The Future Sound of Montreal, vol. 1

Originally, the project was born in 2003 with the primary goal of bringing to light and promoting the unknown artists of nu jazz and chill genres in Montreal.

Maurice Svanstrom, producer and creator of the Lounge King Show and Atmosphere 69 (the only shows in Montreal that regularly play independent artists in the genres of jazz, lounge, nu jazz, soft electro chillout, and space age music, "Mix 96" FM 95.9 Sundays 6 to 8pm and 10 to 12 am) said: "…we wanted to promote local artists in the genres of chillout and soft electro, but during the musical research of Canadian and Quebec artists for the shows we found a enormous niche, and also, we were surprised by the small number of artists with a final product in that genre (even though that genre was already popular in Europe and the States); the demand for that type of music is huge, we see that on the shows every week, so we decided to do something about it!"

The album goes from sound vibes that could come from the futuristic 70's Montreal structures (such as the Olympic Stadium and Biodome) with The Sound Art Philosophy (John Brennan) to the acoustic street landscapes of The Urban Element (Chris) painted with the silky voice of Calisto (Jess), passing through the lucid lyrics and deep voice (used as an instrument) of Ra-Faelle to finally dive into the surreal moods of Monsieur Max (Maxim Lepage), the sonic forms of Audio Sculpture (Thierry Gauthier), the French hip hop poetry of The Funky Filter (Danny Almeida), the dark colors of Slingin' Ease (Colin Mctavish), and the Brazilian sound layers of Neibu (Patrick Beaubien). The album features one song by Superagent 69 with Monsieur Max called Next Door, a spoken word rhythm fantasy! Anyhow, the best way to describe this work is to listen to it.

The project started around the genres chillout, nu jazz, trip-hop & soft electro and found its first concrete expression in the compilation called The Future Sound of Montreal, vol. 1, representing the city of Montreal with its controversial Olympic Stadium.

The Olympics is a symbol of international unity, and the city of Montreal represents that unity every day; we can find communities from all over the world, with different religions, ideas, habits etc., all living in peace in this wonderful city. That is the message behind this project: Peace-Chill-coexistence-multiculturalism.

In 2004, The Future Sound of Montreal decided to take the project further by starting a collective with other independent labels such as Eurofonic (Daniel Lussier) and Apollo (Sylvain Pereira). The goal is to take the sound of Montreal beyond the borders as a collective project and increase its musical quality, diversity, and quantity of participants. As a result of this encounter, King A Groove records released the FSM2: The Future Sound of Montreal, vol. 2, including artists from 3 labels and a winner of a Montreal music contest, the singer Sophie Young.