Woodpigeon are a Canadian indie pop collective founded in Calgary and presently based in Montréal. It is led by and performs the songs of Mark Andrew Hamilton. Woodpigeon have released six studio albums, and a number of EPs to critical acclaim, and Hamilton has worked with over 75 collaborators both on record and in live performance. Live, Woodpigeon is often a solo project incorporating loops and layered vocals.
When asked about the band's name, Hamilton explains: "I've always been in love with the word Woodpigeon for as long as I can remember. When you write it in cursive, it looks like a rollercoaster."
The band's sound has been compared to Sufjan Stevens, Grizzly Bear, Talk Talk, Camera Obscura, Simon & Garfunkel, and Belle & Sebastian, amongst others. Band leader Mark Hamilton's main lyrical influence is The Kinks.
Career
Woodpigeon's origins are found with primary songwriter Mark Andrew Hamilton writing songs in Edinburgh, Scotland. At this time, the band was named Woodpigeon Divided By Antelope Equals Squirrel and consisted of Hamilton alongside Steve Kaye and Malcolm Benzie (who went on to form Edinburgh slowcore band eagleowl and performs with Withered Hand). Hamilton states that he "was far too scared to ever sing, so all we ever played was a couple of stupid instrumentals and our only "performance" was in the streets of Edinburgh." Eventually, Hamilton returned to Canada, and started afresh, with the shortened band name, Woodpigeon. Other band members fell in place, with Hamilton noting that: "the way it came together was simplistic: friends started hearing my songs and offering their services."
The band's first full-length album, entitled Songbook, was released in late 2006. Following its release, the band opened for Broken Social Scene, Iron and Wine, Grizzly Bear, and Calexico. In 2007, Hamilton co-founded the Sled Island Music and Arts Festival in Calgary, serving as the festival's first artist curator. With their popularity growing, Woodpigeon toured the UK, Ireland, and Germany in 2008. That October they performed a pair of "Homecoming" shows in Calgary and Edmonton as an opener for Iron and Wine.
The band self-released an album, Treasury Library Canada, in early August 2008, selling nearly all 1,000 hand-folded copies within a fortnight. The band also re-released their debut album Songbook in the UK on September 29, 2008. Treasury Library Canada was officially re-released in February 2009 as a double album with the ukulele-based Houndstooth Europa collection as Treasury Library Canada c/w Houndstooth Europa, and was long-listed for the 2009 Polaris Prize. Woodpigeon played with acts as varied as The Constantines, Plants & Animals, Mount Eerie and Grizzly Bear, and Hamilton served as the curator of the first annual Sled Island Festival in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
The band's third album, Die Stadt Muzikanten, was released on January 12, 2010, with Hamilton stating that it is "simultaneously a lot bigger, and a lot smaller. There's definitely some big surprises on it". A limited Record Store Day release of the album was accompanied with a bonus LP titled BALLADEER/to all the guys i've loved before, featuring songs recorded with producers Steve Albini, Howard Bilerman, and S. Husky Höskulds, and a duet with Beth Jeans Houghton. The record was re-released as a stand-alone album on limited edition vinyl. Woodpigeon has since toured extensively as a headliner, and as opener for Andrew Bird, Horse Feathers, José González and Junip, and also appeared at the 2011 Meltdown Festival curated by Ray Davies on the Bandstand Busking stage. The same year they played as part of the Canadian Blast showcase for Canadian bands at London's prestigious Barbican, garnering positive reviews.
In an interview with Xtra! in early 2010, Hamilton spoke in part about how his identity as a gay man influences his songwriting.
In 2011, Hamilton participated in the National Parks Project, collaborating with musicians Laura Barrett and Cadence Weapon and filmmaker Peter Lynch, to produce and score a short film about Alberta's Waterton Lakes National Park. The Fra Le Nuvole EP was released later in 2011, collecting together two EP-length singles released from Die Stadt Muzikanten. Woodpigeon made their first national tour of Canada in 2011, alongside The Phonemes and The Mountains & the Trees. Transportation for the tour was completed by Via Rail, including performances on the moving trains.