We wish we could pull a Marty McFly and bring this idea of “rush hour” back to the future. For now, we’ll just laugh about it (and quietly curse our grandparents — they don’t know how good they had it).

Folk music has made a glorious comeback — and Toronto is blazing the trail. With bands such as Great Lake Swimmers and Cuff the Duke getting mainstream air time, local indie groups have to work overtime to give us something refreshingly unrivaled, and at the same time, something wonted. Which is exactly what Graydon James and The Young Novelists gave us last night — and will continue to do every Wednesday night this month.

Postman by day, cavalier crooner by night, frontman Graydon James delivered (get it?) an intimate set at The Cameron House on Wednesday. Backed by the full Young Novelists band, most of us in attendance felt as though we were seeing an old familiar friend that just happens to have killer jam skills. But the show was far from habitual.

Another local (Hamilton counts, right?) songstress, Paula Perri, warmed up the crowd and cajoled us with her honeyed, lulling voice, which was punctuated by blustering drum beats and smoothed by the fluidity of keys.

When it came time for the The Young Novelists to take the stage, it was immediately clear that they would keep true to the folk resurgence, and they performed in full-blown symphonic form. That included four-piece vocals, a trumpet, double keys (of both the old-school and electronic variety) and a tambourine, amongst traditional drums and guitars. So it’s no surprise that their brand of raucous bluegrass has likened them to other folk heavyweights such as Blue Rodeo and Wilco.

Instantly, the band jumped into its first full-length record, In The Year You Were Born, which was released in September (and seemingly an eternity after their critically-lauded EP, A Small Town Eulogy). Hands down, “It Takes All Kinds” remains the fan favourite, so kicking off the set with such a warming and winsome tune had us eating out of the palms of their hands for the remainder of the night. A veritable country-fried cacophony. 

The cowboy-boot-mobiles dangling from the ceiling, plush couches and romantic lighting make for an undeniably cozy venue with serious acoustic abilities — but it’s obvious that the Young Novelists need a bigger space to hold their sound. Even now, my tinny iPod headphones aren’t powerful enough to handle the loudness of the studio album, let alone the live set, the latter of which you can (and probably should) experience. 

Graydon James & The Young Novelists will be playing every Wednesday in October at The Cameron House

How would we spend an extra 32 minutes a day? Easy. We’d do a lot more puppet making.

If Fleet Foxes and MGMT got together and had a love child, one that was subsequently sent to a commune in a forest and raised by gypsies, it might sound something like the The Wilderness of Manitoba. We got our first listen of the Toronto-based hippie-folk-revival quintet’s latest album, Island of Echoes, ahead of its official release party, slated for Oct. 26. The verdict? Pure magic.

While its single “Morning Sun” serves as the hook, The Wilderness of Manitoba runs the gamut on this record, and the band’s range cannot be fully understood until you listen to the album in its entirety. Island of Echoes eases us in with an instrumental number, then kicks it up with spectral choruses and twangy gypsy-folk numbers that are both delicate and dauntless at the same time. Their trademark lavish vocals, reminiscent of Fleetwood Mac or, more recently, fellow Torontonians Great Lake Swimmers, play well to the powerfully sweeping instrumentation.

And for this, the third full-length from the Wilderness, they’ve made some significant changes. For the first time, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Will Whitwham picked up an electric guitar, which fleshes out the arrangements — most of which still include thrumming strings, brash percussion and of course, the plunky hollowness of the banjo (which you should know by now that I find absolutely irresistible). They also collaborated with some new lady singers, namely The Gertrudes’ Amanda Balsys, Whale Tooth’s Elise LeGrow and Felicity Williams.

It’s clear that this is their first studio album, since previous efforts were mostly recorded in the basement of a house in the Bloor and Ossington neighbourhood. And that’s probably the most surprising thing we’ve come to learn about them — that despite the chaotic and hurried atmosphere that goes hand-in-hand with urban living, The Wilderness of Manitoba have put together a cohesive album that conjures the mellow and laid-back dreaminess of an idyllic countrified landscape.

Once you get accustomed to the dreamy, chorused vocals and astral orchestration, the words hit you. From morbid lines heard in “Chasing Horses,” a contemplative number lamenting the afterlife and the undertaker, to “White Woods,” in which battle breaks out between a poet and a writer living inside their heads, The Wilderness implore fans to do some heavy reflection. If anyone is guilty of overplaying a song until it becomes stale and repetitive, it’s me. But the more you listen to this, the more involved in the album you become, until you’re completely enveloped in the band’s storied year — a majority of which they spent on the road. 

Island of Echoes provides us with depth, and it forces listeners to work a bit harder and peel away at each layered track. It just keeps getting better and better. And as its title would suggest, Island of Echoes not only evokes whimsy and memory, but something that might serve as a soundtrack to a lucid dream or a past life. Simply put: flawlessly poetic.

The Island of Echoes release party is on Oct. 26 at Trinity-St. Paul’s United Church