Moontricks will perform Friday, July 25.

When DJ, producer and musician Nathan Gurley began casting banjo and harmonica upon the electronic dance music he was creating in 2012, he thought it would be too weird for anyone to love. But in meeting Sean Rodman at Shambhala Festival, the weirdness blossomed. Rodman, who studied guitar at Selkirk College, joined Moontricks, layering guitar, banjo and vocals over Gurley’s DJing, keyboards, and harmonica and they began playing live.

This pileup of electronica and bluegrass, roots and a puff of mountain dust took off, with the song “Home” from their 2015 EP of the same name surpassing five million plays. The songs were licensed to Fox Sports and Netflix and the duo embarked on tours of the US, Australia and Costa Rica. Gurley credits growing up in Agenta, a village north of Nelson, for influencing Moontricks’ sound which he says would never have been created in a city. Their Kootenay roots mean the duo firmly prefers playing outdoor stages to clubs.

These mesmerizing musical journeys through mountains, oceans, and nature both without and within us also include found jewels like their addictive cover of Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” (with Shred Kelly). They buff high-tech, futuristic gloss onto time-tested mountain music, an unlikely yet graceful juxtaposition.

-Mary-Lynn Wardle