Wednesday 30 June 2010



QBiM SPiNS: The Wilderness of Manitoba When You Left The Fire

When You Left The Fire sounds like an album you created in a blackout.  With no power for the amps or mixing desk, a group of musicians rely solely on the power of multi-part harmonies and acoustic instruments.  With no mechanism to document the results for posterity, the music is recorded to memory, a record to be played in one’s own head.  The Wilderness of Manitoba sound like a dream, one from which you never wish to wake.

The minor stir they created last year with the release of the Hymns of Love & Spirits EP drew a lot of attention (and some pointed criticism) to The Wilderness of Manitoba.  Their silky harmonies were lauded by some (like me) and loathed by others for being a rip-off of last year’s (over-) hyped band, Fleet Foxes.  The comparison is understandable, given their similarity, but the criticism for being any kind of copy cat is ridiculous: even on that early EP, you could hear the trajectory of The Wilderness of Manitoba’s musical evolution from traditional folk-inspired camp fire songs to more complex, layered ballads of love and longing.

The aforementioned EP was written before Stefan Banjevic and Melissa Dalton joined Will Whitham and Scott Bouwmeester, so even though all four played on the EP, they hadn’t actually all collaborated on the writing of the music.   With When You Left The Fire, the entire band has provided input and ideas to the music, and the new colours and shades provided by Dalton and Banjevic (as well as Sean Lancaric) has expanded The Wilderness of Manitoba’s palette considerably.  From the somewhat mournful dirge “St. Petersburg” to the crackling beauty of “Hermit”, The Wilderness of Manitoba are an arresting collective.  There’s musical nooks and crannies to go exploring in their fuller sound, like secret compartments that hold all kinds of added treasures.  I can listen to album opener “Orono Park” over and over for that exact reason: every listen reveals something new and different that wasn’t there before.

In very short order, The Wilderness of Manitoba have come out of the, uh, “wilderness” of Canada’s indie music scene.  When You Left The Fire is the kind of album that doesn’t leave you the same way you were before you listened to it.  If anything, you’ll carry its warm glow and mellow beauty with you for hours–if not days–on end.

MP3: The Wilderness of Manitoba “Summer Fires” (QBiM EXCLUSIVE DOWNLOAD!)
Facebook: The Wilderness of Manitoba
Myspace: The Wilderness of Manitoba





by J. Di Gioia | Comments Off

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