Pierre Lapointe

The artist nominations of Canada’s "indie centric” community for the Polaris Prize have been highly criticised. Nowhere is this more evident than with the omission of debonair Quebecois crooner Pierre LaPointe and his criminally overlooked 2006 release, La Forêt des Mal-aimés. It was Malajube, with his winter warmth ode to their city, "Montreal -40C,” to which Lapointe lent his vocals, who became the cross-Canada superstar, while Lapointe became Quebec’s most beloved new artist and a rising talent in France. The "live” album has historically added new depth to many storied French artists and Lapointe’s engagement ending last year’s FrancoFolies festival, with the Montreal Metropolitan Orchestra backing him, is a testament to a baroque grandeur that would make Rufus Wainwright blush. In the tradition of a great fantasy novel, the album starts off in a downward, instrumental, symphonic spiral, almost as if the listener is being sucked into Wonderland with Alice. While LaPointe keys his way through his two albums and the audience lovingly sings along, the symphony provides a soundtrack worthy of any motion picture. With a new album on the horizon that will hopefully garner him a larger audience, LaPointe, at only 27, is a part of the vanguard of new Canadian artists truly making historic music.