On The Electric Hearse (2020) Drainolith time-travelled through various phases of gentrification in the Saint-Henri neighbourhood of Montreal to pay homage to a bygone era, distilling it’s essence out of time. With Drainolith’s Montreal both spatial & historic scope have broadened for a stranger & sparser psychic cartography.

Opening with a rendition of les objets mutantes a 2010 poem by the mysterious Cassie Cornette, Moskos sets the scene of this record as exploration of the titular city’s terrain vague.

I write from a public standing desk beneath a hardwood awning where the bike path ends & metaverse offices stand. When Electric Hearse was recorded this location was still an ambiguous dirt and gravel pit where free impromptu dance classes took place on a makeshift wood floor. A well manicured and overpopulated nursery now grows where weeds once wrought their chaotic & resilient networks. The piano that bridges these two incarnations of “guerilla park” now sits with a lock and chain over its keyboard cover. This is the best I can describe the state of Montreal’s terrain vague at the time of this release.

Following the plaintive notebook synth wailing which closes side 1 we’re introduced to the no music crew “they can’t hear music, they only hear words” in Alex’s own. Chilling stuff. The sounds of spray paint cans & interstellar radio tones crinkle in the background.

Separating the sci-fi sprawl of the album’s first part and the b-boy bouillabaisse of it’s second are Bourbs the street and Bourbs the guy “two legends. The sad tale of Jean Bourbonais – scenester who beat a guy to death and Bourbonniere, great street in Hochelaga, broad, lit and with a bike path.” This may be the first Drainolith campfire song.

Before the shock of this change of pace has worn off a crisp 808 kicks in with a subdued and spacious groove over which Moskos intones “I keep my neck warm” evoking those long mid-winter walks home in the dead of night. Enter a slurring nasal Québecois tenor cracking jokes about Trudeau (senior) and inflation followed by a smooth Queb disco break.

This collage of Queb curios (featuring a St. Henri name check) that makes up part 1 of the title piece reminds us of some of the many Montreals that have come and gone before. What sounds like a fog horn kicks off part 2 and the riff is continued lyrically with references to Jesuits, the fur trade, beloved metal band Voivod, LaSalle … is Draino’s Montreal real? Is anyone’s Montreal more real than another’s?

The techies have descended from the metaverse upon guerilla park for lunch now and I know it’s time to go. Questionable fashions, French from France accents and sideways glances remind me this is not my spot. I head towards the Personal Records headquarters in Durocher and notice for the first time the sign demarcating Outremont at Hutchison and Beaubien. Arbitrary borders, mixed use cul-de-sacs, nth generation artist lofts – this is the stuff my Montreal is made of. Is it real? It’s ours.