It might be fashionable on Main Street in America — even while caustically ethnocentric — to view our neighbors to the True North as a homogeneous group of plaid sportin’, beer swillin’, beaver pelt tradin’, maple syrup lovin’, hockey playin’, happy-go lucky guys and gals. And that would be as accurate as the idea that all Democrats are socialists or that all Republicans hate poor people.
There’s a diversity within Canadian music that echoes a culture where civilizations have melded over the years. There’s a strong community of underground industrial dance music, for example, that outpaced the genre south of the border. Take Vancouver’s Delerium, for example, which often layered ethereal female vocals over otherworldly and darkly ambient rhythms that echoed the world music of Dead Can Dance and the transcendental chanting of Gregorian monks. All that, plus a candy coating of danceable industrial electropop.
Born out of bands that include Skinny Puppy and Front Line Assembly, Delerium incorporated a variety of vocalists from a variety of bands, including Kristy Thirsk (Rose Chonicles), Leigh Nash (Sixpence None The Richer), Emily Haines (Metric) and many others.
In a remix of “Silence” that emphasizes the dance and minimizes the Renaissance Fair aspects of their music, Sarah McLachlan contributes vocals. The video itself has an unremarkable narrative. That is, if you consider an all-terrain tethered couples’ workout set amidst stark seascapes and and to pulsating beats and empyreal vocals unremarkable.
