Angine de Poitrine’s 333-Year-Old Space Aliens Khn & Klek Sell Out First Global Tour, Melt Faces

Don’t be surprised if polka dots are never again seen in quite the same way. The bizarre, mystical creatures known as Angine de Poitrine — two self-described 333-year-old space aliens shrouded in spots and mystery — are captivating legions of earthlings with brilliant performances and wholly original music.

The growing tsunami of adoration began in earnest earlier this year with a 30-minute online performance for Seattle public radio station KEXP (below) recorded live last December at the Trans Musicales Festival in Rennes, France. Since its release on YouTube in February, the performance has received more than 19 million views.

At their sold-out shows, crowds participate in rituals such as the raised, triangle-shaped hand gesture Angine de Poitrine use onstage, wearing polka dots and bulbous prosthetic noses, deep bowing and yoga moves while fiercely protecting the duo’s true identities. Double-neck guitarist/bassist Khn de Poitrine and drummer Klek de Poitrine — two virtuoso musicians who may or may not hail from Saguenay, Quebec — look and sound like no other act.

Visually and conceptually, the instrumental duo fall somewhere between The Residents, Kiss, SNL’s The Coneheads, Mork from Ork and Neolithic paganism. Their distorted alien banter between songs sounds like a language E.T. and Daft Punk might create, while musically, they deliver a complex stew of microtonal and hard math rock with elements of metal, jazz and electronic music, along with self-sampling and incredible lockstep dynamics. Guitarist Khn leaves shredders, gearheads and everyone in between completely agog.

Angine de Poitrine’s growing fanbase includes a number of high-profile musicians: Jack White, who had them open his Toronto RBC Amphitheatre show on July 14, the same evening as the first of their three sold-out shows at the Mod Club; Sean Lennon; Dave Grohl; Shania Twain; and Rush’s Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson. Another early supporter, and fellow masked musician, is Deadmau5, who recently remixed “Fabienk” from the duo’s second album, Vol. II, released in April. It followed their 2024 debut, Vol. 1.

Their current tour booked earlier in the year has transformed into vast underplays, selling out everywhere. The second leg, with multiples at larger rooms, similarly sold out. Their intergalactic sound and jaw-dropping performances have helped drive festival appearances around the world. Their first-ever U.S. tour started in Denver with a pair of sold-out shows at the Ogden (1,600 capacity) on Aug. 12-13 and ends with two shows in Seattle: Dec. 12 at Showbox SoDo (1,800 capacity) and Dec. 13 at the Paramount Theatre (2,807 capacity), with dates in between in Canada, Europe and the U.K.

The band is set to make its U.S. late-night debut on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Monday, Sept 14.

As indecipherable 333-year-old space aliens, Khn and Klek rarely do interviews. Pollstar, however, spoke with all four of their booking agents: Roam Artists partners John Bongiorno and Ethan Berlin, who handle the U.S., Mexico and South America; Roam senior agent Duncan Smith, responsible for the EU, Asia and Australia; and The Feldman Agency Vice President Steven Himmelfarb, who takes care of AdP’s adopted homeland of Canada.

Berlin calls their club shows “comically small,” given their popularity.

Bongiorno says that all four agents are “on the same page…our job is to elongate this career, even though they’re in the eye of the storm right now.”

That storm can be seen in real time with drone footage from their record-setting late-June appearance at the Montreal Jazz Festival, while free, it attracted an estimated 70,000 to 100,000 people. In July, they played their first US show at Newport Jazz Festival and at month’s end at Japan’s Fuji Rock Festival where their set was moved from a late-morning tented slot to early-evening outdoor stage.

Pollstar: As the Canadian in the bunch, Steven, I imagine you were the first person to work with them?
Steven Himmelfarb: No, Duncan.  It was all within a very short window.

What were your first impressions when you first saw this duo in polka dots and why did each of you want to work with them?
Duncan Smith:  I saw the guys at M for Montreal festival in November last year. They were the band that were on everyone’s lips throughout the weekend before they played.  I saw so many people with their t-shirts on. We got to the venue [Ausgang Plaza on Nov. 21] about an hour early. It was super packed, like one in, one out. We had to flash our delegate badges to make sure that we got in, escorted by Mikey from M himself [Mikey Rishwain Bernard]. The merch queue was completely full, from the moment we got in there throughout the set to when they finished.

