When it came time to record their third full-length, Constellation, the members of Halifax’s Gypsophilia felt that Montreal’s Hotel2Tango studio had it all: a big, resonant room; truckloads of analogue outboard gear; and Howard Bilerman, the audio guru behind some of Arcade Fire’s finest recordings, most of the Godspeed You! Black Emperor catalogue, and the late Vic Chesnutt’s powerfully affecting At the Cut.

“We have to record most of our stuff live, so we liked that the room had a lot of space and a good vibe,” reports Gypsophilia bassist Adam Fine, on the line from a Portland, Maine, tour stop. “And we like Howard, so we just thought we’d see if we could make it work, and we were really happy with the results. Howard was great to work with, very Zenlike in his way of doing things.”

Recording in Montreal had another, unanticipated fringe benefit, he adds. “Man, we ate a lot of bagels! The St. Viateur Bagel place was on the way to the studio, so every morning we’d stop by and each of us would get a dozen bagels. It was all about challenging each other to eat more bagels.”

Rarely has the old adage “You are what you eat” been given such pleasing proof. Gypsophilia began as a straightforward Django Reinhardt tribute band, and echoes of the Hot Club of France still ring through the band’s sound. But Constellation is more like a whirlwind tour of Gypsy and Jewish music from all over Europe, as album opener “Zachary’s Czardas” demonstrates. An everything bagel of crisp instrumental interplay and chewy solos, it begins as an ominous incantation but ends somewhere between Budapest and New Orleans, thanks to Matt Myer’s Satchmo-inspired trumpet stylings.

Given such a dynamic blend of traditional flavours and New World spicing, it’s tempting to assume that Fine and his bandmates had a variety of elderly mentors at home in Halifax, but the bassist says that’s not the case. “It’s just not that much of a multicultural environment,” he contends. Press him further, though, and he allows that a couple of extremely different musicians made a big impact on him early on.

“I got really into John Zorn when I was in high school,” he says, referring to the composer, saxophonist, and impresario who’s spearheaded the Radical Jewish Culture movement in New York City and elsewhere. “And at one point I mentioned that I was getting interested in this kind of avant-garde Jewish music to my grandfather, who played trumpet, so he decided to take me aside and show me some traditional klezmer tunes. That’s kind of how I got to klezmer music in the first place.”

As both Zorn and zaide would likely agree, he’s learned it well.