Canada, then...

To some extent this (the wealth of new Canadian music) was where my curiosity for new music really started again. The rest was to follow, naturally enough, but it had to start somewhere and I'm about to reveal the original, before Arcade Fire, culprit:

Metric - Old World Underground, Where Are You Now (2003)

It however was not the first thing they recorded, and it is true that the new Canadian scene is more complicated than you could imagine because in 1999-2000 the proto-Metric (Emily Haines and James Shaw) were in London. Sometimes they were in the restaurant above the Bricklayers' Arms, 63 Charlotte Street, Shoreditch, talking about recording deals they knew they would never get. They got a free lunch, which was better than beans on toast, but otherwise they were spot on when it came to the reality of the deal.
They had nearly completed an album too, done on the cheap while holding down day jobs, but eventually they went back across the Atlantic in the hope that someone might like them more.
The toil in London eventually paid dividends but, until recently, that album has not been released on CD and it still isn't in the UK...

Metric - Grow Up and Blow Away (Last Gang Records Q2 00940)

Metric finally made it with 'Old World Underground, Where Are you Now' (Everloving, EVE006) and then a second studio album 'Live It Out' in 2006. In the meantime, while many of the band are also very much involved with Broken Social Scene, Emily Haines has also released her (second) kinda solo album. Knives Don't Have Your Back - Emily Haines and the Soft Skeleton (2007) and also the less well known 12" EP What Is Free To A Good Home? (2007).

It is also available on CD, if you must, but the story certainly doesn't start or end here!