The band were actually slightly late getting on stage, and I could really feel the anticipation building in the room. I don’t think it was a tactic; I think there was a production thing going on, but it certainly worked as a pitch tactic for a room full of music industry folks [laughs]. And they came on, and obviously super visually striking, and I just thought to myself, “What is this going to be?” And it was instantly super fun, super engaging.

The music is a real sweet spot of so many different things that I like. My musical history goes from everything from garage rock, math rock, and experimental electronic music, and it really touched on so many different points of that. People were just enthralled by it. And those elements, and particularly the combination of how great the music was, and how much of a community they were already building in Quebec, felt like such an important thing. It really felt like a real moment.

I was already thinking about the people that I could connect them to over in Europe as they were playing, went over and spoke to Seb [Collin], the manager after the show, and had a quick chat.  Actually, I was chatting to Emilie [Asselin of Spectacles Bonzaï], who is also on the management team throughout the rest of the week.  As soon as I got back to the UK, I emailed them straight away and got on a few calls and started working with them in December last year.

We hear about bidding wars for label and publishing deals. I imagine in this instance there were a lot of booking agencies wanting to work with them, or were you just that early?
D.S.: There were a few other agents at that show. I know Simon Raymond from Bella Union [UK record label] was also at the show and that’s how John [Bongiorno] came on board because Simon was texting John, saying, “You have to check this out.” I know that management were speaking to some other agencies. To be honest, I’m not totally privy to how many or who they were talking to, but it was still really early days at that point. The KEXP session [for the Seattle radio station] came February ‘26, so it was long before that. Still, relatively unknown, I think they had like 10,000 monthly Spotify listeners. The first album had been out for a good year or so at that point. I think everyone who was there, everyone who had seen the show, and obviously people like John who knew people who had seen the show, were feeling really excited about it, but I’m not sure that it had got to a point where that had started to spread within the industry quite yet.

Steven, how did you get involved?
S.H. A month later, in January, I got a call from the Montreal Jazz fest because I needed a support band for one of my shows I had booked, Goat, from Sweden, a psych rock band who also wear masks.  The promoter [Mathieu Rousseau] for Jazz Fest sent me Angine De Poitrine to support the show and praised them, but also mentioned they wore masks.  I hadn’t even listened to it; I just sent it along to Goat, flagged that they also wore masks and had left it.  

I hadn’t heard back from them and kind of forgot about it. A week later Goat replied, saying they were good to have them on the bill.  Then, I went to listen to it and I’m like, “Oh this is amazing.” So, I reached back out to Jazz Fest and I’m like, “They’re awesome, we’d love to have them.” Jazz Fest then told me they had to rescind the offer because Angine had put up their own show in Montreal and it sold out in about an hour, and that they have other plans now.  At that point, I just reached out to AdP directly [Collin] and we started chatting and hit it off. The show that they booked and sold out ended up being this last April, which was the record release show [April 3 at Club Soda], which John and I were at. It was the first time I had seen them live, so it’s how the dots connected from there.

The Feldman Agency has to work with closely with Roam. Under normal circumstances, you have a new act, they sell out a small venue, you increase to a slightly bigger venue and so on, but Angine de Poitrine is a runaway train. You don’t want to kill their careers by capitalizing on everything. You want them to have a big, long career. How do you approach such a different case, where they’re selling out everywhere and you can’t really control it?
John Bongiorno: We communicated early on. The four of us were all on the same page when it came to this, about the importance of a longer story, and not a short story. I would use analogy of the Sopranos were nine seasons long, and that’s what we want here. We don’t want to be on season 7, episode 2 in three weeks, which if we would have gone with the terrain on that, might have happened. We’re all on the same page that our job is to elongate this career, even though they’re in the eye of the storm right now. So Ethan and I, who work together in the United States, we’re using the terms discipline and restraint. The end result of that was we would go on to Reddit, or we would go on to their fan groups, which are tens of thousands of people at this point, and we’d see these comments of, “Why aren’t they just doing the thing that they can do?”  And the answer has always been “because we want to tell a longer story, and it’s not necessarily doing everything just because you can do it.”

We’ve changed our approach multiple times over the course of this because it is unique in its trajectory. We use that word a lot in this business, where a new band, they run dormant for a while, and all of a sudden, they have this upward trajectory, and then you do the things that you’re taught to do, and through years of experience, are the right things to do. But with this, the trajectory was so steep that we found ourselves always being mindful of not skipping steps as best as we possibly could.  

