Soft Canyon

Soft Canyon create hazy psychedelic rock with big choruses and trippy textures that draws from the Laurel Canyon scene, Love, pop-absurdist Van Dyke Parks, Neil Young, the Grateful Dead, and Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother. It's a towering set of influences, but Soft Canyon never fall into the trap of mimicry, instead crafting timeless, monolithic songs that — just maybe — could be lost gems from California in the '70s. The Montreal outfit formed in 2002 with Andrew Dickson of Tricky Woo on guitar and vocals, Phil Burns and Jason Kent of the Leonard Cohen-named Beautiful Losers on guitar and Rhodes, Jason Tustin on drums, and Dave Lavoie on bass. Within a year of forming the band received cross-Canada praise for its transcendent mind trip of a live show. In 2003, they released their debut, the wondrous and excessive Broken Spirit, I Will Mend Your Wings on Alien8 Recordings.