MTL Sauce Piquante

Less Toches began over one special summer, with the band members finding each other as if by magic. One warm evening in a park, while sitting on a picnic table jamming with some friends, vallenato accordionist John Gonzalez hears a peculiar voice cutting through the music. After a long session, John invites his new friend, Acadian-Mexican poet Jacob Basque, to jam with Dani and Lucas, a chance encounter creates a spark, a new band.

Un Guaro à Lafontaine is an homage to the mythical space where Less Toches was born, Montreal’s Parc Lafontaine, one of the oldest and most beautiful in a city renowned for its green spaces, home to the legendary Lover’s Bridge, the amphitheatre, art gallery, skating pond, and the setting of countless moments in the lives of young Montrealers for more than 100 years. The EP’s songs sing of moments in the park, a dance between ex-lovers, a musician wandering through the trees, a desperate plea to the clouds,  and cumbia jams that last all night.

The EP contains 4 tracks of accordion-driven cumbia punctuated by call and response gang vocals and relentless percussion, just the way abuela likes it. These are some of the band’s first compositions, created during that first magical summer of jamming and partying in the streets and parks of Montreal. They have since then been performed on massive outdoor festivals stages, sweaty late-night afterparties, and now presented in full recording splendour. As part of a new wave of alternative latin music in Canada, this new EP is perfect for global dance floors, taste-making playlists, and in the kitchens of cumbia lovers everywhere.