Some reviews for Going
Places:
"Like Matthew Adam Hart, Montag (also
known as Antoine Bédard) has a knack for creating miniature symphonies,
little electronic pop songs like "Best Boy Electric" that are
brimming with life and vigour which also have gorgeous instrumentation.
Similarly, songs like "Mechanical Kids" and "> (Plus
Grande Que)" shows that he can go in the opposite direction, and
dial everything down to the most intimate level, and still make the smallest-sounding
songs sound intricately designed. (...) It all makes for an incredible
varied, interesting listening experience. Some naysayers may suggest that
the star-studded collaborator list (which includes Amy Millan, Au Revoir
Simone, Matthew Barber, Ghislain Poirier and others) shows that Montag
recognizes his limitations and has enlisted other, more talented people
to paper over those shortcomings. The more optimistic one -- and the one
to which I subscribe -- is that Montag is a skilled songwriter, and Going
Places shows that he knows how to find other artists who can bring out
the greatness of his compositions." iheartmusic.net
" Like many Carpark artists, Canadian
Antoine "Montag" Bédard's music sounds much grander than
his humble indie status might suggest. Going Places is Bédard's
third full-length and it expands upon his previous minimalist aesthetic:
bright, pop-infused electronics sparkle, glistening with rich touches
of piano keys and symphonic strings. Bédard borrows heavily from
'60s psychedelic pop: "Safe In Sound" and "Hands Off, Creature!"
overflow with exuberance and trippy flourishes, while his opening cut,
"I Have Sound," offers a sweeping love letter to electronic
'60s-style pop. But his talent lies in framing intimate feelings that
resonate, nicely evidenced in his simple, stirring refrain from "I
Have Sound": "We have no time for lifeBut we have soundWe have
sound." XLR8R
" Montreal's Montag (né Antoine Bédard) is a collage
artist at heart, creating dreamy soundscapes out of tiny digital fragments
of organic sounds (strings, vocals, woodwinds, percussion) that have been
neatly julienned, the parts meticulously reassembled into featherweight
ambient pop tunes.(...) The cleaner, more cohesive skeletons mean Going
Places feels like a proper pop album, not just aural wallpaper, particularly
when Bédard plays with the organic-synthesized dialectic both
sonically and thematically. The cotton candy Klaus Nomi Mechanical Kids,
with just enough backup from Amy Millan, is a standout, as is Softness,
I Forgot Your Name, a he-said/he-said duet with Owen Pallett. Overall,
the disc occupies al middle ground where Depeche Mode, Caribou, the Postal
Service and Blonde Redhead drink absinthe. " Now
Magazine (Toronto, Canada)
" The first impulse is to let the shimmering exterior of Going Places
slowly surround you, to accept it like you would an embrace from an earnestly
affectionate and somehow completely unthreatening stranger. It is difficult
to resist a record that comes on like the first warm braids of summer
sun, thawing out a winter's reserve of sanguinity. On his third album,
Montreal's Montag (Antoine Bédard) frames simple melodies in sweeping
fields of cathartic sound. He deftly integrates vintage instrumentation
within gauzy electronic textures, suggesting the humble grandeur of Stereolab
while laying out the particulars of his own sensibility." Treblezine
" Like its cover suggests — with
containers of paint, glue, string, subtle splashes of rainbow colours
and a miniature city — Montag's Going Places is a busy, bilingual
musical art project. Cut, pasted and sprinkled with hosts of sparkling
electronic surprises, layered in vocal harmonies, splattered with special
guests and enveloped in beats, the electronic indie pop soundscapes swirl
in warmth. Organic guitars and orchestration are woven throughout, as
are welcome female touches from the likes of Amy Millan, Au Revoir Simone
and Beach House’s Victoria Legrand. "Best Boy Electric"
is an outburst of musical fireworks with "Pinball Wizard" keys,
while "322 Water" fuses strings with perfectly cheesy vocals.
