The Montreal-based quintet Plumes is distinguished by its highly unorthodox instrumentation, which features electric harp, bass clarinet, and a drum kit that packs neatly into a suitcase—not to mention a 40-piece orchestra, at least on the epic “Hero and Leander” from the group’s eponymous debut. But it’s also marked by what you won’t hear on that CD: a lot of electric guitar. And that’s all the more remarkable when you consider that Plumes singer Veronica Charnley writes almost all of her songs on the amplified six-string.

“I use recording a lot when I write melodies, so if I find something kind of interesting on the guitar, I’ll record it and then improvise melodies over the top, without playing at the same time,” she explains, reached at a Cochrane, Alberta, tour stop. “And that really frees me up to do some inventive things, although then the trick is to learn to play it and sing at the same time afterwards.”

Unless, of course, she gives her guitar parts to her husband and bandmate Geof Holbrook to orchestrate, as is often the case.

“When Veronica writes these songs, the guitar parts sometimes sound like second-guitar parts rather than folk strumming,” he explains, joining Charnley on speakerphone. “They sound like little countermelodies and things. Veronica doesn’t really strum, like an acoustic-guitar kind of thing; it’s like these funny melodies on the electric—and then those little guitar parts might turn into clarinet parts.”

It helps that while Charnley takes an intuitive approach to her work, Holbrook is a conservatory-trained composer as well as a highly accomplished bassist and keyboard player. Together, they make a kind of chamber pop that’s leaner and lighter than most similar efforts, with an airy melodic delicacy that’s supported by taut instrumental underpinnings. Louise Campbell’s bass clarinet sometimes handles the bottom end when Holbrook’s on keys; together with Éveline Grégoire-Rousseau’s harp and new member Preston Beebe’s minimal percussion, this makes for a sound that, for once, fully lives up to the description “unique”.

As both Holbrook and Charnley note, however, it’s not without precedent. She says, for instance, that while “Away From Home” might have a vestigial connection to the dance floor, it’s rooted in a phrase stolen from new-music icon Steve Reich.

“I actually took one of his rhythms from Clapping Music and then wrote something over top,” she admits. “So that song is actually quite influenced by classical music—more than my other songs, actually, in terms of the origins of the writing.”

In turn, Holbrook says he feels a kinship to Brooklyn’s so-called hipster-classical scene, especially since he and Charnley have spent some time living in New York City. Basically, though, both performers see what they’re doing as more representative of a new paradigm than truly unconventional.

“We’re seeing this happening in two directions,” Charnley says. “Popular music is expanding into other genres, with classical music being one of them. But also in classical music, that music is expanding, too, to sort of include popular styles. One good example is Bryce Dessner from the National, who has a band called Clogs that has a close connection to what we’re doing.

“These days,” she adds, “people can hear so much music that there really is room to offer them something new.”