quebec

Sam Roberts is a Canadian rock singer-songwriter, based in Montreal, Quebec. His 2001 debut release, The Inhuman Condition became one of the bestselling independent releases in Quebec and Canadian music history. Born in Pointe-Claire, Quebec, he attended Loyola High School and McGill University. Roberts formed the band William in 1993. The band's name was changed to Northstar in 1996. Although the band gained some notice in independent rock circles, they couldn't break through to a national audience, and broke up in the late 1990s.

Aly Amr Fathalah (Aly) and Fadi Wassef Naguib (Fila), the Egyptian duo, were both born in 1981 and have known each other since kindergarten. After falling in love with the music of Paul van Dyk, Steve Helstrip and Chicane they built their first small studio and started doing electronic music and DJ'ing from 1999. After establishing themselves in Egypt, they decided to go international. In 2002, they signed with the prominent German record label, Euphonic Records.

Karkwa is a Canadian indie rock group from Montreal, Canada. Formed in 1998, the group consists of vocalist and guitarist Louis-Jean Cormier, keyboardist François Lafontaine, bass guitarist Martin Lamontagne, percussionist Julien Sagot and drummer Stéphane Bergeron. After reaching the final stages of the Francouvertes contest in 2001, the band released its debut album, Le pensionnat des établis, in 2003. The album's single "Poisson cru" reached the top of Quebec's campus radio charts, and was named the best album of the year by two critics for Montreal's alternative weekly Voir.

Originating from the Montreal area, this group first appeared in 1992, when it was called Necrosis; in the same year it was reincarnated under the name of Cryptopsy. With just a demo called Ungentle Exhumation and then the album Blasphemy Made Flesh (1994), the group acquired a solid reputation on the international scene. Their release of None So Vile in 1996 was the first burst of brilliance in their career.