Formed just as the world was being plunged into the darkness of the pandemic, Bye Parula would emerge from the COVID quietude with an authentically folky yet sneakily funky sound that carried the Montreal traditions of indie-rock experimentation and community collaboration into the 2020s. 

While most bands form out of friendships, in this case, the friendships formed through the band. When the members of Bye Parula first met at the dawn of the decade, the only thing they really had in common was the fact that they were all strangers in a strange town: singer/bassist Loïc Calatayud-Sola was a recent arrival from southern France; guitarist Sebastián Riquelme hailed from Chile; and drummer Sergio D’Isanto had immigrated from Italy. During the first wave of lockdowns, the band essentially existed as a demo file-swap exercise, but once restrictions were lifted to allow for a rehearsal retreat to a studio near Trois Rivieres, a common language was quickly forged among the trio. 

“The communication was really natural,” Calatayud-Sola recalls. “For the first time, it felt like, ‘This is a band!’ I had found people that are really into making the music, but also really into doing everything else needed to make things happen. The balance was perfect. We were having fun. We were cooking for each other. We were listening to a lot of records and lots of music from different parts of the world.” 

From that woodshedding experience, Bye Parula cultivated an ornate art-pop aesthetic that followed in the feisty footsteps of Montreal eccentrics like Patrick Watson and Plants and Animals—and it wasn’t long before those inspirations became peers. The trio’s 2023 debut, I, was produced by Patrick Watson percussionist Robbie Kuster and mixed by Plants and Animals’ Warren Spicer, both of whom remain trusted members of the band’s inner circle. And those connections paid dividends beyond the recording studio, eventually getting to Superfriendz/TUNS frontman Matt Murphy—who also works as a producer on CBC Radio’s national arts-and-culture talk show Q with Tom Power. When the show was looking to relaunch in 2023 with a new theme song, Through Murphy’s endorsement, Bye Parula’s slinky, symphonic single “Still Got the Spirit” was added to the list of over 50 Canadian tracks in contention, but, as Power would tell his listeners, “as soon as we heard ‘Still Got the Spirit,’ we knew right away that it was the right song for us.”

Not only did that placement expose Bye Parula to a wide cross-Canada audience, it provided a signpost for where to go next. “That song is a bit more uptempo than what we were doing before,” Riquelme observes. “So we wanted to build on that and create this energy, because we were seeing people having fun with that.” With their 2026 follow-up, Something Out of Nothing, the trio continue to innovate and expand their sound, and channel the onstage dynamism they’ve cultivated through appearances at major events such as the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal, Pop Montreal, M for Montreal, Suoni per il popolo, Festival du Canal Lachine, Moncton’s MOSAÏQ, and Germany’s Reeperbahn Festival, as well as a fall 2024 tour of Europe. 

The result is a mercurial mix that draws from the orchestral funk of Serge Gainsbourg, the wounded melodies of Elliott Smith, the worldly rhythms of Talking Heads, and the rough-hewn R&B of Dijon, all infused with a ‘70s cinematic sensibility that blurs the line between sun-dappled, soft-focus fantasia and urbane sophistication. But that musical wanderlust is anchored by a more intensely introspective thematic focus that burrows deep into stories of heartbreak, homesickness, and dearly departed family members to create an album that massages your shoulders musically while punching you in the gut lyrically. “This record is like the end of this chapter for us,” D’Isanto says, “and now we are moving in another direction, and into another chapter of our lives.”