Harmonium - Les Cinq Saisons  

Sloche. Maneige a close second. Harmonium also brilliant a close third.

Other faves Et Cetera, Pollen, Octobre, Opus-5

^ Merci! J'ai choisi Sloche pour la même raison. Tout le monde connaît Harmonium et Maneige. Sloche était assez unique et à mes oreilles leurs deux albums étaient parfaits !

I went for Maneige, for they have 6 fantastic great historical album and a slightly weaker 80's album, plus four great archival albums and two great pre-Maneige as Lasting Weep.

Outside Offenbach, nobody comes close to that amount, and TBH , the band only produced only 4 good (but not great) albums

Other faves are Sloche, Harmonium, Conventum, Opus 5, etc...

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Former quebecois? (Living in CA and writing fluently in french??!)

 Can't agree more about "the perfection" side of things. Each time i listen to any, i'm stunned by the quality of the recording. While the organic sound (analog keyboards arsenal of Yacola is without egal) is typically 70's, the sound hasn't age a bit. This guy could be seen  earning a living, directing a small band in local tv shows in my hometown , Quebec city, while Pollen kbst became musical director of Celine Dion!

From a "Quebecois errant" living in Paris for 24 years

Not French or Canadian. Studied multiple languages. Russian, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese and dozens of others to a limited extent. Don't speak French fluently. Used Google translate to get it right but have enough knowledge in French to be able to detect if it's accurate. Basically i can read it extremely well but do not speak it very well at all.

Quebec remains quite unique whether you're talking about classic prog bands or more modern avant-metal bands like Voivod or Gorguts.

Not sure my "personnal translator" put it right this time. Are you angry of what i said? Stunned. I'm an old sixtygoers just unable to support a certain amount of decibels and just leave others at that without expressing any critical point of view about anyone's taste. Where's any notion of competition there? Apart, naturally, of the whole notion of a poll of preference to which you evidently suscribded! This was a nice chat...

^ Non! Ne vous inquiétez pas. Je voulais seulement dire que la musique est subjective et que nous l'aimons tous pour des raisons personnelles. Nous sommes tous d'accord sur certaines musiques et puis certaines nous conviennent personnellement et nous ne pouvons pas expliquer exactement pourquoi ! La vie est un mystère. Acceptons toutes les différences. Pas besoin de compétition ou de mépris pour voir les choses différemment :)

Hi, 

Magnifique! 

Other favs:
Pangee
Dionne-Bregent

Yup, the two Dionne-Brégent albums are superb

I would also point to Madore's Komuso à 6 Cordes as stupendous

This isn't very hard to achieve: 

Outside Ontario (often under-estimated in the 69/74 era, before the rise of Rush/Triumph/FM and Webster), most other provinces don't have prog bands (at least when it come to 70/80's):

- BC had The Collectors and its continuity in early Chilliwack and the amazing one-shot of Ptarmigan, but that's it.

- The Prairies provinces had nothing (if you except for slightly prog moments in Guess Who and BTO)

- The Maritimes provinces had April Wine, which was not prog (outside their Schizoid cover)

Basically, Quebec & Ontario concentrated 98% of Canadian prog in the 60/70/80's. 

Albeit, I'm much less aware of the origins of modern (post-90's) Canadian prog bands, though 

BTW, I've always considered CANO to be related to Quebec (even if the "NO" part of their name refers to Nouvel Ontario), and their multi-artistic disciplines structure resembled somewhat that of Conventum. L' Infonie was also multi-faceted and started releasing in 69. 

mmmmhhh!!!!.... As far as I can see Octobre is facing the very best Québecois. I'm not that big on Octobre myself, partly because it is too traditional song-based and fits somewhere between mid-period Offenbach & mid period Dionysos, all three with gruffy and rough vocals and maybe too much "Joual"-oriented for my tastes. 

As far as Octobre's debut (from 73) being the first, I would say that it's hardly the case, since  Morse Code (Transmission) & Dionysos' debut dates from 71, and Contraction existed as Frank Dervieux' band in 71 and recorded their first Contraction album in 72. Psych group Souls Of Inspiration sole album dates from 70

Although not releasing albums as such, the Pre-Maneige Lasting Weep existed already in 69. The power trio Sex, Vos Voisins, Guillotine  (Jazz/brass rock) and the folk-rock band Nouvelle Frontière also all released their first in 71. Mahogany Rush's debut Maxoom dates from 72.

