Wintersleep

“The average Canadian carries around with them in their head a vision of spaciousness.” So theorized Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer, describing a so-called ‘Canadian sound.’ For Schafer and many others, it was a sound defined by space, by the land and our distance from and proximity to it. For Harry Freedman, it was “gaunt” and “lonely.” Elaine Keillor called it “immense, empty, mysterious, harsh, indifferent, producing a response of awe mingled with terror and an intense sense of spiritual loneliness.”

On Wintersleep’s seventh full-length record, In the Land Of, this geography is both real and imagined. It is understood that our surroundings are not, in fact, essential or concrete elements; they’re constructed in relation to us, the inhabitants. Our identities, too, are constructed in relation to the land. The land, both physical and figurative, changes, and so do we. Familiar land. Foreign land. Inhospitable land. Un-ceded land. Stolen land. Dead land.

Like all Wintersleep records, In the Land Of encourages thought and introspection. The new record’s title is an incomplete thought, a blank that is filled in across the record with different places, words, and sounds. “A lot of the songs touch on this idea of being a stranger or feeling foreign in all the different landscapes in which the songs took place lyrically,” explains vocalist and guitarist Paul Murphy. “It all relates back to the land,” adds guitarist Tim D’Eon.

In the Land Of follows 2016’s The Great Detachment, which saw it's lead single “Amerika” spend 11 consecutive weeks atop Canada’s rock radio charts, remaining in the Top 10 for over 7 months as well as winning an Indie Award for Single Of The Year and a JUNO Award nomination for Adult Alternative Album.

See Wintersleep perform their new album live on their world tour in autumn 2019.