Papa Boa

A Montreal avant-rock group with ties to the Ambiances Magnétiques collective, Papa Boa is one of many projects involving Bernard Falaise and Rémi Leclerc. The group writes complex songs out of studio improvisation sessions, including a lot of sampling and oddities, and is driven by Falaise's highly original guitar work. They have one album out.

In 1991, Falaise, drummer Rémi Leclerc (of Miriodor and various projects by André Duchesne), and bassist Frédéric Roverselli struck a friendship. Out of it came Papa Boa, at first a loose studio collective to which reedist Pierre Labbé was later added. All members (minus Labbé, a jazzman) have a rock background and their first intention was to explore freer structures that would include electronics. Their first experiments consisted mostly of improvisations. The group debuted on-stage in 1991 during the Festival du Théâtre des Amériques in Montreal. The next few years saw little activity, the unit being used mostly as a laboratory as Falaise and Leclerc's profiles were constantly on the rise in avant-rock circles.

The group provided the soundtrack to Michel Lefebvre and Eva Ouintas' multimedia work Liquidation in 1997. Engagements began to pile up, leading to an active period of three years. The quartet (occasionally augmented by guests such as Marcelle Hudon and storyteller Michel Faubert) performed concerts at various Quebec festivals (Festival des Musiques Fraîches in Quebec, Festival des Musiques de Création in Jonquières). They built a repertoire of quirky, angular songs and recorded Tête à Queue, their first CD. It was released in May 1999 by Ambiances Magnétiques. Performances at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in May 2000 and the 2002 Montreal Jazz Festival raised the group's profile, but the members' other projects finally claimed them back and Papa Boa went dormant. ~ François Couture, Rovi