BTW, Joual being the unabashed and unapologizing popular Quebec-french language with a very strong accent.

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Nice poll!

Since I don't speak French, I can't tell the accents apart. xD Maybe that's why I like Octobre.

Obviously, Hugues, you know far more about Le scène québecois than I pretend to. My assertion about Octobre's "early" appearance refers mostly to their credit as a highly rated progressive rock band album's release. I see none other in the PA database when one filters "Canada" over the "greatest prog albums of all-time" list.

Glad you chimed in Hugues I don't think anyone knows more than you about the Quebec scene. You mentioned not knowing as much about the modern ones in the rest of Canada but one that deserves a mention is Mahogany Frog not to be confused with Quebec's Mahogany Rush. And they reside in Manitoba which is shocking almost. But man what a talented band.

Hey, I was there at the right time and the right place (Outremont in 72) , but "unfortunately" too young (9/10 y.o.) to actually really take part in it.

In a sense, you are right in that Octobre was the first high-profile "prog" band that enjoyed wide comercial success (though that barely bled out of the province), but they got soon dwarfed by Harmonium & Beau Dommage tsunamis.

By the time of the Harmonium tsunami (summer 74), we'd just moved to Toronto (then Canada's second city after Montreal and a very provincial town).  Unfortunately many of these Québécois bands never toured English Canada (maybe a bit North Ontario and New Brunswick), though I've seen some that came and played the French high-schools in Ontario.

Even English-singing Mahogany Rush rarely played English Canada, as they were busy down in Texas and neighbour states.

 AAMOF, in my hazy daze of a memory, the only Montreal-based band that toured nation-wide was the Halifax (Nova Scotia) origined group (relocated to Montreal) called April Wine. Of course, Montrealer Leonard Cohen enjoyed world wide success, but I wouldn't call it rock. 

Most of those "prog" acts didn't survive into the 80's: only Offenbach (not prog at all by then) and maneige (until 82, I think), as they were all swept by a huge disco craze (Toronto went more "punk") that filled nightclubs and emptying musical bars/pubs. But the "lost" Separatism referendum in 1980 also played a major role into the mood of the record-buying publuc (more on that economic situation below)

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You can easily imagine that the national touring for Quebec bands (prog or not) didn't get better in 76, with the PQ coming to power in La Belle province and the separatism that ensued and provoked many tensions. Though French became +/- significant in Southern Ontario (a real minority that added to the nearly 40% of Northern Ontarians that were French-Canadians -as opposed to Québécois), as many of the English/international firms in Montreal relocated to Ontario in retaliation, thus provoking an exodus of 300 000 Montrealers into places like Toronto.  This actually created an electrochoc to Toronto, which overnight became Canada's biggest city and gave the city an international twist and never looked back. My French high school in Toronto was flooded overnight in 76/77 by Montreal teens (including very promiscuous québécoises ), and had to expand buildings quite quickly.

Montreal was the big loser with that massive middle and upper class exodus and the Olympics held in that same year left the city broke for decades.

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OTOH/however:

A fair bit of the "chansonniers" (a Quebec word that would +/- translate into singer-sonwriter, as opposed to the "chanteurs" -singers - in France, which didn't always write their own music por even words * ) had some success in France - starting with Robert Charlebois, Diane Dufresne, Gilles Vignault, Pauline Julien and Claude Leveillée.

Do chime in a lot more, John , because you lived much longer than I did right next to Quebec  and have probably a different PoV than mine.

After all, aside my three years in Mtl and 17 years in Hogtown (Toronto's nickname), this is only a third of my life (however important it has played a role in my life, from age 7 to 27).

I will never thank Canada (as a whole) enough for making me whoever I am today - despite those awful greasy poutines having never left my waistline  . BTW, I truly miss (the now-defunct) Ben's Montreal Smoked Meat sandwiches (local pastrami)

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I don't get all the Harmonium praise. It mostly seems to come from people who only know them, and not the rest. They really shouldn't be voting, as it throws off the results, and isn't fair to the other bands. Regardless, check all of them out for completeness!