Xavier Cafeine

A pioneer of Quebec’s alternative culture, Xavier Cafeine is the first one surprised when his first album, Mal Eduqué Mon Amour, becomes a classic of Quebec’s punk culture, raising him to cult like status. Recorded in only a few hours, this album mixes punk and pop sonorities to catchy melodies (to this day one of the artist’s major strengths) and a well calculated « garage » sound. His second effort, Pornstar, a bilingual album this time around, meets the same success and reaches an Anglophone audience. A few gigs at Much Music and the cover page of Toronto’s NOW help the band catch the « majors’ » attention, and it is distributed by Universal that Xavier launch a new Anglophone project, Poxy, in 2004. This album is much more refined (the producer Phil Electric’s touch) and, as the first 2, it rapidly becomes a critical success. It is his desire to renew with his francophone roots that will drive him to work on another French project, which will surprise many in 2006.