• ‘an absolute smorgasbord of musical delights’

    Under The Radar Magazine
  • Fred Poulin (Ambiances Ambigues, Canada)

    An active agent in the Quebec music industry since 2000, Fred Poulin is as outgoing as he is hidden, working on the outskirts of stages and studios to promote local talent. First recruited by Universal Music, he left the majors for the position of marketing director at Indica Records then as musical programmer at the International Jazz Festival and the Francofolies de Montréal. Having co-founded the management, marketing and show production company, Ambiances Ambiguës with his accomplice and old friend from Chicoutimi Eric Harvey in 2008, he devoted himself to it full time from 2010; the pair will also launch the Duprince label in 2015, under which we find in particular Bon Enfant, Keith Kouna, Les Hôtesses d’Hilaire, Saratoga, Gab Paquet, Gazoline and Zoo Baby. Apart from these aforementioned, he has, over the years, worked closely with Trois Accords, Vulgaires Machins and Xavier Caféïne, in addition to managing the back catalog of legends such as Marjo, Vilain Pingouin and WD-40 – thus accumulating nearly 200 albums released to the market (record label, press relations and/or tracking). In 2017, still with Eric Harvey, he also set up the La Noce festival in Saguenay, of which he is general director. He won’t tell you it himself, but, in short: for almost a quarter of a century, Fred Poulin has been a discreet pillar of the development of artists on a provincial scale, and that hasn’t stopped happening.