“There’s been this huge trend in pop music lately toward cynicism,” says Jennifer Crighton, vocalist and harpist of the astoundingly upbeat sextet the Consonant C. “And I just find cynicism incredibly lazy.”
    It’s this sentiment more than any other that resonates on the Consonant C’s debut LP, Capes and Crowns. Relentlessly sanguine, the fluttering vocal harmonies and light-hearted instrumentation is exactly the kind of music you might expect to hear in the background if — for whatever reason — bluebirds started braiding your hair on a sunny day. Despite its cheerfulness, Capes effortlessly avoids naiveté. Intelligent, literate and downright brooding in places, the Consonant C often subvert their own positive facade with darker lyrics, contrasting the form with the content. The result is a perfectly reasoned argument for optimism — one powerful enough to win over even the most entrenched cynics. As a pun: brilliant.
    “If you think about it: track 1 is about a relationship, track 2 is about death and decay, and ‘Wait’ — which is later on the CD — was always called ‘The Suicide Song’ by us,” says vocalist Clea Foofat. “It was only when Morgan (Greenwood, of Azeda Booth) remixed it and called it ‘Wait’ that we decided that was a better title.”
    “We all have these emotions that anyone has, but I think, in general, we have a positive outlook,” adds Laura Leif, yet another of the group’s many vocalists.
    With their LP out next week, at least one CJSW DJ calling them “the best band in Calgary” and a number of strong relationships with other Calgary bands through their work with the Summerwood Warren music collective, the Consonant C have plenty to be positive about. The Summerwood Warren in particular, they say, has been an enormous boon to the band on both the business and creative ends.
    “The Summerwood Warren shows aren't just made with the intention of having musical events,” says Foofat. “You have performance artists, installations, video pieces. They're mostly to encourage people in Calgary to meet each other and make art together.”
    “I've found that the more shows we do, the less work it actually is,” says Leif. “When it started, (we were) basically just working our butts off, but now, all the people who are a part of that community are really helping out a lot. People just step up to decorate or whatever. It's super sweet.”
    The shows themselves tend to follow a particular theme, often conjuring images of a postmodern Brothers Grimm storybook. The forest show had branches and other flora decorating the EMMEDIA space (where the shows take place), and the performers gussied themselves up like hipster fauna. The spelunking show was spackled with paper mache stalactites and stalagmites, the only light in the entire area provided by headlamps the artists wore, or the flashlights audience members carried (a dollar was shaved off the ticket price for those carrying one).
    It’s this childlike glee through the lens of grownup music that defines the Warren shows, and isn’t a bad way of summarizing the Consonant C, either. As an organization of musicians, the Summerwood Warren currently acts as a facilitator of music in Calgary, but aims for national notoriety — a sort of database of contact information available to all Canadian artists looking to set up tours anywhere in the country. More than that, though, it’s a community, and a tightly knit one. Well into Crowns, a song dedicated to local indie darlings Azeda Booth pops up, peaking with the line “What we mean is, what we really mean is… you are so fucking inspiring.”
    “They're so amazing,” says Leif. “They've done so much for us. It makes me really emotional. When Morgan remixed (“Wait”), that was just such an amazingly beautiful thing. It meant so much to us.”
    “That song is about other people too,” Crighton adds thoughtfully. “It was inspired by them, but when we sing it, it's not just about them. There's a lot of people who have really helped us out.”
    The song goes on to recall wintertime toboggan adventures and other such whimsical, Narnia-esque memories. Characteristically juxtaposing happiness with uncertainty, light with dark, the song also subtly deals with Leif’s decision to remain in the city after spending time with the “Azeda Boys,” despite being dead-set on moving away months earlier. Even this small, easily overlooked detail acts as a microcosm for Capes; the entire album — even its darker portions — was forged from an unyielding sense of community and togetherness.
    “I think there's this feeling to your music that reminds me of that kind of sing-along fun-ness, but the more you peel the layers back, there's this real artistry to it,” Danny Vescarelli, the band’s latest addition, offers as a semi-outsider’s perspective on the group’s songwriting. He supposes that the tone of the songs is always positive due to a sort of utilitarian look at the emotional content: even if the feeling comes from a darker place, he and his five closest friends just expended a great deal of effort to turn it into something constructive — music. And it's tough to be a cynic about that.