D5

By JEFFREY OUGLER
The Canadian Press

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SAULT STE MARIE, Ont. - Hearing fellow musicians pine for days of yore essentially ruins Andrew Penner's day.

"When we started playing three or four years ago, all we heard was, 'Oh, man, it was so good a couple years ago,'" said the frontman for rock/folk/punk outfit Sunparlour Players.

"It's like that probably happens in every generation, and I don't want to sing that song at all. I don't see any positive energy in that."

Penner said he and fellow Players Dennis Van Dine and Michael Rosenthal are not only prepared but are happy to harness the challenges with which musicians of their generation - and genre - are dealt these days.

First, forget phenomenal album sales via the traditional record - or more recently - CD rack. The Internet is one of a band's best friends when it comes to moving material.

"I consider (technology) like a huge creative freedom and challenge," said Penner, 31, in a recent interview from Toronto, the band's base.

"It just seems like there's a whole bunch of ways to do it now. It's like the lid has been blown wide open. People generate vibes."

People also attend shows, another sound marketing source for Sunparlour Players' latest album, "Wave North."

Recorded in part at Blue Rodeo's Woodshed Studio in Toronto, the Players bill the offering "organic."

Penner said starting with "stripped-down sound," the band added drums, organs, guitars, banjos and a host of other instruments.

A horn section and string quartet were also recruited for the project, recorded on five-centimetre tape to "create a deep, warm sound," according to the band's website.

"The whole idea was to do it fast," Penner said of "Wave North," a departure from the Players' debut, "Hymns for the Happy," which took some six months to complete. The most recent offering was essentially a two-week wonder.

"We've played enough that we really felt like the band's sound was something we wanted to capture," said the band's chief songwriter.

"I didn't want to take a ton of time. I was like, 'We'll move on to the next song once we catch the core of the song, once we get the real vibe.' It's pretty low-fi in a lot of ways."

Perhaps, but there's little low-profile about the means in which Sunparlour Players are ensuring ears across the country get a taste of the recent release.

Along with retailing both albums on its website, the band sailed the East Coast earlier this year and now heads west.