Angine de Poitrine are on the cover of Billboard Canada, with a cover story that gives an inside look behind their rise.
Since the beginning of 2026, there’s arguably been no hotter band in the world. They’ve earned millions upon millions of streams, praise from idols from Jack White to Shania Twain (more on that later), sold out concerts in seconds and, with somewhere in the vicinity of 100,000 fans, even set a record for the biggest crowd at Montreal International Jazz Festival since Stevie Wonder in 2009.
Looking out at the audience, the band’s manager, Sébastien Collin, was amazed at the turnout — not just because of the size of the crowd, but the fact that they had come to see this band. Instrumental microtonal math-rock isn’t the kind of music that usually draws numbers, but Angine de Poitrine have shown there’s an appetite out there for adventurous, virtuosic and just plain weird music. The band’s mix of looping pedals, double-necked guitar/bass and virtuosic musicianship is a sight and sound to behold.
Related
“When I was backstage, I was really happy to see so many people enjoying complex music and heavy rock riffs,” he tells Billboard Canada. “With so many people there of all ages, it’s impossible that it was only people who like that type of genre that were there. It’s so much wider. It shows that maybe there will be some more openness to really good ideas and really good music.”
No one could have been prepared for the popular explosion when the band’s KEXP performance video went up in February, 2026. It went viral nearly instantly, and the band, then largely unknown outside of their home province, racked up millions of streams. Currently, the YouTube video sits at 17 million views. “A global breakthrough is not something you can plan for,” Collin says.
He says the moment it went up, his inbox exploded. Overnight, he had messages from venues, festivals, merchandise producers and fans from all over the world. The Vol. II album was planned for launch in April, just two months after the video went up. The band had to act quickly. With so many eyes watching, how would they meet the moment?
The ecosystem around Angine de Poitrine was growing rapidly. They had to find the right partners to press the vinyl, distribute it, construct Khn de Poitrine’s custom guitars, make merch and posters for each show, book concerts throughout the world, register for publishing and figure out next steps — all at a much more monumental scale than they, or most people in the music industry, could be ready for.
The biggest decision was whether to release the album on a record label. Everyone wanted to sign Angine de Poitrine. That’s not an exaggeration.
“I can say that every major and most of the big indies all contacted us. Smaller indies, too. It was quite a rush. I was having around 10 meetings per week, all on the label side,” Collin says, breaking into a laugh. “It was quite fun to have a lot of them saying how long they had been following Angine de Poitrine, while the reality was many of them had discovered them two days ago.”
Collin compares the experience to speed dating, but with the extra pressure of having to get married at the end. The clock was ticking and they had to make a choice. In the end, they chose to go with no one. They would do it how they’d been doing it since day one: independently.
“We needed to talk to all the labels to choose none of them,” he says.
Read the full Angine de Poitrine cover story here. — Richard Trapunski
Canada is the World’s Fourth Biggest Music Exporter in 2026
Canadian music is making noise worldwide, while Canadian listeners consume music from around the world.
Luminate has released its 2026 mid-year report, tracking changes and trends in music consumption in the U.S. and around the world throughout the first half of the year.
Related
According to this year’s report, Canada remains one of the biggest forces in the industry, ranking at No. 4 as the top global exporter of music worldwide
That said, it slips down from its No. 3 spot last year, landing just behind South Korea and ranking behind the U.S. (No. 1) and the U.K. (No. 2).
Canada currently ranks as one of the countries with the most diverse makeup of its music consumption worldwide, with 90% of its streaming activity pertaining to music from 10 different countries of origin.
That statistic reflects the diversity of the country. Latin music’s popularity around the world continues with waves in Canada. Bad Bunny earned his first Canadian No. 1 song and album this year following his Super Bowl halftime show performance. K-pop is huge, with the viral hit “Golden” from the K-Pop Demon Hunters soundtrack also spending five weeks at No. 1 in Canada. BTS has also had a chart-topping comeback. The Punjabi wave has been reaching new heights, with artists like Karan Aujla, Diljit Dosanjh, Cheema Y and Gur Sidhu continuing to rack up more and more chart records and impressive streaming statistics in Canada.
That’s not to mention music from south of the border. Canada is the top importer of American music this year, a trend made evident by the domination of U.S. hits on streaming and the Canadian charts.
Canadians are also consuming more music across the board this year, with all formats seeing a significant rise. Compared to 2025, total album consumption is up by 3.2% with an increase of 2.3 million album equivalent units, on-demand audio song streams are up 3.6% with an increase of 2.7 billion streams and physical album sales jump 4.2%, with an additional 100,000 copies sold across albums, CDs and cassettes. In the U.S., BTS and K-pop are driving a key uptick in CD sales, with a 16% overall surge and a 6.7% increase even upon excluding the broader K-pop catalogue.
Read more here. — Stefano Rebuli
