Pitchfork

Photo by Adrian Fish

While it's not quite White Stripesean in scope, Great Lake Swimmers do have a fairly epic Canadian tour of their own on the horizon, one which will sweep them from the Canuck capital of Ottawa to the tiny fishing village of Peggy's Cove to the (appropriately) Saddest Music in the World city of Winnipeg.

That's a whole lot of Canada, even for countryman Tony Dekker and his band, so naturally they're dividing their Northern journey in half by ducking into the U.S. for a string of October dates. Those start October 2 in NYC and wrap up a couple weeks later in Seattle, with a lone Chicago date tacked on post-Canada Leg 2.

Great Lake Swimmers head out again in support of third LP (and first for Nettwerk) Ongiara, which this reporter finds to contain perfectly lovely news-story-writing music. Dekker and co. will also open for Final Fantasy-- whose Owen Pallett arranged strings on Ongiara-- on a pair of maple leaf dates.

Great road drivers:

09-12 Ottawa, Ontario - Barrymore's Music Hall
09-14 Montreal, Quebec - La Sala Rosa
09-15 Quebec City, Quebec - Le Casbah
09-17 Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia - Old Red Schoolhouse
09-18 Halifax, Nova Scotia - St. Matthew's United Church
09-19 Sackville, New Brunswick - Brunton Auditorium
09-21 Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island - The Guild
09-28 Guelph, Ontario - River Run Centre *#
09-29 Toronto, Ontario - Phoenix Concert Hall
10-02 New York, NY - Highline Ballroom
10-03 Cambridge, MA - Middle East
10-04 Philadelphia, PA - TBA
10-06 Atlanta, GA - The Earl
10-09 Dallas, TX - The Cavern
10-10 Austin, TX - Stubb's
10-12 Phoenix, AZ - Modified Arts
10-13 Los Angeles, CA - Spaceland
10-14 San Francisco, CA - Café du Nord
10-16 Portland, OR - Holocene
10-17 Seattle, WA - Tractor Tavern
10-19 Victoria, British Columbia - Lucky Bar
10-20 Vancouver, British Columbia - Richard's on Richards *^
10-22 Calgary, Alberta - Quincy's on 7th
10-23 Edmonton, Alberta - McDougall United Church
10-24 Saskatoon, Saskatchewan - Lydia's
10-25 Winnipeg, Manitoba - West End Cultural Centre
10-28 Chicago, IL - Schubas

* with Final Fantasy
# with Ohbijou
^ with Basia Bulat