Montreal's Call Me Poupee Brings Back Cowboys, Spies, Surfers And Beats

Montreal duo Call Me Poupee are good at a lot of things.

The male half, Ken Fortrel, is best at combining electroclash beats and synths with Casio rhumba drumming and cowboy guitars. The female half, Poupee, is superior in delivering kitschy Brigitte Bardot-like charm in her captivating French and English lyrics. But what CMP are best at is old-fashioned storytelling.

"Our story would be like a love story in the far west, not really far west, but a town in the mountains and a big field and cowboy and horses," Poupee explains in a thick French accent. "Our story is a bit scary, but with a good ending, like the whole country western type of thing."

Listening to Western Shanghai, CMP's debut album, is like stepping into one of those aforementioned westerns while sizzling on acid. It was produced by Ramachandra Borcar — who first thought CMP was a porn site when the band requested to work with him via email — and jolts the listener from spaghetti westerns to the slick action of '60s espionage films to surfing adventures and into dark discos.

They've swapped "cheesy beatbox" keyboard beats for a "kick in the face" guest drummer, and Poupee carefully explains why this warped music experience is the trip she needed.

"Maybe less for Ken because he is more on the music side, but for me CMP is my way to escape because I've never travelled. But it's too late to travel for me because the earth has changed and, if you want to go to Egypt to see the pyramids, there's no more myth left. It's just a big city with buildings.

"When I travel, I want to go for other things that aren't there anymore. This is my way to travel in the past. It's like a movie."

The cinematic CMP were spawned in 2004 out of a number of adventurous Montreal bands. Thanks to an atmosphere of sharing and low competition in the city's music scene, many of their friends added to Western Shanghai. Members of Les Georges Leningrad, Les Breastfeeders and The Gruesomes played along and "put little touches where we asked them to," Poupee says. Those extra touches include horns and a dramatic choir.

"It's a friendly scene," Poupee insists. "We all help each other and, for us, I don't know why, but we are in the middle of the English and the French scenes.

"I'm happy being stuck in between. It's hard to understand where we are in the scene, and I don't know who my crowd is, but I don't mind who I play for. I just want to play for somebody who likes what we do, and that's cool."

Here are Call Me Poupee's tour dates:

Sept. 28 Rouyn-Noranda, QC @ Cabaret De La Derniere Chance
Oct. 5 Montreal, QC @ Cabaret Du Musee Juste Pour Rire Pop Montreal
Oct. 27 Alma, QC @ Cafe Du Clocher
Oct. 28 Dolbeau, QC @ Vox Populi
Nov. 16 Sorel, QC @ O'Callaghan's Irish Pub
Nov. 25 Hull, QC @ Petit Chicago