Courtney Wing

With a ten-piece chorus and half a symphony behind him, Montreal musician Courtney Wing has created an album that dazzles with its ambition and opulence. The clamour of Bouquet of Might and Fury's operatic folk pop is a serious departure from Wing's sophomore release, 2005's folky, jazzy Starlight Shuffle. For his third album, Wing put together a 15-member ensemble that includes an opera collective called Liederwolfe, as well as members of Belle Orchestre and Godspeed! You Black Emperor. But despite the grand spectacle of breathtaking opening track "The Cruel of Fair," Wing shows himself still capable of whimsy, with bells, noodling synth and loosey goosey horn lines cutting through the grandeur on later numbers such as "Bluffing Face." Wing's melodies occasionally get lost in the symphonic tangle, but even when his songs lose the plot, the sprawling, cinematic arrangements are vivid enough to carry the album through to its final twinkling notes.