Local hipster Dario Hudson-Verrelli had no idea he was referencing both a modern Hollywood actress and a heroine of the silent screen when he chose the name for his prog-rock experiment back in December of 2003, but his belated discovery of these women confirms his suspicion that everything has been done already.

“I think it was Jim Jarmusch who said ‘Nothing is original,’ and it’s so true,” says Hudson-Verrelli. “At the time, I had no clue about Lillian or Annabeth Gish. I was cutting up and mingling words, and I just liked the sound of those four syllables together, like an amusing tongue twister. There’s a shitload of bands out there who have gone ballistic on names containing words like city, tiger, dance and wolf. Now, I’m not saying I’m original, but that seems like a big wank-off to me.”

Twisting words and genres comes naturally to Hudson-Verrelli, who has laboured for six years to preserve the integrity of Ahnabith Gish’s creative wellspring along with guitarist Cian Haley, bassist Ben Middleton and percussionist Andrew Ulicki. The quartet’s decision to make music that defies classification, Ahnabith Gish’s utmost virtue, has proven to be a double-edged sword when it comes to balancing artistic ambition with financial reality.

“It’s funny, because prog bands look at us and consider us to be a rock band, and rock bands hear us and assume that we’re prog,” explains Hudson-Verrelli. “So we’re either somewhere in the middle, or we’re neither. Venues don’t know what to do with us. We’ve wanted to tour since we started up the band, but it’s been a hard time getting it together when [getting shows is] about the people you know. We were offered a spot at Canadian Music Week [in Toronto] this year, but had to turn it down because we couldn’t afford the flights. Some of us feel like we’ve been doomed all along.”

Moving past the pain of losing not one but two unreleased EPs to unmitigated production disasters, Ahnabith Gish managed to release an EP, Locus Brought, Speechless Pathetic, in 2006. A handmade version of their full-length, Are Wakeours Leep, has been available for purchase by donation on their website www.ahnabithgish.com since October of last year, but this week’s show marks the album’s official release. The release is more a wake than a typical celebration, though — the band is splitting up soon afterwards, as Hudson-Verrelli and his wife are moving overseas.

“We tend to bite off more than we can chew,” he chuckles. “But I feel that we’re very fortunate to get to release these 12 songs that we’ve been sitting on. We’ve also put down a quick EP of three of our acoustic songs so we don’t lose them. I’m glad, and feel so humble, that we stuck around Calgary for awhile. We’ve gone through the mud and we’re better for it.”