When Light by Kary was released in 2004, it marked the end of an era. It was a swan song for the Yarmouth-via-Halifax band of high school friends and musical co-conspirators. The bonds formed and the musical depths explored in Kary would continue over decades and reshape the Canadian indie music world, but Light captured the tense, kinetic start of something, an east coast prog-, post-, and alt-rock powder keg beginning to combust. Now, a rerelease via newly-minted Halifax label Cape Records celebrates this simultaneous ending and beginning of two important and influential eras of Atlantic and Canadian music.

Kary formed in Yarmouth when high school friends Paul Murphy (vocals, guitar), Tim D'Eon (guitar), Jesse Luke (bass), and Mark D'Eon (drums) started jamming in the D'Eons' father's carpentry shed. Their second and final record Light came out seven years later in 2004, while the band had been living in Halifax for school, and as Murphy and Tim D'Eon were gearing up to lead indie rock outfit Wintersleep.

That band, of course, became another east coast success story, continuing a tradition of indie bands "breaking out" of the Atlantic bubble and into the national music consciousness.

But before that, Kary's Light wove between prog-rock, post-punk, avant-garde alt-rock, shoegaze, and experimental-often within the same song. Along with de jour punk, grunge and prog influences like Radiohead, Jawbox, Dinosaur Jr., Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Kyuss and Rush, the band also took notes from Maritime alternative and rock outfits like Burnt Black, Christopher Robin Device, Eric's Trip, North of America, Motes, and Sloan.