At the Festival de musique émergente in Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, this weekend, Montreal singer Patrick Watson secretly set up his piano next to the train tracks at the foot of a monstrous mine to play songs from his upcoming album Adventures In Your Own Backyard, and to launch its accompanying backyard performance series.

“We’re starting to build a web series that is stories in people’s backyards,” Watson told AUX immediately following his sunset-soaked solo performance. “When we tour we’re going to try to play peoples’ backyards and collect their stories as we go. It’s based on David Lynch’s Interview Project, this web project he did in the States. They find weird characters in small towns and do little documentaries on them,” he says, noting that him and crew would be filming the first story with a Rouyn-Noranda local the next day, adding, “I don’t want to just do music videos. I want to do fun things.”

Adventures In Your Own Backyard isn’t set for release until January or February, but Watson tells us to be prepared for a more grounded affair than past releases, including 2007′s Polaris Music Prize winning Close to Paradise.

“It’s a beautiful record,” he says excitedly. “I find it a lot more heartfelt than the other records in the sense where there’s less stuff. With the other records, there was a lot of things happening all the time. This one’s a bit more subdued, but still [has] crazy arrangements. It’s more direct.”