The Hidden Cameras model their full Illuminati regalia

Probably because he’s smarter than 95 percent of the people who make music for a living, Joel Gibb isn’t the world’s easiest interview. The visionary behind Toronto indie-pop geniuses the Hidden Cameras is perfectly polite when he’s tracked down at a New Orleans tour stop, but there’s an underlying sense of wariness, whether real or perceived.

In all fairness, you can’t blame him for this. How would you like to spend a decade making some of the most intelligent music ever to come out of the DIY nation, and then find yourself having to field the same mostly unimaginative questions over and over? Lately, most of said queries have centred around the fact that, a couple of years back, Gibb packed up and left Toronto for the German artists’ mecca of Berlin.

“I got an e-mail question where someone asked ‘How have you changed?’ ” the singer relates. “That’s such a weird, difficult, loaded question. It’s almost super-personal if you were to answer it honestly. But it’s also super-difficult to say ‘How have I changed?’ I’m processing that with my art, and I think being able to analyze your art probably takes some time too, to get to where you can sit back and really assess what all the songs mean.”

So what does the Hidden Cameras’ fabulously ornate new album, Origin: Orphan, mean to Gibb?

“I haven’t listened to the final CD, which is weird,” he admits, adding with a laugh: “I don’t feel like listening to it right now. I don’t know why. I’m always paranoid that there’s going to be something wrong with things that I’ll hear.”

That’s Gibb’s loss, because with Origin: Orphan he’s made one of the standout records of the year. The highlights are many, with “In the NA” drawing on everything from mesquite-scented alt-country to baroque pop, “Do I Belong?” recapturing the epic brass-powered thunder of early ’90s Spiritualized, and “Underage” sounding like it might have been dreamed on the palm-swaying shores of Hawaii.

The singer wastes no time challenging his listeners; while the driving kickoff track “Ratify the New” eventually explodes into a symphony of Middle Eastern string-drones and symphonic layers of guitar, it starts out with two minutes of white noise, straight-from-the-monastery chanting, and space-drift synth washes.

“That was a way of weeding out people,” Gibb explains. “Cleansing the palate and weeding out the ADD people.”

What might be most amazing about Origin: Orphan, though, is that it’s only the latest taste of a mountain of songs that Gibb has stockpiled. This revelation comes about when the singer is asked what’s inspiring him these days. Admittedly, it’s not the most original or challenging question, but—perhaps because it’s not tied to Berlin—the Hidden Cameras main man does a more than gracious job of answering it. Sort of.

“I’ve got all these other songs written that have still to see the light of day,” he notes. “I’ll be like, ‘Wow—that’s a really good song, and I wrote that in 1999, and haven’t done anything with it.’ I feel like my brain is already full of songs, so I don’t really feel like I need to be always inspired. The more I’ve written, the less inspiration I try to have.”

Gibb’s great trick is that he sounds like he’s just being honest with this statement, the danger being that he could just as easily come off as arrogant. And, yes, he’s more than smart enough to know the difference between the two.

The Hidden Cameras play the Biltmore Cabaret on Wednesday (November 25).