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.
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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.
\nAbout 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
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