GeminiCrab have announced a ten-date Canadian tour running June 19 through July 12, 2026, their first national run in support of their debut album Gen Y Lens. The Montreal duo, made up of vocalist Malika Tirolien and keyboardist Caulder Nash, will play a circuit of jazz festivals and independent venues from Ottawa to Victoria, with a hometown date in Outremont on June 21.
The tour leans heavily on the jazz festival circuit. Confirmed stops include the Ottawa Jazz Festival, Winnipeg Jazz Festival, Victoria JazzFest, Edmonton Jazz Festival, Vancouver International Jazz Festival, and the SaskTel Saskatchewan Jazz Festival in Saskatoon, where the band will play two 45-minute sets at The Bassment on July 8. Toronto gets a club date at DROM Taberna on July 11, with two further London, Ontario appearances the same weekend. Details on the Outremont and London shows have not yet been released.
Gen Y Lens came out in November 2024 on Germany’s o-tone music label. Recorded at Université de Montréal and mixed by Philippe Rochefort, the eight-track record was built around binaural production and draws from R&B, soul, jazz, and hip-hop. The duo describe the sound as HighSoul. In its first year, the album accumulated over 300,000 Spotify streams and 2.3 million YouTube views. Their live version of Like Water, filmed at Studio Fast Forward, accounts for a significant portion of that attention.
The record moves across a range of moods and reference points. Lead single A Love that Will Last reaches back toward Philadelphia soul and the quiet storm tradition, with contributions from Michael League and Ronny Desinor. Ride and Like Water push into more contemporary territory, while Outta Your League features Shem G and carries a harder hip-hop undercurrent. The production, co-developed throughout with Jean-Michel Frédéric, was mastered in both stereo and Dolby Atmos.
The project has roots in a creative residency at the PHI Centre, where Tirolien and Nash, who first connected through Montreal’s Kalmunity Vibe Collective, developed the album’s material together. That lineage matters: the Kalmunity collective has been a proving ground for Montreal’s improvised and hybrid music scene for well over two decades, and the PHI Centre has made a habit of hosting exactly this kind of cross-disciplinary incubation.
Tirolien carries three GRAMMY nominations through her work with the global collective Bokanté, and has performed with Snarky Puppy on Family Dinner – Volume 1. Her performance on “I’m Not the One” from that record has over two million YouTube views. Nash won a Félix Award in 2021 for his work on Jonathan Roy’s Life Distortions and has served as keyboardist and musical director for several Quebec artists, including six seasons as part of the house band on Radio-Canada’s Les Poilus.
GeminiCrab played the 45th edition of the Montreal International Jazz Festival in 2024 and toured Europe and the UK that same year, including dates at The Great Escape in Brighton and Jazz Cafe in London. The Canadian tour is their first extended run on home soil.
The touring band includes Rémi Jean LeBlanc on electric bass and Ronny Desinor on drums, with Rueben Rapopart handling sound.
Photo credit: Yannis Davy
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