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Watch Mike Edel’s video for The Country Where I Came From

October 2nd, 2012

If the Polaris Prize wasn’t enough proof that this country is teeming with talent, then meet Mike Edel. Mike is an musician from Alberta whose sound was cut on the Rocky Mountains. Partnering up with emerging Canadian filmmakers Kasey Lum and Jordan Clarke, the video was shot in nine days and features the vast Canadian landscape as the principle character in the look and feel of Mike’s music. We got to ask Mike a few questions to introduce this burgeoning talent.

What was the inspiration behind the song?
I recently finished harvest on my dad’s wheat farm on the prairies. I travel back here from Victoria, B.C. in the fall most years to work the harvest. My sister recently built a big house with her husband a half mile from my parents house and it made me think of this ‘quiet life in the country’ that all my siblings were living and that I have seemingly given up.

I took some inspiration from a story called Family Happiness by Leo Tolstoy, the one character says:

“I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor-such is my idea of happiness. And then, on top of all that, you for a mate, and children, perhaps-what more can the heart of man desire?”

What was the inspiration behind the video?
We traveled to the prairies from Victoria and Vancouver on a nine day road trip in a 1993 Mercury Villager. We all felt like kids, we dwelled in the van looking for beautiful landscape in the same way they sleep in a pile in Where The Wild Things Are. We wanted to capture beauty but juxtapose it with harsh objects, the elements and questions. The [man in the video] is a childhood friend of mine who ranches, hunts, fishes and snowboards.

What was it like working on the album?
We have been very busy with The Peak Performance Project in Vancouver, BC. During this we recorded these two songs for a 7″ with Colin Stewart at The Hive who has recorded Dan Mangan and Yukon Blonde.

What’s next for you?
Touring Canada and a few dates in the U.S. this fall. It will be my first time to Ontario and Quebec and then turning my efforts toward a new album next year.

Watch the video below and tell us what you think in the comments section!