MKNZ Ilirska Bistrica, Friday, 19.05.2000:

BALTHAZAR (Canada)

"BALTHAZAR, the best ravage rock band of Montreal, will inflame their concerts with punk ska garage pop funk in a similar way to those of Sublime, Nick Cave, Pogues and The Clash."

BALTHAZAR is a Montreal formation composed of 3 members. Since 1994, the band have played in various Montreal concert halls, many festivals and are attracting more and more people to their concerts. In 1996, they won the first prize of the Montreal Youth Musical Festival, a great recognition to their talent by the local music industry.

In December 1997 the members of BALTHAZAR flew to Venezuela where they played in Caracas and San Felipe, for the national games in front of 5000 people. After the show, the minister for culture invited the band to come back for the Festival Amazonas 1998.

The release of their first autoproduced album in November 1997 consolidated the recognition they have to date. In the Montreal press some journalists talked about them as "the band of the year in Montreal in 1998", or "a major name of the Montreal`s underground scene", and another one said: "my call is that these guys will blow up huge". Radio`s reactions were very good also: In January 1998, their album was the anglophone album the most played on CIBL (100 000 listeners) and CHOM FM (1 000 000 listeners) gave them the second prize ofthe CHOM SPIRIT CONTEST 98`.

The 1999 European tour (35 000 kms on the road with 66 concerts in 6 different countries) ended with positive results and we can now be certain that an interesting future is coming on this continent. The European press have warmly received the coming of these new rock adventures.

BALTHAZAR are in Europe to prepare their second album. Other musicians will take place in these recordings. Two of them are: Hakim Hamadouche (luth player of Rachid Taha) and Alexis Cochard (Jean Leloup`s bass player) who also participated in the first album. The Canadian release of the second album should be in September 2000.