The Rheostatics

For more than two decades, the Rheostatics have mapped new frontiers across Canada, embracing the nation that bore them and reinterpreting its sea-to-shining-sea grandeur in music of startling variety and indisputable beauty. The band has remained fiercely loyal to a unique vision that is entirely dependent upon the alchemical interaction of its members, the catalyzing friction that renders gold from lesser metals - and that distinguishes the Rheostatics from bands of lesser mettle.

Their music has been described variously as "prog-rock," "art-rock," "orchestral psychedelia" and "a loosely organized cacophony of sound," all of which reveal the frustrating limits of language, especially as employed in the service of music journalism. As the irrepressible court jesters of culture insist, writing about music is like dancing about sculpture.

A truer description may be much simpler.

"The modus operandi of the Rheostatics," says guitarist Martin Tielli, "is that you can be a complete buffoon one minute and then say something profound the next."

The Rheostatics have released eleven albums since 1987 -- only one a major label release, which speaks to their independent spirit, tenacity and mutual, though not unchallenged, commitment. Inspired by such national treasures as the Group of Seven, Stompin' Tom Connors, the divinatory -- not divine -- government of Mackenzie King, rolling prairies, Canada's national game, les couriers du bois and more, the Rheos have plundered the Canadian mythos to become a kind of bedrock myth themselves.