Jess Baumung

Bringing Home The Beacons | Toronto’s Ohbijou packed their bags for Muskoka and Banff to record their most recent album.

OHBIJOU
The Pawn Shop (10551-82 Ave). Thu, Nov 19 (8pm).

Casey Mecija thrives on community. Ohbijou, the indie-pop band she started in 2004, has flourished thanks in large part to a supportive group of fans and music lovers. But gathering that support isn’t easy when your home base is in the middle of Toronto, an intimidating city with hundreds of bands playing every night.

“When I first moved here,” Mecija says, “it felt like there were a gazillion people on one street and I felt like I was disappearing. But living here for 10 years, you come to understand that Toronto is just a big city made up of little cities and small communities, which makes it seem more bearable.” Take, for instance, the neighbourhood of Trinity-Bellwoods, where Mecija, her sister Jennifer, and the rest of their seven-person band live and make music.

But when it came time to record their sophomore album, Beacons, the band made a point of leaving those cozy environs and travelled to the Muskoka region (with a side trip to the Banff Centre). “It’s always good to step outside of your bubble, to either appreciate or dissect where your inspiration comes from,” Mecija says. And inspiration for much of the record came from their new surroundings.

“I didn’t know it was that thematic until afterwards,” Mecija says. “Winter is a pretty isolating season. You have time to stay indoors and write music.” Beacons came out this summer, but it might be more appropriate to listen to it now, with wintry song titles like “New Years” and “Black Ice” and many a lyric about snow and icicles.

The band’s sound feels bundled up for the winter too, with layers of instruments and a lusher sound than on the band’s 2006 debut, Swift Feet for Troubling Times. “For the past couple of records the songs have started with me,” Mecija says. “I come up with the structure — melody and lyrics, basically the bones. But the most exciting part of writing is when a song is brought to my bandmates.”

The septet is practically a community unto themselves — or at least a small orchestra, adding the warm sounds of glockenspiel, mandolin, cello, harpsichord to Mecija’s melodies. “What they come up with is always so intriguing and amazing to me,” she says. “It’s a diplomatic situation; we all respect each other’s abilities and opinions.”

Hopefully that harmony will continue as Ohbijou heads across the country on their fall tour. “It’s one of the perks of being in a band,” Mecija says. “I’ve got a soft spot for driving through the Prairies. There’s something really quite serene about driving through something that’s so flat, and then hitting the mountains. But any time we go out, we discover a new city or town or a new town or make a new friend.”