And so once again to Canada, America’s cleaner, nicer, more efficient upstairs neighbour.

It’s no secret that Canada is a hotbed of indie talent. Toronto’s scene has delivered such treasures as Broken Social Scene, Constantines, Hayden and The Elliott BROOD. Montreal has Wolf Parade, Stars and Arcade Fire. Vancouver has The New Pornographers and Immaculate Machine. Even Calgary has chipped in with The Dudes, Chad VanGaalen and Woodpigeon. It’s enough to make you forget about Celine Dion and Bryan Adams.

Now we turn our eyes to Halifax, Nova Scotia and a band that have the potential to rank with the most loved and most successful of Canadian bands - Wintersleep. And as it is with most bands from cold, uneventful, sometimes inhospitable surroundings, Wintersleep’s music is very much shaped by the place from which it stems.

“Yes sir,” says the band’s lead singer, Paul Murphy, “I think Nova Scotia is a cool place to grow up writing music. Not much else to do but that really. We’re all from small towns with pretty insular music communities. Pretty heavy veins. Kinda developed in the small towns around Halifax and not really Halifax proper.”

And Wintersleep are in some good company in Halifax and its environs.

“I guess some really cool bands in Halifax right now would be Dog Day and Instruments,” Murphy says, “really amazing music. Instruments don’t really tour. Dog Day tours like mad. A lot of the bands in Halifax don’t leave the Maritimes, which is strange to me. We have been touring so much that it is hard to think of any others that are still kicking from there. Sloan is from Halifax. My favorite band of my youth, Eric’s Trip, are from Moncton, three hours drive from Halifax.”

As I speak to Murphy, Wintersleep are on a tour of the west coast of the US. “The tour is going alright,” he says, “the routing is a bit odd at times and some of the shows are not actually in real cities, but in the suburban extension of cities, and take place in malls of sorts, or Christian youth group halls. It is kind of cool though. We get to see a lot more of America this way. The bigger cities have been really amazing too and the band we’re touring with are sweet peeps. Too much pizza though, I think I have some kind of stomach problem. Too much info?”

Wintersleep’s stellar third album, Welcome To The Night Sky has been brought to the UK by 147 Records, a young label that is also responsible for introducing us to The Dudes’ Brain Heart Guitar. So far, its strike rate is impressive. Though Welcome To The Night Sky only hits our shores early next year, it was recorded 14 months ago with Mogwai and Belle & Sebastian producer, Tony Doogan.

“Tony equals amazingness,” says Murphy, “I can’t imagine doing it with anyone else. There were a few other options but listening again to our Belle & Sebastian records and our Mogwai records, we couldn’t believe that he was actually an option.. He made us work really hard and had a really amazing work ethic. Basically a song a day for three weeks, Sundays off - a lot of pressure. I think it is much more exciting to do it that way. We work really well in that situation, as opposed to long drawn out recordings.”

Doogan’s epic flourishes suit Wintersleep down to the ground. The pace shifting ‘Drunk On Aluminum’ moves from the tense opening, bleeps and whirs scattered in the background into a haunting verse and then builds and builds before breaking into a galloping middle eight that could be taken straight out of Iron Maiden, if it wasn’t for Murphy’s gentle “aaahhhs” over the top.

Then the song abruptly ends and starts again and moves back to haunting before fading out. It’s a bit of a rollercoaster but the kind you ride with your arms spread wide and your eyes closed. The following three songs take very different paths but all sound definitively like Wintersleep. ‘Archaeologists’ pulsates and explodes in equal measures, ‘Dead Letter & The Infinite Yes’ defies any categorization beyond ‘superb’. Ditto the rousing ‘Weighty Ghosts’ with its handclaps and multitude of voices.

Fourteen months after the sessions with Doogan, Wintersleep are still touring the record and preparing to break it to an even wider audience. Looking back on the album from over a year down the road, how do the songs hold up?

“I try to stay away from the re-evaluation process,” Murphy says, “I guess we play it live every night… enough re-evaluation in that. You listen to it so much when you’re actually doing it that by the end of it, and especially 14 months later, it is just a bit of a sickening shit pile of a prospect, the task of listening to it with any kind of discerning ear. I remember being very happy with it the day it was completed. There’ll always be woulda couldas. But that is the nature with the living things that be songs.

They’ve taken different swerves away from the theme. I realize that I sound like a pompous prick by using the word ‘theme’, sorry. But the recordings are pretty definitive for those particular songs. We’re glad that we have those particular versions down on a proper record.”

And in relation to the first two Wintersleep records?
“I think this record turned out better than it should have been,” he says, “the first two felt like they turned out slightly short of the intended mark.”

Everything is pointing upwards for Wintersleep. The icing on the cake was a Juno award for Best New Band. Although, the pressure to live up to the potential hinted at by these newcomer awards can be like an albatross around young bands’ necks.

“We put a lot of pressure on ourselves,” Murphy says, “and an award like that is great but not something that makes us feel any more or less pressure on an artistic level. We like looking at every record as a blank slate and try to have as much fun making the music that is interesting to us. Our parents were really proud of us though, it was something tangible for them who are a bit unsure what to make of everything sometimes.”

But there has been one slight hitch in Wintersleep’s year of positives. In July, the majority of the band’s equipment was stolen from their van after a show in Louisiana, a considerable setback by any standards.

“We just bought shittier versions of the pre-existing stuff,” Murphy says. When asked if he wanted to hunt down the culprits, he says: “I don’t think I’d want to meet them. We’d probably be too afraid of doing anything. We’re from Nova Scotia. You can keep your car running for 20 minutes with the doors unlocked and not even worry about getting robbed.” And if he did meet them? “Probably avoid them at all cost. We’re a meek bunch in confrontational situations. Maybe ask them to please put down our stuff?”

It seems as if the sky is the limit for Wintersleep. It just remains to be seen how the band chooses to capitalise on their success and recognition.

“We’re gonna whore our songs out to commercials!” Murphy laughs. “I think slow but sure is the route we have always taken. We just wanna make good records and tour with cool bands for good people in cool cities.

“Too much ‘cool’?” he asks, “Is ‘cool’ still a word people use?”

I have no idea. But Wintersleep are cool.

Photo: Scott Munn