Montréal alt-rock band Karkwa’s fourth album, Les Chemins de Verre, won the fifth annual Polaris Prize Monday night in Toronto – and their success is only the beginning of what could be an entirely new chapter both for them and for popular Canadian music. The Francophone quintet beat out an impressive list of nominees, among them Caribou (who won the prize in 2008), Broken Social Scene, Owen Pallett (who won in 2006 as Final Fantasy), Radio Radio, and Tegan and Sara.

The Polaris Prize celebrates the best Canadian album released in the previous year. Judging is based not on sales or genre, but solely on artistic merit. While the shortlist was selected by a 200-person jury of industry professionals, music bloggers, broadcasters, and journalists from coast to coast, the Karkwa was voted to the top by a grand jury of 11.  Their name comes from the phonetic representation of “carquois” – French for “a quiver of arrows” and Karkwa is the first francophone band to win the Polaris Prize.

Despite extensive touring and an enthusiastic following in France and Quebec, Karkwa has remained relatively unknown in the rest of Canada – until now. The band hopes that the Polaris Prize will prove to be the tool that helps them to bridge the dichotomy between anglophone and francophone Canadian music and achieve success on a wider scale.

Louis-Jean Cormier (guitar), François Lafontaine (keyboard), Julien Sagot (percussion), Stéphane Bergeron (drums), and Martin Lamontagne (bass) have been working together since Karkwa’s inception in 1998. The band quickly gained such appreciation that they were invited to perform in Paris for the Printemps du Québec cultural expo the following year. In 2001, after a brief hiatus, Karkwa was back on their feet and released their first album, Le Pensionnat des Établis. Les Tremblements S’immobilisent (2005) won them three Felix Awards, and Le Volume de Vent (2008) featured musicians Patrick Watson and Elizabeth Powell. Les Chemins de Verre was recorded overseas just outside of Paris at Studio la Frette, the same place where Feist and Plants and Animals put together their best-selling albums. Self-described as “organic and impressionistic,” the album’s lack of pre-planning was a way for the band to play with their music and work off each other in a truly creative, cathartic process.

They’re frequently compared to Sigur Rós, Radiohead, and Coldplay, but their ability to go from low-key, reflective, and experimental to fast-paced, heavy, rollicking, and impassioned is distinctly their own. Les Chemins de Verre is undoubtedly their most experimental and most powerful to date. The Polaris Prize has given Karkwa the exposure they’ve needed to get the rest of Canada to look at them. What the jury, and thousands of Canadians saw on Monday night, is that Les Chemins de Verre gives Karkwa new depth, interest, and power, while still retaining that universality that makes their songs work their way into your dreams.

Adrienne Yeung