Time to deal with important, culture and paradigm-shifting issues of the day, people. That’s right–it’s time for Flashion Forward. Each week we pluck a recently added interview from our warehouse of current clips and try to read between the artist’s sartorial lines. Today, we’re scoping out some bookworms to see if their tedious insistence on broadening their minds has impinged on their ability to look sassy.
Wintersleep is a five-piece band that bears accolades (Juno, Much Music) and handles mid-tour robberies of their gear with equal aplomb and grace (as only Canucks can). They also happen to–when not buried in piles of dust and moldering books in library stacks around North America–crank out some sweet tunes.
Citing such literary lightweights and sillypants-funster authors as Sylvia Plath and Don De Lillo as influences on their music (that’s sarcasm, people), you might expect to have a sloppy sobfest on your hands, but in reality, they’re just as dance-party-worthy and fun as Arcade Fire.
Maybe because they’re Canadian, maybe because they’re obviously brill, or maybe because they’re infused with some miraculous confidence-building serum not yet available to the drooling, unwashed masses, they manage to wear their smarts on their sleeves without coming off as supercilious blowhards or hopelessly nerdy schlubsters.
They confess to reading “City of God” by E.L. Doctorow with as much bemusement as most bands regale the public with tales of their last Pabst-fueled barfarama. They make book clubs seem…cool. Plus they look like the kind of unshaven, wild-haired ruffian hotties who could keep up with you shot-for-shot on Friday night, then clean up in time for Saturday brunch with Mom to boot. Swoon!
