Featured Artist(s): Wintermitts

I like bilingual bands. To paraphrase Woody Allen, you have double the chances of finding a venue for your gig and the audience has twice the fun. It also shows that the group is willing and ready to communicate its message even more so than a regular band.

It can also raise some problems, of course: while French can appear to be seductive, enchanting and mysterious, even on the most mundane of topics, it's also, for the non-French speaker, a mostly unintelligible but rather beautiful stream of musical utterances.

But music is more than simply words. It conveys feelings and emotions; it may be its principal function. So when a Canadian bilingual indie pop band like Wintermitts comes a long, you know it's going to be special. Borrowing their name from a Julie Doiron song, they sound like they're going to pay up the loan with interest and exuberance. But enough of the financial metaphors; the music speaks for itself: a life bursting, smile inducing, tomato loving (yep), tree planting absolute fun.

Check out Wintermitts on their official website, MySpace and last.fm, where you can listen to a few more tracks and keep track of their tour dates in Canda and the US.

Wintermitts - DANS {MP3} (from Heirloom)
Wintermitts - Schoolyard {MP3} (from Heirloom)
Wintermitts - En Avion {MP3} (from Heirloom)
Wintermitts - Petit Monstre {MP3} (from Cascadia Fault)