Memphis

Torquil Campbell and Chris Dumont generate the hypnotic, experimental textures associated with Memphis. A native of North Carolina, Dumont first encountered Campbell during their overlapping jobs in New York City in the early 1990s. Along with fellow Canadians Chris Seligman, James Shaw, and Adam Marvy, the two assembled a short-lived group. That project dissolved quickly when Seligman and Campbell established Stars, while Shaw joined Emily Haines in the synth pop outfit Metric. During a summer 2002 vacation in Campbell’s birthplace of Vancouver, Dumont and his longtime friend at last committed their shared ideas to notation, thereby launching the intricate, jazz-inflected experiments that define Memphis. The Canadian-American duo’s first outing appeared the same year as the A Good Day Sailing EP. Two years afterward, the Toronto imprint Paper Bag released the lush pop constructions of I Dreamed We Fell Apart. On 2006’s A Little Place in the Wilderness the pair shifted toward a calmer, acoustic-guitar foundation; the album served as their initial Good Fences release and included supplementary playing by Shaw on bass and trumpet, Erik Hove on saxophone, and Jon Hyde on pedal steel guitar. Memphis resurfaced in 2011 with Here Comes a City, an album colored by ’80s jangle and indie pop elements.