Hugues Letendre, who goes by the stage name Hiyūs, is a 29-year-old corporate training specialist with CAA-Quebec by day and a DJ and music producer by night. Hiyūs prefers to mix deep house and organic house subgenres

"My sound is pretty organic, melodic, haunting, soft, but rhythmic," he said.

Hiyūs' love for music started quite young, when he learned piano in third grade. He took lessons for a year, but then stopped, because he felt the lessons didn't allow for enough creativity.

His interest in music didn't stop there as he still listened to a lot of music growing up. He then started listening to a lot of electronic music in CÉGEP, which made him take up the piano again, because he wanted to play what he was listening to at the time.

“It was really by starting to play the piano again while listening to his songs that I took back the love for playing music. Since then, the piano hasn't really let me down, I play it all the time,” he said.

After that, he bought a small DJ table and started mixing at university parties and in restaurants in Sherbrooke, where he comes from. He did it during his college years. Unfortunately for him, his table and his laptop were stolen, which forced him to stop mixing.

He only picked it up during the pandemic when music software Ableton offered a 90-day free trial, which he installed and made songs on it every day.

“It really pissed me off. to have software and start playing with it. to plug my keyboard into it and try out synthesizers and lots of other stuff. It's such a creative tool that it makes you want to explore it more and do whole musical projects,” said Hiyūs.

One of his most proud accomplishments is releasing a song on Amulanga Records, a label he admires.

"Since I started making music I sent them all my songs, they said no like 40 times, but finally they said yes last fall, so I had my first release official with the label and I was really happy," said Hiyūs.

Although Hiyūs may be a newer name in the Montreal electronic music scene, keep an eye out for him in the future, as he's set to release a new EP in early summer.

Hiyūs Fact: Hiyūs knows almost every episode of "A Galaxy Near Us" by heart.