This must be of concern to two guys — or aliens — who have reportedly been playing together for 20 years since they were 13, in other projects.  They don’t want be, “Oh, shit, we’ve put on these wacky masks and costumes and now our career flamed out.” Is there anything specific that you changed for them?
Ethan Berlin: What John was talking about. We’ve had to certainly redefine the steps along the way. And a lot of that has come with the confidence that the band can play, and they put on a very engaging show. Once we all started seeing shows, it was obvious that they could command these different room sizes. A lot of that fear of putting them in to bigger rooms and then just falling flat on their face was eliminated immediately.

So you’d rather create that demand and sell out, like the three July shows in Toronto at Mod Club [cap. 600] and then sell out History (cap. 2500) in November, versus headlining their own show at RBC Amphitheatre [cap. 16,000] and potentially not selling out.
E.B.: Stevebooks them in Canada, but similar thought process here. They’re playing Riot Festival (40K-cap) in Chicago in September, but then their first headline show ever in the city of Chicago is two nights at The Salt Shed [Nov. 29-30], which is 3,300 tickets a night.

And that’s a big place to start. But, at a certain point, we had to just say, “This is what it is. Let them go through what they’re about to go through over the next few weeks here, at least in the States, which is playing a lot of shows which are comically small at this point.

But, it’ll be part of this longer story where they get to define the relationship with the fans early on.” People get to see them in those moments. Even though they already played in front of 100,000 people at the Montreal Jazz Festival, and, not so far from that, at Osheaga [also in Montreal], still get to be able to have those big moments and those experiences, even if it’s going to be truncated in a pretty short time. But again, seeing them on those bigger stages already and seeing them play live, there’s no concern about having to put them into those next room sizes. We’ll see what happens from here.

John, you said you have been on Reddit and fan groups. You must’ve seen  everything from people making their own polka-dotted merch. I even saw crochet figure earrings. And then there’s the extremely opinionated people, a lot of them musicians, who say they are only successful because of the costumes. It’s the great debate. Geddy Lee just praised them, so that should shut people up about their talent.
J.B.: They’re total package for sure. The music speaks for itself, and the gimmicks absolutely add to it, but anybody that is suggesting that it’s because of the gimmicks is probably coming from a point of something else.

Fans have gotten pretty angry when people have posted photos online of them unmasked. I didn’t look at them because I prefer to believe that they are 333 years old aliens. How do you feel about the sleuths?
J.B.: We haven’t seen them unmasked either. It’s got to be a pain in the ass for them to come meet us for coffee in the lobby of a hotel and get dressed up. So we’re waiting, we’re wondering who they are as well.  [They all laugh].

E.B.: Seeing some of that feedback from fans, the fierce defense of the making sure that those pictures don’t go wide, it’s just showing us that this is not a moment; the fans are deeply attached emotionally already and want to protect them and help protect the whole thing. That’s amazing to see because there’s definitely other genres or acts, especially in pop music, where no one’s privacy is protected at all and fans feed the desire for that lack of privacy, but it’s seems to be way different here because although people have attempted to unmask them, it has not been met with curiosity from the fans. Fans are like, “No, this is not right. This is not them; this is them.” And when we’re talking about longevity, that is so exciting to see that early connection from the fans.

Do you envision a time when they’ll do the KISS and unmask temporarily?
J.B.:  Who knows? We’re hoping that it’s a 25, 30-year story, and wherever they decide to take it, our job is to make sure that it is a 25-to-30-year story.

Even for their opening slot for Jack White, there were little kids in the audience dressed in polka dots.  Because they’re instrumental, and they don’t speak, per se, there are no swear words, so they can play family events. They’ve already done jazz festivals, but because of the prog rock, math rock and improvisational elements, they can play rock festivals and with jam bands — the scope is huge. What areas do you foresee them moving into?
E.B.: John and I also represent Khruangbin, who in their entire career have been chameleons. They’ve been able to drop into so many different scenes and genres and types of festivals, and it just works. Angine has a very similar appeal in that regard.

