Hélène Barbier announces international tour and unveils music video for Marcel

Singer and bassist Hélène Barbier unveils a music video blending animation and live footage for Marcel, a song that bridges pop sensibility and no wave dissonance. Taken from the album Panorama, released in November 2025 on Bonsound, the track explores bureaucratic mazes, paperwork, and waiting. The Montreal-based artist is also announcing a tour of over twenty dates across the United States, Canada, and France

In addition to performing at the Sled Island Festival in Calgary on June 20th, the FEQ in Quebec City on July 12th, and Goner Fest in Memphis on September 27th, the musician will be visiting Toronto, Brooklyn, Chicago, Paris, and more. See the list below for all the dates.

Praised by Pitchfork, KEXP, Bandcamp Daily and many others, Panorama also topped the NACC Canadian charts for seven weeks, establishing Hélène Barbier as a household name on the ever-influential college radio waves.

Characterized by haunting melodies, stripped-down choruses, and a subtle layer of nonchalance that reinforces the songs' magnetism, Panorama is an avant-pop album that was crafted over a period of three years. Born in response to the stress caused by certain events that disrupted the daily life of the Montreal singer and bassist, these nine tracks sound as if they were postcards sent at different moments in her life.

Influences from the past and present mingle in these deliberately hard-to-date recordings; it's as if The Shaggs had taken guitar lessons from Tom Verlaine in Montreal in 2025, before forming a band by divine accident. The resulting album delivers a symphony of gooey jangle pop riffs, throaty melodies, and tangled grooves.

Though it is a very personal album, Panorama is also a collective effort. After taking the time to refine her songs and remove elements she felt were superfluous, Hélène Barbier called on Ben Lalonde and Joe Chamandy (Retail Simps), with whom she has been making music for many years, as well as Claire Paquet, Thomas Molander, Samuel Gougoux (Corridor, Trafic des Airs, Victime), Wes MacNeil (Night Lunch), Mélanie Venditti, Alexandra Levy (Ada Lea), Meg Duffy (Hand Habits), and producer Emmanuel Éthier.

About Hélène Barbier

Hélène Barbier seeds melodies that ferment and blossom in the shadows, pairing hummable lines with alien tunes conjured in someone else’s psyche across time and space. Siamese fragments. She creates an imbalance through juxtaposition. Four simple notes become evocative alongside four disorienting, different notes, and this simplistic rule has become a basis for complex play.

After releasing Have You Met Elliot ? in 2019 and Regulus in 2021, the France-born, Montreal-based artist will release her third album, Panorama, this fall. Enlisting musicians based on their willingness to break from tired chords, worn fills, and needless flourish, Barbier switches between English and French atop aggressively anti-complicated avant-pop melodies.

Keen to highlight the humour and beauty of everyday life, whether it be a road trip with her dog Toody or gardening in the small flower bed in front of her house, Hélène Barbier has nevertheless written many songs from Panorama in response to anxiety and health problems that surface when everything else seems to be going well.

In addition to cultivating her creativity with her musical endeavours, Hélène Barbier is deeply engaged in the Montreal music scene, notably through her involvement with Celluloid Lunch, an innovative independent label she co-founded with her husband Joe Chamandy, who also plays guitar in her band.

Follow Hélène Barbier: Bandcamp / YouTube / Spotify / Apple Music / Instagram

Tour Dates

20/06/2026 - Calgary, AB - Sled Island Festival

03/07/2026 - Sherbrooke, QC - Sherblues Festival (Café 440)

12/07/2026 - Québec City, QC - FEQ (Sirius XM Stage)

23/07/2026 - Montréal, QC - Parc de la Petite-Italie (Jeudi Antipasti)

25/07/2026 - Meaford, ON - River and Sky Festival (Fisher's Paradise in Field)

18/09/2026 - Toronto, ON - The Rat's Nest

19/09/2026 - Detroit, MI - Outer Limits Lounge

20/09/2026 - Chicago, IL - Planet Java

21/09/2026 - Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle

22/09/2026 - Indianapolis, IN - State Street Pub

23/09/2026 - Saint-Louis, MO - The Sinkhole

24/09/2026 - Nashville, TN - The Basement

27/09/2026 - Memphis, TN - Goner Fest (Wiseacre at the Overton Park Shell)

28/09/2026 - Atlanta, GA - Gene's

29/09/2026 - Athens, GA - Flicker Theater and Bar

30/09/2026 - Chapel Hill, NC - The Cave

01/10/2026 - Richmond, VA - Cobra Cabana

02/10/2026 - Boston, MA - TBA

03/10/2026 - Providence, RI - Lost Bag (by Providence Popfest)

04/10/2026 - Brooklyn, NY - Union Pool

19/11/2026 - Évreux, FR - Brasserie Spore

20/11/2026 - Rennes, FR - TBA

21/11/2026 - Nantes, FR - Maison de la culture de Saint-Herblain/Onyx

22/11/2026 - Amiens, FR - Chez Bertille

23/11/2026 - Tours, FR - Super 9

24/11/2026 - Montreuil, FR - Le Chinois