A SXSW-versed friend complained to me about the lack of real news or exciting gossip to come out of this year's festival. It's hard to say whether that's accurate when you're stuck in a media blackout—that is, standing in lines or watching shows, not frantically checking the blogs and dailies. But the bright light of day seems to confirm my friend's belief. Last year, when Tom Morello took the stage to play a solo performance he was joined by a crowd of who's-who performers: Wayne Kramer, Perry Farrell, Slash, even actor Breckin Meyer joined up. Of course, these kind of impromptu collaborations with celebrities and celebrity-musicians nearly always sound like garbage, but they generate a lot of discussion. While Pete Townshend was in town busy not playing any shows this year, the biggest music news didn't even come out of SXSW: Sheryl Crow is joining Fleetwood Mac. All I Want To Do Is Have Some Fun, Which You Make Loving.

News to me in Austin this year? Torngat. The Brooklyn Vegan's been up on the Montreal trio since the group played Pop Montreal, the annual festival/survey of one of Canada's liveliest indie scenes. Torngat played the downstairs stage at Maggie Mae's, where I tried but failed to see Lykke Li, who canceled. Far from a loss, that night proved one of the best finds of the whole festival.

A band that describes its sound as "French horn, keyboards, and drums" is quite a bit more. Everyone in the band appears to play the trumpet, for example; at the very least there was enough instrument switching going on during one song that it appeared that everyone picked up a trumpet at least once. The bound's low-key and melodic compositions bring to mind some more traditional pop ensembles—American Analog Set or Manitoba/Caribou being two. The comparison can be drawn to all-instrumental acts like Tortoise, though Torngat doesn't play . While Torngat doesn't appear to deviate from scripted music, those compositions weave in and out and across instruments.

As the BV notes, Torngat's Pietro Amato plays occasionally with Arcade Fire and Islands, two Montreal notables, and also appears in Bell Orchestre, an Arcade Fire–spinoff. It's only fitting in an everyone-knows-everyone scene like Montreal's. Some of Torngat's songs speak to that recombinant Canadian sound—Mathieu Charbonneau's accordion in particular. Something about the band's synth sound, too, hails from the rock sound rather than any free-jazz, Tortoise-inspired instrumental tradition. And live, Torngat has the kind of energy you might expect from one of their Montreal stadium-anthem peers. For writing laid-back instrumentals, the band is pretty loud and rocking.