The Owen Pallett-guested "Softness, I Forgot Your Name" has
a very experimental Final Fantasy sound to it, yet it's also one of the
album’s most earnest tracks. This isn't electronic music to dance
to, but more to absorb and fall in love with. " ChartAttack
Magazine (Canada)
"On Going Places , Montag's Antoine Bédard collaborates
with a bunch of his friends (including M83 's Anthony Gonzales ,Stars
'Amy Millan , and Au Revoir Simone ), and ends up making the most confident,
dazzling album of his career. Bédard 's music has been moving toward
poppier sounds and more structured songs since Alone, Not Alone , but
even compared to that album, Going Places is a big leap forward.
Here, Bédard feels a lot less indebted to his immediate influences.
His gift for crafting atmospheres is now in service to gorgeous melodies
and arrangements, and even though the concept of a sonic mastermind drafting
his pals to sing on his songs feels very close to the approach of, say,
Dntel , the results are uniquely Montag. Bédard plays with two
major sonic motifs on Going Places : '60s lounge-pop and '80s synth pop.
Crucially, though, he doesn't milk either sound for kitsch value; in fact,
in Bédard 's hands, they sound pretty timeless. (...) this is music
about love that also sounds like it's in love with making music, and its
joy is irresistible. " Allmusic
(USA)
"Electro-pop artist Antoine Bédard lifted his Montag moniker
from a 1953 novel about a dystopia where firemen burn books, but on Going
Places the 30-year-old paints more of a dreamscape: Picture rainbows crisscrossing
a robin"s-egg-blue sky over fields of cherry trees in blossom. Montag"s
title track is an audio trip composed of 70 sounds originating in 15 countries,
from the voice of a train conductor in Israel to that of a beat-boxer
in Spain. Brooklyn-based songstresses Au Revoir Simone and Arcade Fire's
Owen Pallet add much-needed vocal harmonies to tracks Montag composed
in his living room by digitally looping recordings of traditional instruments
(flutes, trumpets) over the captured buzz of nearby kitchen appliances
and vintage keyboards, resulting in an avant-garde orchestra ideal for
clapping along with. " Utne
Magazine (USA)
"Going Place’ was created with the help some notable
collaborators including M83, Au Revoir Simone, Amy Millan and Beach House
and was lovingly put together in Montag’s home studio. So far, so
interesting and thankfully the music entirely lives up to the billing.
The album's title track was imaginatively conceived from the collective
imaginations of over 70 interweb dreamers. From such complexity seeps
sonic gold as Going Places slowly morphs into an utterly compelling
listen. Gentle yet diverse Montag could be about to kickstart Canada’s
next assault on the blogosphere and beyond. " Mp3hugger
(USA)
"Whatever reservations Antoine Bedard may have had about embracing
pop structures full-on, he has cast them aside here, as Going Places is
his most assured and accomplished work to date. (...) The closing title
track assembles seventy odd samples taken from an open call and uses every
one of them. But it once again speaks to Bedard’s exceptional ear
and careful consideration that it doesn’t come off like a parlor
trick. Indeed, “Going Places”—both the song and the
album—highlight the talents of a remarkably humble and low-key innovator.
While his songs may on the surface appear as little more than electronic
trifles, once you bite in, it’s the filling that truly surprises.
" Popmatters
" What Bédard’s coming-up-roses worldview means for
the listener is that Going Places, despite its frequently surprising avant-garde
flourishes, is among the most easily lovable electronic pop albums of
recent years — as bravely experimental yet sweepingly melodic as
the best work by Stereolab or M83 (whose Anthony Gonzales guests on epic
opening track “I Have Sound”)." West
Ender (Vancouver, Canada)
Going Places - Track review
"Montag risks inviting too many cooks, but this remains bedroom-project
simple-- the sounds connect without competing with one another. Montag
maintains deft senses of pace and space over the song's six minutes, and
the track's dignity is reflected in the restrained, repeating "I
hope you change your mind" that brings it to a close." Pitchfork
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