Artist Profile

Rheostatics

"People have painted us as being iconoclasts although, more often than not lately, I hear us described as Canadian icons. I think it's great to be iconoclastic icons. It means that people acknowledge you as being this force that represents constant change and constant challenge. Canada is recognized for being a cavalier place, culturally, always trying to push it harder, certainly in the audacity of Canadian film and literature. There's no reason music can't have that same reputation." - Dave Bidini, Rheostatics guitarist.

For more than two decades, the Rheostatics have mapped new frontiers across Canada, embracing the nation that bore them and reinterpreting its sea-to-shining-sea grandeur in music of startling variety and indisputable beauty. The band has remained fiercely loyal to a unique vision that is entirely dependent upon the alchemical interaction of its members, the catalyzing friction that renders gold from lesser metals - and that distinguishes the Rheostatics from bands of lesser mettle.

Their music has been described variously as "prog-rock," "art-rock," "orchestral psychedelia" and "a loosely organized cacophony of sound," all of which reveal the frustrating limits of language, especially as employed in the service of music journalism. As the irrepressible court jesters of culture insist, writing about music is like dancing about sculpture.

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