We Are Wolves
Location: Montreal
Website: http://www.wearewolves.net/
Bio: Around 2000, Alexander Ortiz and Vincent Levesque—both from the visual art world—along with fellow Antonin Marquis formed a band around synths, bass, vocals and drums. ... (more)
The band remained nameless until 2002, when Ortiz showed up at their practice space wearing a homemade shirt with the image of a skull smashing into a synth on it and bearing the inscription ‘We Are Wolves.’ That night, the Wolves were born.
A gang of three, four including rock. We Are Wolves imposes a music that’s both free and honest, like the celestial lightning on the mystic mountain. It’s a post-punk landscape filled with analogue trees, like rock after the post-modern explosion. Their primitive sound matches perfectly with the band’s name: it’s animalistic. As fans of rock and electro music that ranges from The Cramps to Add N to X, it’s at the junction of those two movements that We Are Wolves made their den.
In 2005, the Montreal-based band released their debut album Non Stop Je Te Plie En Deux on the mythic label Fat Possum. Press soon followed—with coverage in Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, and Spin, among others—and performances at famous international festivals like Le Rock Dans Tous Ses Etats, Les Eurokéennes, Dour Festival, SXSW, CMJ, Virgin Festival and Osheaga. We Are Wolves’ first North American tour was in spring 2005 opening for …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead and The (International) Noise Conspiracy. A second tour came in 2006 supporting the Gossip, in addition to some solo dates across Canada and the U.S. The band also completed a five-week tour in Europe with Montreal act Duchess Says in summer 2006.
We Are Wolves released their sophomore album Total Magique on October 2nd, 2007 on Montreal-based label Dare To Care Records. This critically acclaimed album was covered by The New York Times, CMJ New Music Report and Spin.com, and the band also received Canadian awards like: the M-Galaxie Rising Star (voted by 35 international delegates at the M for Montreal festival); a MIMI (Montreal International Music Initiative) for ‘Artist with the Greatest International Potential’; a CBC Radio 3 Bucky Award for ‘Best Reason to Learn French’; and four nominations for September 2008’s GAMIQ (Independent Gala for the Independent Music of Québec). Their first video for “Fight and Kiss,” directed by Jérémie Saindon, was voted a ‘Buzzclip’ on Musique Plus and received heavy rotation on all the Canadian music channels. The video was also selected to have a residency at the Montreal Contemporary Art Museum, among other honors.
After more than 50 concerts across Canada and the United States by the beginning of 2008, the trio toured Europe twice in support of Total Magique. In summer 2008, We Are Wolves were part of Montreal’s International Jazz Fest festivities and the Quebec City 400th Anniversary celebration. In September 2008, the band’s opening score composition for the critically-acclaimed TV show Bazzo.tv (on Télé-Québec) won a Gémeaux Award (the French-language counterpart to the Gemini Awards) for “Best Musical Theme: All Categories”. 2008 ended with a second tour across Canada and the U.S, and a third tour of Europe.
In 2009, the band released Total Magique in Europe on Republic of Music. NME remarked that We Are Wolves were “Out to unbutton starched collars and cause stiff upper lips to wobble”, giving the album an 8/10 score. During the spring, the band toured Europe again on two different occasions and performed at festivals such as The Great Escape in Brighton, England. Back home in Montreal that June, they took part in the Festival de Théâtre de Rue de Lachine, where they were paired with Holland’s Doedel Company for a three-night residency. Let’s say the show gave another meaning to ‘setting a stage on fire,’ as We Are Wolves played a live soundtrack to the Company’s performance while suspended in a cage in the air, right next to several blazin’ fires.
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