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Samantha Levine

Arts and Culture Correspondent

The poster read: garden show, limited capacity, BYOB and woodfire pizza to follow.

Vocalist Loren Ipsum stands before us, feet planted in the warm grass, guitar in hand. To the musician’s right, an ensemble: Jensen Grieve on bass, Mim Al on electric, and behind them, Emilio Leto, his silver drum set nestled between the foliage of an intimate garden.

Onlookers sprawl across the yard, some splayed up the black spiral steps, typical of any Plateau dwelling, while others perch against the balcony rail, ash floating down like prayers from above. In this garden, we have begun the formation of our own little sanctuary.

Where better a place to be on a late summer’s eve than a stranger’s backyard? It is here that we sit, shoulder to shoulder, backs pressed to damp trees. The air hums with the thrill of a shared anticipation. It is an entrancing feeling, that waiting for the first note; it is nearly enough to subdue the murmur of the cicadas. 

We maintain that we have wandered here for the music, for the promise of woodfire pizza, but really, we are all here to witness the coming-together of a community.

An Inescapable Destiny

The show is hosted by Ipsum, herself, in rocket engineer and pizza enthusiast Nikil Menda’s back garden. The two met during her studies at McGill, a 4 year Bachelors in Psychology and Environment – a choice founded on the basis of a societal practicality and parental insistence.

As it turns out, this decision was not sustainable. Ipsum reveals that living a life separate from that of music and art proved to be impossible. The artist explains,

“Some things there’s heart, and some things there just isn’t […] when I’m performing I feel like I’m on fire; my heart’s really in it”. 

No matter where she went in this city, the artist found herself entrenched in conversation with the most fascinating people. Painters, musicians, tattoo artists, all studying to be lawyers and architects, whilst still pouring their distinctly remarkable talents into creative projects on the side. Every one of these artists served as a mere glimpse into a world she had yet to discover. 

Unconventional Spaces

During her time at McGill, Ipsum turned to event planning, assisting in organizing spaces for the community to display its music, fashion, and heart. Here, she learned the importance of a space; how an entire community can form around a single guitar and the inescapable desire for refuge. Because of this, she opens her home to strangers every week as a means of providing others with the chance to share their own voices.  

Ipsum remarks that if she could share any wisdom from her time spent planning events, it would be that

“music can happen anywhere – we can be in a park, in a forest, on a rooftop […]”.

Music was not invented to be confined; it was born to expand and permeate a space. This belief will be showcased in her upcoming Mobile Home Series.  For her next few events, Ipsum will be organizing shows in everyday settings: restaurants, outdoor parks, rooftops, and maybe even at a local church.

Ipsum describes how, prior to moving from Toronto to Montreal, she had viewed the city as an idyllic fantasy of music and architecture. And yet, after having spent nearly half a decade wandering in and out of our endless cafés and crawling pubs, the thing the artist cherishes most is the connection. Somehow, despite the city having over 3.4 million people, it is as though everybody knows everybody. Somewhere along the line, we became inextricably interwoven into a single community.

A Ritual of Intimacy

In terms of her own songwriting, Ipsum reveals that her most notable inspirations were the sharp female voices of Joni Mitchell and Adrianne Lenker of Big Thief. Their music felt grounded, authentic. Ipsum feels that music fosters connection, allowing for a profound intimacy between the artist and the viewer. 

For this reason, the musician leaves a wake of scattered tealight candles and mismatched lamps at any park her beloved guitar frequents. If not to maintain this ritual of intimacy and to scare the mosquitoes, then as a promise to city officials: we artists are everywhere. We will leave our mark.

Swimming to the Surface

A few weeks after the garden performance, I find myself splayed out on the grass at Parc Lafontaine, watching Ipsum and her friends run after one another in a community-wide game of ManHunt. This rite unlocks a cherished memory from childhood, of recesses spent chasing one another through the snow in colourful snowpants, soaked to the bone. Ipsum shares that a significant source of inspiration for any of her events is this idea of calling upon a collective nostalgia. 

Beside me sits 22 year old Jihad Houssain. Born in Bangladesh, he has lived in various places across Canada, facing poverty and homelessness, before finding his way to Montreal in 2024. It was through one of his girlfriend’s performances at Bar de Courcelle – a local staple of Montreal’s Saint Henri neighbourhood – that he met Ipsum and became a part of her community. He expresses, “Meeting Loren was amazing.” Houssain shares that although Montreal has shown him struggle, his interactions have been endlessly inspiring. It is the only place that has ever allowed the 22 year old to display his authentic self.

Houssain compares himself to a fish, stating that Montreal is the sea, “I need the water, but Montreal doesn’t need me.” 

The truth is that Montreal needs every one of our voices to uphold its culture. Today, the music scene is threatened by restrictive policies, as well as the city’s rising expenses. Over the last decade, numerous venues have closed, including Le Divan Orange, Katacombes, The Diving Bell Social Club, and historic concert hall, La Tulipe. Despite these setbacks, youth culture continues to ooze out of poster-tacked walls. On nearly any night, chords can be heard filtering out of local spots like La Sala Rossa, P’tit Ours, L’Escogriffe, as well as from narrow balconies, hidden rooftops, and abandoned parking garages. As with any scene, it will change over time, but there will always be an underground.

A Love Letter to Montreal

Montreal has always been home to a thriving music scene. For decades, bands have rattled the walls of their basements, bass lines thrumming through the neighbourhood. Youth collect in alleys and skateparks, baring their souls into the haze of the Van Horne underpass – a mass of bodies and voices screaming to be heard, pleading to be lost amidst the hundreds of others. In this city, everybody has a place under that bridge; every person has a home in the unpredictable certainty of a crowd of strangers.

In this ancient city, we have strolled hand-in-hand with Leonard Cohen and dancer Suzanne Verdal, sipping orange teas along the fleuve; we have cried alongside Patrick Watson, hiding love letters in every stone crevice; and we have dredged tunnels through harsh winter nights with Chassagne and Butler of Arcade Fire.

We, the people who compose this humming melody of a city, who make up its crumbling stone walls, its tall brick facades. We, the souls who inhabit its flickering bar signs, who sing our drunken prayers into the thrumming streets of Saint Laurent, pouring our pleasures into her overflowing drains in the form of half-chugged ciders, our tears streaked into the essense of her flourishing murals. We, who paint our names in dark lipstick across the bathroom walls of its bustling pubs, engraving our initials, sculpting our fates into the linings of its park benches and lamp posts. We, the vessels of an ever-evolving city, its very foundation.