The French Canadian duo Angine de Poitrine have entertained us (and millions of others) mightily this year. And there’s no denying their single Fabienk is our favourite song of the band.

Up sums up everything inventively weird about the math rock duo. It’s a song of two halves, with guitarist Khn de Poitrine offering some serious catchy swagger in the from the 3:30 minute mark and that catchy, catchy hook. All hail to it.

Comprehending the Looping Joys of Fabienk

This song has won the 2026 Polaris Award for Best Canadian Song of the Year. For many people, it’ll be their first introduction to the music, too. It sure was for us.

The sight of those bizarre costumes, with giant beak noses, and the polka dot theme. That makes you gawp in shock, then the funky music kicks in. This exact clip here, showing the second half of the track.

This is off their 2026 album Vol. II and exemplifies everything Angine de Poitrine is about. You’ve got the microtonal math rock bit, Khn’s loop pedal acrobatics, and a surprisingly danceable disco-punk groove (powered along by drummer Klek de Poitrine).

Everything opens up with a clean, jagged guitar so it all sounds slightly out of tune, but soon blasts into the band’s signature loop constructions. Khn plays without backing tracks, he uses a Boss RC-600 Loop Station so he can play bass, then guitar, and create that wall of sound around him.

It’s how two guys on stage are able to make so much noise and get so complex.

Then the song hits its midpoint and transitions into a brief audio segment (it’s unclear what they’re saying, but apparently it’s “Sébastien!”). Then we hit the groove, with a heavy bassline and a melodic hook from the guitar.

It’s a genuine rhythm overload and we just love the guitar hook. The guys have been one of the delights of 2026 and in Fabienk they have their Day in the Life, Stairway to Heaven, Bohemian Rhapsody etc. etc.

Notes on the Fabienk Riff

Loads of musicians on social media have taken to the Angine de Poitrine movement. The main bit everyone seems concerned about is the funky guitar, as covered here.

But if you want to learn every bit of Khn’s bass and guitar playing, you can see it in action through this geezer.

There’s a lot of complexity going on in this playing, it’s a tribute to how talented whoever Khn is that he can stand there on stage, in that costume, whilst barely being able to see anything, and thrash this all out.

It looks effortless when he does it. But it clearly isn’t! Yet that brain also came up with the riff. It’s what the world needed in 2026.

Notable Live Performances of Fabienk

The band’s live performance on KEXP is what helped catapult them to fame this year. They’ve since performed the song about 1,000 times live, highlighting to us one of the commitments to being in a band. You have to be ready and willing to play the same thing over, and over, and over, and fully dedicate yourself to that.

There’s a huge amount of fan footage of Angine de Poitrine performing live. It’s actually quite rare to favour the professional shoot footage, but we like this one of a Polaris concert taken by CBS. This was from late September 2026 and shows the guys in full flow, confident after a year of success.

Now, we’re from Manchester so we’re very biased here. They played at Manchester Psych Fest earlier in September 2026 and we can dig the dudes visited our city and gave it all a whirl.

But we also like this up close and personal take of Fabienk, with someone in the audience right there in the front row (keep in mind just how goddamn hot it must get in those costumers).

Excellent! This should be enough Fabienk for you for one day, then. Go forth and strut your stuff to it.