> A MUSICAL VERSION OF ARTISTIC ANARCHY

When the National Gallery of Canada originally tapped the Rheostatics to provide a soundtrack for its exhibition The Group of Seven: Art for a Nation in 1995, the band didn’t set about trying to directly interpret the painters’ works in song so much as channel the raw, primal, rebellious spirit of the Group of Seven’s timeless oeuvre into dynamic, free-flowing and highly evocative musical compositions. “The great thing about the piece was there were no expectations from the gallery, no expectations of the commission,” recalls Bidini. “They just let us do whatever we wanted to do. And because we were freed from verse/chorus/ verse/bridge it could really be anything. “What the Group of Seven is known for is being kind of anarchic and rebellious. I think that gets lost, and I think that’s something we tried to be conscious of in terms of some of the stuff on the recording, which is wild and unformulaic. That’s one of the things you have to preserve about their historical legacy: they are who they are because they completely went against standards. They were very freaky and very innovative and experimental, and that should be the flag, the banner that we all hold as Canadians, in a way.” It didn’t hurt, of course, that the Rheos and collaborator Kevin Hearn had logged a great deal of time of their own in the rugged, rocky terrain of Algonquin Park and similar environs growing up. Their own memories and impressions of northern Ontario were, thus, as much a source of inspiration as the Group’s paintings themselves. “I just thought about the connection I had to northern Ontario, which is how I connect with their paintings,” says Hearn. “So I think it was the shared experience of seeing what’s in their paintings and having experienced that as kids. And I think we’re all in that boat. We brought those ideas in based on our experiences.”