There’s just something about it that is connecting with so many different people. So while they’re going to be able to exist inside a number of multi-genre big box festivals, they’ll definitely be able to flirt with that jam band audience, and they’ll be able to easily fit into more of a straight-ahead rock festival. And there’s a dozen more different worlds

S.H.: EDM, it’s hitting in that world now too.

Because of the Deadmau5 remix of “Fabienk”?
S.H.: Yes, this is for everybody.

Hillside Music Festival [in Guelph, Ontario, 4,500-cap] sold out for the first time in 14 years and they were moved from a small stage to closing out the festival on the main stage [on July 2]. Are there any other examples of that happening, Angine de Poitrine helping smaller festivals by being on the bill?
S.H: It was the fastest Winnipeg Folkfest had sold out [July 10] in advance. And then they did the Phillips Brewing [Phillips Backyard Music Festival in Victoria, BC] as well, which is less historic [than Hillside and Winnipeg Folkfest], but their date [July 12] was the fastest sellout in their history as well [debuted in 2013].

D.S.: We’ve got a few in Europe we’re doing. A couple of city festivals in our runs towards the end of the year in August and in October. London Calling Festival, which is a couple of thousand capacity, sold out really quickly. Manchester Psych Festival and Edinburgh Psych Festival that upgraded their main stages, which they hadn’t explicitly told me that it was because of us, but it happened fairly soon after we were announced and we have very prominent billing on that.  It was announced before summer [March/April] when the KEXP session was still really fresh in people’s minds. We actually don’t have too many summer festivals this year just because the guys were already so busy in Canada. But everything that we are playing has sold super well, if not sold out.

Does it help in any significant way that you had early fans like Dave Grohl, Sean Lennon, Jack White, and Deadmau5 in a completely different audience, praising them — more recently Shania Twain and Rush — or is that just a cool, fun bonus?
E.B.: It’s a cool, fun bonus. It’s clear that before a lot of those cosigns came, any ticket that was put up sold out immediately. And it’s just adding to the story and just proving that the connection that music and the whole package could have with people. There’s an underdog spirit about it for some reason, and all these people are really excited to share it, share the band to the world. So it definitely doesn’t hurt.

The dates on this US tour are sold out, taking them through to mid-December, with shows over in Europe and the UK mixed in. Are you adding anymore dates this year?
J.B.: We’re not adding any more this year. There’s not a show that we put up that took longer than 70 minutes to sell this year.  We also used [drop CRM platform] Laylo for every tour, except for the first tour; we just went through traditional ticketing. But we used Laylo for the fall touring. So everybody had to sign up to Lalo to get a password to get a ticket so we can keep the tickets in the fans’ hands. So, made it 70-minute sellouts. It was just the slowdown of the knocking bots out of the queue on the ticket, otherwise it probably would’ve sold out much quicker. If we hadn’t used Laylo, and just went through the traditional ticketing, we would have hundreds and hundreds of tickets on the secondary market right now at extremely high prices, but we were able to combat it. But it did slow down ticketing a little bit.

E.B.: The things that snuck through to the secondary certainly are still at an obscene price, even as the rooms get bigger, which keeps showing that the demand continues to grow.

J.B.: It’s funny that the [US kick-off] shows in Denver [Aug. 12-13] were at the Ogden because the Colorado situation is a great snapshot of the evolution of this band. We confirmed them on Field of Vision [II], King Gizzard’s Festival, as one of the very first shows we booked for them [in the US]. I think it actually was the very first show we booked for them. Because it’s obvious you hear them and you go, “This really would work there,” so you submit it, you get the offer, you’re happy to get the offer, and they said “You can play anywhere you want around it. We don’t have any radius.”

When was that offer?
J.B.: That was in late January. And then we added the Lost Lake.

E.B.: Well, John called me up because I live in Boulder, Colorado, John’s like, “Should we be playing in Lost Lake or the Larimer Lounge? Two hundred and fifty capacity.

