AWmusic

In downtown Montreal there exists a tiny dance club tucked away on a poorly lit street just to the west of where most of the interesting shit happens in the university district. The club is most famous for hosting a killer (and free) 90’s night on Fridays as well as being called the Vinyl Cafe – little besides. So imagine my surprise as I innocently pass an otherwise innocent lamp post adorned with beige posters loudly emblazoned, “DAISUKI FRIDAYS.” Surprise! Bands at Vinyl? (Turns out I wasn’t the only one surprised – apparently the bands had to supply all of the sound and PA equipment because the sound guy for the night had none. Was an hour late, too, the fuck?) There were three bands listed on the bill for the night. Of the two we don’t care about, one turned out okay, and one turned out awful (whatever) but the band I was interested in was called the Pop Winds. My buddies in BRAIDS had told me about these guys; they have a bit of a rep ’round this way, don’t they? (Turns out they’ve only formed in April of this year – not bad!) My interest piqued (and it not so much at the prospect of another Friday night dancing at Blue Dog), I dragged some friends to check it out.

Again, the opening acts underwhelmed. But damned if I wasn’t utterly enthralled from the first note of the Winds’ performance. Barring the departure of my friends (worth it) and some asshole spilling beer and nearly dousing all of guitarist Devon Welsh’s floor setup, I spent the next forty five minutes deeply entranced in their groove. The astute (obsessive?) readers will appreciate a comparison to Boston’s own Truman Peyote, but the Pop Winds have a much thicker, deeper style – the bass thuds you in the chest, and the group emphasize vocal harmonies, singing like super-saturated color swatches from the Gobstopper factory. In addition to Welsh’s sparsely perfect guitar washes, the music’s momentum comes from Kyle Bennett (also known as Flow Child) who stands behind an ironing board covered in sampling and mixing devices of all sorts (two 404s, damn) and wrings out of them images of wind chimes on a front porch in a portion of jungle that’s drifting lazily out towards Andromeda. The band’s real secret weapon, however, is saxophonist Austin Milne; able to coax a startling array of sounds from his treated saxophone, he’s like the love in the perfect birthday cake, the utterly essential element to fullness we never knew we needed.

The band have recorded an EP called Understory that’s available for free download through their MySpace, though I highly recommend getting out to a show and paying the damned $5 for a physical copy, because it’s beautiful. They are currently hard at work at an upcoming full-length to be released in 2010 on Montreal’s Arbutus Records, but those in the Montreal area would do well to keep an eye on their upcoming shows calendar as there are some coming up.

The Pop Winds – The Sun

The Pop Winds MySpace
Arbutus Records