Montreal avant-gardistes Institutional Prostitution grab your attention and won’t let go

Who are these strange new kids on the block? According to their website, this underground Montreal musical duo’s resume reads like a twisted saga of the surreal, warped, wild and partial untruths: music production, DJ, flow, theoretical theatre, four hour film trailer, car burial, contemporary dance, publishing, new fashion, and catering.

What we are sure of is that Melissa Gagné and Sadaf H Nava are the two multi-instrumental and vocalist brains behind the mini empire known as Institutional Prostitution, and they have taken the city by storm with their guerilla performance antics on stage and film. And people are paying attention. To wit, their participation at both the big (Pop Montreal, Suoni per il Popolo, South by Southwest) and the small (bedrooms and backyards) has drawn critical praise for its brazen take on absurdist pop music and oddball visual stimulation.

Their third proper album sees the light of day now, the manic and maniacal KU$HI $HI $HI. Recorded and released by like-minded mindbender Blake Hargreaves and his Fluorescent Friends label – you know him from such boss projects as Dreamcatcher, Thames and Cousin of Reggae – the record successfully captures the sound of an art project in perpetual motion.

Dirty beats mesh with stream-of-consciousness lyrical mush, while electronic soundscapes battle it out between the forces of the composed and the improvised, over top a layer of filthy audio experiments. Institutional Prostitution are inventing it as they go along, following no preconceived rulebook on how it’s done. Please tune in for the next chapter.

Institutional Prostitution
August 16 | Casa del Popolo
4873, St. Laurent
with Syngja + ¡Flist! + Halfdogj.r
institutionalprostitution.com