With a name that fits a Nova Scotia-based band rather well, Wintersleep formed in 2001. Initially, they were part of the Nova Scotia label and artists' collective Dependent Music, which released their first two albums, 2003's Wintersleep and 2005's untitled full-length, as the band was just getting rolling. The band graduated to the big time -- that is to say the major labels -- in 2006, when Wintersleep signed with Labwork, a subsidiary of EMI Canada. Members Paul Murphy (vocals and guitar), Tim D'Eon (guitar and keyboards), Jud Haynes (bass), Jon Samuel (keyboards), and Loel Campbell (drums) were able to see their first two releases get a second look on their new label, complete with bonus tracks, but in 2007 Haynes left the group. A quick replacement was found in Mike Bigelow, and Wintersleep soon returned to store shelves with their 2007 album, Welcome to the Night Sky. In 2008 the band was nominated for a Juno Award, Canada's highest honor in the national music scene.

Elliott BROOD have always been time travellers. The Toronto trio writes songs steeped in history that feel very present. They've done their share of actual travelling, too, these musical troubadours, acoustic guitars and banjos slung over their sharp suits as they barnstormed across Canada and beyond. For the new album Days Into Years it was century-old stories encountered an ocean away that brought them closest to home.

On the band's first European tour back in 2007 they found themselves driving through the backroads of France. Vocalist Mark Sasso, guitarist Casey Laforet and drummer Stephen Pitkin, all enthusiasts of military history, raised on the harrowing stories of Canadians in World War 1, were simply looking to avoid the toll highways. Then they came upon a sign for a WW1 military cemetery.

"We'd been driving through Belgium and France, always passing by these historical war places and we decided to pull over and take this one in," recalls Mark. "We saw all these Canadian names, and it really resonated with us, these young guys that had gone off to war. I knew all about it from reading books, but when you actually visit a place where the battles were, it hits you a lot harder. We said, 'We need to write a record about it.'"
Days Into Years is Elliott BROOD's third full-length recording, the follow-up to 2008's Polaris Prize short-listed Mountain Meadows. Like its predecessors, including the 2004 debut EP Tin Type and 2006's Juno-nominated Ambassador, it mines real history to connect songs that are deeply personal in a cinematic, narrative way. Unfolding like a series of movie scenes, it looks to the future by starting with the past. Opening track "Lindsay" invites you into process of revisiting one's life while cleaning out an old family home. "If I Get Old" daydreams of making it through difficult times, be they in the trenches or a sickbed, and finding a nice place in the country to live out one's final moments. Days Into Years presents these reflections as a celebration of life, particularly on the perfect summer single "Northern Air," a love letter both to the rural Ontario landscape and the memory of a departed friend whose spirit now resides there.