2007 Polaris Prize Winner (The Canadian equivalent to the Mercury Prize - beating both Arcade Fire and Feist). Watson's music feels like a step into a more experimental singer-songwriter direction. Avoiding the usual acoustic folk cliches, Watson's music instead takes on elaborately crafted pieces of music, coming closer in spirit to the ornate, multi-instrumentalism of someone like Andrew Bird, whose compositions feel positively baroque next to most other practitioners in the field. Recommended.

Although keyboardist Thomas Bartlett cut his teeth as a sideman for Bebel Gilberto, the Swell Season, the National, and David Byrne, he also earned his own accolades as the frontman of Doveman. Bartlett founded the project in 2005 with the release of The Acrobat, a moody debut that highlighted his whispered vocals and ambient, jazz-influenced arrangements. He returned to the solo game two years later, focusing heavily on instrumental numbers with the sophomore effort With My Left Hand I Raise the Dead, before becoming the toast of the blogosphere with a track-by-track re-creation of the Footloose soundtrack in 2008. While continuing to handle keyboard duties for other artists, he found time to record a third album of original material, The Conformist, which arrived in 2009.