Whitehorse’s Melissa McClelland improvises a microphone out of a phone receiver at Fort York for Toronto Urban Roots Fest July 7. Photo: Tom Beedham

Whitehorse is husband and wife Luke Doucet and Melissa McClelland’s band. Hamilton-bred, they moved to Toronto a week before TURF and share their band’s name with a city in Yukon. The layers of the group’s genesis are many, but there’s a minimal chance they outweigh those of its sonic output.

Putting on their best mad scientist impressions, Whitehorse spent the first half of their TURF set singing through telephones, banging on anything they could get their hands and drumsticks on, picking through rock star guitar solos, and looping all of it to serve up a heavily layered Dagwood of sound.

Then they flipped the switch to unfiltered an country serenade built on dual acoustic guitars.

While it’s hard to isolate the band under the heading of a general genre, their set at TURF certainly made it acceptable to slap “experimental” in front of any category you might suggest.

Originally published by The Ontarion.