazz Festival, having previously appeared at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in 1988. Festival organizers and listeners from divergent backgrounds gravitated toward Miriodor’s music irrespective of prior expectations. Jazz enthusiasts responded especially strongly, even though the compositions were typically intricate and fully notated with scant improvisation; the appeal stemmed from forward drive, melodic clarity, shifting atmospheres, unexpected contrasts, and the performers’ technical precision.
The Globensky-Leclerc-Falaise trio expanded to a quartet in 1998 upon the arrival of bassist-keyboardist Nicolas Masino, and this lineup recorded Mekano, issued by Cuneiform in 2001. Saxophonist Marie-Chantal Leclair received prominent billing, while violinist Marie-Soleil Bélanger appeared among the guests. The core quartet—collectively credited for all composition and arrangement—together with Leclair and Bélanger performed at the 2002 NEARfest in Trenton, New Jersey, where their set stood out amid otherwise conventional and occasionally bombastic prog-rock programming, earning an enthusiastic response that prompted an invitation to a pre-festival concert in 2003.
Throughout 2004 the members composed and tracked another Cuneiform project that incorporated guest contributions from Swedish composer-accordionist-keyboardist Lars Hollmer on several pieces and classical bassoonist Lise Millet. Issued in 2005 as the studio half of the two-disc set Parade + Live at NEARfest, the second disc preserved the full 2002 NEARfest performance mixed by Bob Drake. Twenty-five years after Globensky and Émond had launched the original Miriodor, the group returned to live stages in 2005 at Portugal’s Gouveia Art Rock Festival, Montreal club dates, and Ontario’s Guelph Jazz Festival; violinist Chantal Bergeron of Ipso Facto replaced the departing Bélanger, and the Gouveia concert included guest spots by Hollmer and Belgian bassoonist Michel Berckmans.
September 2007 brought a performance at Le Festival des Musiques Progressives de Montreal, during which Hollmer joined on accordion for “Talrika,” a piece he had written for Parade. Two years later the band was booked for another FMPM appearance in September 2009 to present material from its seventh Cuneiform album, Avanti!, released that May. Prior to that engagement the quartet opened for Van der Graaf Generator at Quebec City’s Festival d’été de Québec in July 2009, augmented onstage by saxophonist Pierre Labbé, who had contributed tenor saxophone to Avanti!. Labbé also appeared with Miriodor at the subsequent FMPM show, which proved to be the festival’s final edition; shortly afterward the organizers announced its conclusion despite rising attendance. Around the same period the ProgQuébec label issued Live 89, a collection of live recordings made two decades earlier by the Globensky-Leclerc-Hudon trio.
Miriodor resurfaced in autumn 2013 with the Cuneiform studio album Cobra Fakir, returning to a trio format reminiscent of the Jongleries Élastiques period—Falaise, Globensky, and Leclerc—yet without external guests; the members multi-tracked guitars, bass, keyboards, banjo, and turntable (Falaise), keyboards, synths, and piano (Globensky), and drums, percussion, keyboards, and turntable (Leclerc) to explore fresh territory while preserving the band’s signature complexity, melody, atmosphere, and engagement. Bassist-keyboardist Nicolas Lessard participated in the live debut of Cobra Fakir material at North Carolina’s ProgDay festival in August 2013, and the quartet of Falaise, Globensky, Leclerc, and Lessard also performed a release concert at Montreal’s Le Belmont venue in October. By the May 2017 arrival of the aptly titled Signal 9—the group’s ninth album—Lessard had become a permanent member. For more than three decades Miriodor has sustained its singular musical journey with fire, wit, drive, and spirit.
Albums