J.B:  We added the Lost Lake [cap. 75] the night before King Gizzard. We didn’t put anything on sale. We just cleared and confirmed it. And then literally a week later, I was like, “I think we’re going to need two.” So then we did Wednesday and Thursday at Lost Lake. And then three days later, a weekend passed. And I was like, “I think I need to move this to the Bluebird.” So then, we moved it to the Bluebird [cap. 550]. And then we added two Bluebirds. Then we were like, “I think we need to move this to the Ogden.” Then we added the one Ogden. Never announced them. Then it was two Ogdens. Then, [UK pop singer] Lily Allen posted a teaser on her social media, a big announcement coming Monday and it was polka dots overlaying a picture of Red Rocks, and all the comments were Angine de Poitrine playing Red Rocks. And we got an offer for Red Rocks [cap. 9500], which speaks to the discipline and restraint. We could have just walked right into Red Rocks because of all those comments from Lily Allen. But we were like, “No, that’s getting to the end of the story much too fast.” So we compromised by doing two Ogdens [cap. 1,600 a night], which sold out instantly. The original thought was to take every single step from step one, start at 200 capacity and do this.

John, when I asked you before this interview about future plans for the band, you responded with take it slow. Based on what you just said, how do you freakin’ do that given the demand?
J.B.: By doing what we’re doing. I think that we’re just trying to make sure that we’re not getting over our skis and taking on too much. When I say take it slow, it’s not so much about us, as it is about the band. The band is still learning what it means to be an international phenomenon and, smaller than that, what it means to be a touring band. This is their first tour.  In a baseball analogy, it’s like asking a college pitcher to go out and throw 300 innings the first year; their arm’s going to fall off.  So, you have to build up the calluses of touring over time. That’s what “take it slow” means because a lot of the decisions that we make are naturally based on longevity, but also because the band is still figuring out what they are, who they are, who they want to be. And I think that’s all to be determined. I don’t think that’s something that any band in their position should have to figure out on a moment’s notice.

S.H. As agents, you’re there to protect your artists. Traditionally, that’s our role. And, with this artist specifically, we’re there to protect them at an even higher level, if that makes sense to what John was saying. We’re very protective of these guys.

Plans for Australia or Asia?
D.S.:  Everything’s embargoed. We’ve got some big Australia looks. We’ll be getting back to Europe. We’re looking into Asia. But we just want to make sure that the guys also have time off to recuperate, to write new music, to decompress because this year is full-on for them. We don’t want to run before we can walk too, making sure that we’re giving them that space in between all of this amazing stuff we’re doing and not being afraid to wait a little longer to get into some markets if we need to. We all feel very confident that that interest is long-term, like we’ve been saying. The fans seem really invested. The fans are very protective and dedicated. And I think it’s going to be a really long and fruitful career for them.

Last questions for each of you. What is a cool hope for them?  An SNL appearance? Halloween costumes in Wal-Mart? And do you wear anything polka dot when you go to the shows?
J.B.: It’s hard to not to see all the polka dots these days. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed, but now I notice all the time. [they all laugh]. I went and saw Rush and Geddy Lee was wearing polka dots and I see polka dots all on the street. If I were to name one goal is that the band has a long and happy career. That’s it.

S.H.:  My goal, similar. I hope the band enjoy the ride and are happy doing this because it’s a lot. I just hope they enjoy the ride. And I don’t have polka dots, but I’ve never personally bought or owned more merch from any of my clients.  And because it sold out at Jack White, my phone blew up for the Mod Club show and I spent about $700 myself for friends and gifts. I bought a huge bag and my house is filled with it.

D.S.: Steven and John have really taken the golden answers there, but just continue to work in the way that we are working across the four of us, but also with management and with the band. We’ve got a really special team behind us. That extends to the wider team as well. For such an exceptional and unprecedented artists, you couldn’t really ask for a team that care more or as aligned, as we all are. The goal really is to keep on that path and to keep communicating so that we’re delivering a really comprehensive and fruitful and constructive and enjoyable global strategy for the band.  And, shamefully, I don’t have any polka dots.

I might get some polka dot tattoos.
E.B.: Us four aside, the band is so deeply committed to having people from Quebec work alongside them. Some of the early conversations we’ve been having with them, and with management, is that is very important to them, as this develops, that they’re working alongside people from the region and in the local music scene. Nearly all of the support acts for the U S tour are from Quebec. Our goal is to just make sure we continue to honor their vision and the things that are important to them, as it continues to grow, and just make sure that that’s never lost. And I don’t own polka dots.  John, should we go on a shopping spree?

I’m looking forward to Halloween.
E.B:  Halloween is going to be big this year. My two-year-old is newly obsessed. There’s other things played in the house that you would think would be what catches her ear, but she’s been like “More ‘gine, more ‘gine” all day the last few days. I could see a Halloween costume in her future.