In the summer of 2009, The Acorn retreated from two years on the road to an isolated cottage in Northern Quebec to begin work on their third full-length album, No Ghost. Songs took shape at all hours, crafted from hazy late-night improvisations, early morning melodies pulled from the thinning threads of sleep. Modernity clashed with the bucolic via exploratory percussion, feedback, acoustic textures and the natural surrounding sounds. The band then traded trees for telephone poles to finish recording in a sweltering heatwave at Montreal's Treatment Room Studios (Plants & Animals, Angela Desveaux). There, the breezy ease of rural surrounds was buried under sweat-caked skin and cracked asphalt, birdsong drowned out by thick air and engine hum. Set for a June 2010 release, No Ghost is a recording swaddled in dichotomy: togetherness and isolation, acoustic and electric, destruction and restoration.

Basia Bulat always seemed destined to make great music. By the age of three she was playing piano and throughout her childhood spent endless hours accompanied by her brother on drums, this perhaps explains the distinct sense of play that suffuses all of her work. Basia’s hooks and handclaps create a soundtrack that’s perfect for mischievous shenanigans, with live performances often ending with half of the audience on stage and joining in. As Basia herself has said, her music isn’t about songs you can sing along to, it’s about songs you want to sing along to.