If you’re searching for a soundtrack for the season, Winnipeg duo Querkus’ latest album (“Spaces Between the Leaves Make Way for the Stars”) might just be it. Karen Asmundson and Edgar Ozolins have a knack for creating calming music that pays homage to the natural world; blending electronics with classical to create a sound all their own. About to embark on tour, we got to know the band a little better before their stop in Toronto. 

Tell us about your name! What does it mean?
(Karen) “Quercus”  is the botanical name for “oak”. We added a “k” to make it our own word; but yes we both love trees very much. My daytime work involves inspecting public trees and assessing their health for the City of Winnipeg. Edgar’s last name “Ozolins” means “little oak” in Latvian.   

How did you two start making music together?
Back in 1997/8 I helped form an “industrial-operatic-latin-lounge” band called ‘Celine’s Real Killer’ with my friend Sonya and a guitarist she knew named Jason. The guitarist was lucky enough to get into McGill to study classical guitar so he moved away. Sonya suggested we continue the project and ask this fellow Edgar who had dated one of her friends to join. He enthusiastically got involved and we continued for another 5 months or so – when Sonya and Edgar started really butting heads and I decided that I wanted to sing and write more piano based music. The band dissolved and Edgar asked to be included in my new project – I accepted. That was September 1999 and we’re still at it.  

Your sound is quite unique – how would you describe it?
Oh dear – well the easiest way is to say its art-rock with downtempo tendencies… however there are certainly influences of classical music, world music, jazz, chamber-pop, metal – we have large diverse record collections and I think that diversity is reflected in our sound. This passed Sunday we released our album in Winnipeg with 19 musicians collaborating – our sound is quite ambitious and grandiose at times that’s for sure.    

Where are we most likely to find you on a day off in Winnipeg?
If you asked Edgar that he would say – ‘I never have a day off’. He does a lot of freelance work for the film industry in Winnipeg so he nearly always has a project on the go.  He does however make time to take his wife to the odd military history or wwII airplane expo that pops up (I swear he found the only woman alive who digs that kind of thing). We both love asian food and have quite a few regular haunts to get sushi, pho or singapore noodles. One of my favourite places to visit is the Conservatory in Assiniboine park – it’s a large, beautifully landscaped public greenhouse full of tropical plants. It is the perfect place to re-centre – especially in the middle of a Winnipeg winter.     

You released your first full-length album this month – what was the creation process like?
Long and intense. We planned the project in early 2006 and then started recording in October.  All kinds of pitfalls came up right from the beginning… pretty much everything was re-tracked at least 20 times. We hired many professional musicians along the way and these took time to find, audition, select and teach the music to. We kept having more production ideas as time went on so the music kept growing and changing all through the process – which helped keep it fresh and vital.   

What/who inspires you (musically or otherwise)?
The obvious answer is ‘trees’  but the natural world in general – were a couple of pagan agnostics who identify spiritually with much of what we witness in the natural world and it can’t help but inspire music in us. I know its safe to say that much of Edgar’s guitar playing is inspired by Robert Fripp and I think that comes across in his sound. My first inspiration to do the piano singer-songwriter thing was naturally Tori Amos. All the 90s downtempo music like Portishead and Massive Attack are huge inspirations to both of us. Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of Muse and The Poppy Family so I’m sure that is starting to trickle in.    

Your Twitter says that Karen is the twit. What is Edgar?
No one’s quite sure… he’s a bit of a twit too (he just doesn’t use twitter). Besides playing guitar and doing much of the backup vocals when we play live – Edgar is the tech wizard who can often be seen wearing a headlamp and re-soldering electronics to make our live show possible.    

How do you incorporate the world of visual art into your music and live performances?
A lot of how we do that is sonic – we try to invoke certain colours and textures in the mind of the listener through sound. We also add a visual element through costumes – last concert I wore a liquid silver spandex 1-piece which made me look like the sliver surfer. We like adding video to our shows too – for the release party we had a local VJ named MrGhosty mixing video on the screen behind us that went along with the music perfectly. I’ve heard it was spectacular – we videotaped it so I’ll be watching it all soon!

What are your hopes for 2011?
We’re leaving Winnipeg tomorrow morning to tour eastern Canada – so we are hoping to meet many inspired new people and bring our music to them. After that; we intend to explore the idea of touring in Europe and hopefully make that happen. We’d also like to plan another event that brings together a large number of musicians to play with us – that release party was magically addictive and we want to find a way to perform as a 19 piece more often! We also have some music video ideas in the works so you may see something online of that nature before long. 

~ Caitlyn Holroyd

~ Photo courtesy of The Muse Box  

Querkus plays Mitzi’s Sister in Toronto on January 16th and le Cagibi in Montreal on the 23rd

For more tour dates and info, check out Querkus on Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/querkus