The New Deal's latest release, Live: Toronto 7.16.2009 (SCI Fidelity Records), is proof that the band continues to be one of the best live electronica bands around.

Despite a few years with less frequent touring, while the band members explored other avenues to play music, they still managed to dazzle and evolve with sporadic shows and festival appearances.

On the heels of Live: Toronto, the New Deal has resurfaced for one of their largest and most ambitious tours in years, culminating with a New Year's run in Worcester (December 29th) and New York City (30th and 31st).

What is the New Deal?

The New Deal was a series of economic programs passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the United from 1933 to 1938. It's also three Canadians who wanted to play electronic music live and reclaim the dance floor during the heavily DJ-saturated era of the late 90's. We were one of the first to do so and it is so amazing to see how many acts out there are creating with the same sensibilities now.

Our sound is pretty much its own thing, but we started off playing down-tempo trip-hop kind of stuff but moved into drum and bass, Progressive house and techno as the crowds got bigger and wanted to rock the dance floor a bit more. We're now definitely in an "electro" era, which I think could best be described as more minimal and funky than progressive house, but with more bottled up intensity.

Improvisation has always had a bit of a stigma or fixed concept in the musical world, associated with endless guitar solos or jazz free-for-alls. In the New Deal it's never been about that. It's always been about creating real songs, sets and shows, in the moment but not relying on the usual "whatever happens is cool" approach to a lot of improvised music. It's actually quite methodical and strategic. And the audience plays a huge role in what will unfold. I'm constantly looking out at them and seeing where they're at and where we should be.

In the 90's, we all played in acid-jazz and funk-based bands and we're just a bit sick of it as a genre. We were all listening to electronic music -- Pepe Bradock, Banco de Gaia, Portishead, Eric Morillo, etc., and we wanted to do that live. I came from playing hip hop and breaks for years, Jamie had an amazing ability to spread himself over many keyboards and had awesome natural rhythm, helping him emulate sequences manually and Dan was very interested right away at taking the bass instrument to new places, sonically. So it just worked. Our first real gig was recorded in front of about 10 people and became our first record, This Is Live. It's been one of our biggest selling records to date.

Currently, the New Deal doesn't really involve itself in the music industry per se. We go out and play our shows to our fans and make new ones via word-of-mouth. We're not really reliant on mainstream channels to get our music out there. But that doesn't mean that I'm a grassroots naturalist when it comes to promotion. We're stepping into a new realm and putting together plans to take the band into a much broader audience and I'm very excited about that.

How do you stay relevant in the electronica scene, a genre often diluted and oversaturated?

I think that the electronic music scene used to be way oversaturated with music that was not all necessarily good, but it's become a lot more refined and the audiences are a lot more selective and discerning now. I think that it's stopped being this novel thing and has really moved into a stable place of growth. Wow, I sound like I'm reading a quarterly statement for a financial company. But the idea is pretty much the same.

How receptive have audiences been to your creation onstage?

I think about my laundry and what I will be watching when I get back to the hotel. Seriously, creating a great show requires a perfect balance between thinking ahead, being in the moment, and learning from the past all in a two-and-a-half-hour window.

You latest release is a live album from Toronto. Why that show? What do you remember about it that made it stick out?

Once in a while, we'll reflect on a show that we thought was really good. And that doesn't necessarily mean that it was the best show that night. Sometimes those shows don't translate very well onto disc and you end up with something a little too intense for your morning drive to work. But our Toronto shows are a little more bridled for some reason, so this one worked well on record.

800 shows under your belt and 10 albums. What do those numbers mean to you? Did you ever think it'd go this far?

I had no idea. If you had told me that this little project that we started in Toronto in 1998 in front of ten people in a crappy bar in Toronto would be playing to hundreds of thousands of people all over the world 12 years later, I would have thought that you were talking about some other band. It has been quite amazing. And what I love the best is that the band continues to get better. As do our audiences.

What do you like or dislike about being on the road? What's your dream venue to play?

I want them to walk away with sore glutes.