The Pop Winds: The Winds of Change

It’s a story familiar to many, one often told through sped-up generations. Cue to energetic young boys and girls looking to break from the shackles of both their high school years and straight-laced English-Canadian upbringing.

Their destination: this country’s city of sin, where the rules of living are sometimes lax, often raucous and rowdy, and where creation and art are central to a people’s psyche…Montréal. The case in point here is the nouveau jack trio The Pop Winds: Devon Welsh, Austin Milne, and Kyle Bennett.

Hailing from the pastures of somewhere, Ontario, their meeting of like music minds has a familiar ring to it. “Austin and I came to Montreal to study at McGill and met there. Kyle came to make music in an exciting place,” says Devon Welsh.

“The city has certainly been accommodating. It’s probably one of the most exciting places to make music in Canada. We’ve had people respond positively to our music here, and we’ve met a lot of musicians who we deeply respect.”

Said music must be heard, made with charm and guts and filtered through an off-kilter instrument lineup of guitar, saxophone, keyboards, and shivering three-part harmonies. “As long as sax can be tastefully incorporated into the sound that we want, we’re happy with it, but it’s not the focal point of our band by any means,” mentions Bennett.

Home is where your friends are
What they practice is what they preach – heartfelt pop that lends itself to the quiet, the loud, the weird, and the wild, at home within all mediums. The sounds they call their own first leaked out through their tiny Understory E.P., set afloat last year, and the waves will surely grow once the kids catch onto their first full length, The Turquoise.

Asked about the creation of the new record, the band remains cryptic. “In the fall we were making mostly green music, and then during the winter all of our songs came out blue; sometimes a sky blue, other times a darker, perhaps navy blue. However, after the songs were recorded the process filtered them all into turquoise: the color you see when you look at a blue gas stove flame through yellow sunglasses.”

The Pop Winds find themselves amidst a scene of changes, centered on a time, place, and thing. The time is now, the place is off-loft space Lab Synthese (R.I.P.), and the thing is the record label they call home, Arbutus. “We became associated through playing at Lab Synthese, which was the venue that Sebastian, Alex Cowan and others ran before they started Arbutus. We played our second show there as well as the release party for Understory. They were originally friends of friends and now they’re just friends,” says Milne.

Eager fans can grab the album now for free via download through the label’s website, while the physical version will come out in May.

“The other bands on Arbutus are all friends of ours: Sean Nicholas Savage, Grimes, Raph from Blue Hawaii and Andy from Tonstartssbandht.” Although not similar stylistically, the threads they share are community, passion, and originality.

The Pop Winds
May 19^th
Casa del Popolo | 4873 Saint Laurent
www.myspace.com/thepopwinds