Bands usually choose their names based on what most speaks to their identity. That or they pick something that sounds either incredibly cool or just plain dumb, which can still tell you something about the band.

Toronto’s Bedouin Soundclash, playing the Edmonton Folk Music Festival mainstage tonight, has what sounds like a carefully considered moniker. Well, sort of, says bassist Eon Sinclair. He notes, however, that since the trio formed in 2001, they’ve grown into the name more and more.

Sinclair, drummer Pat Pengelly and lead singer Jay Malinowski adopted their handle from an album: 1996’s Bedouin Sound Clash, by Israeli musician Raz Mesinai, who fuses Middle Eastern and dub together. He also produces under the alias Badawi (or bedouin), an Arab word meaning “nomad.”

“When we first started out, Jay thought some of the stuff we were creating sounded like stuff on that album,” Sinclair recalls. “So, he suggested it as a name. We just liked the rhythm of how ‘Bedouin Soundclash’ sounded together.

“It’s funny because over time it seems like we’ve grown into the essence of that name and spirit, but subconsciously. It was never like we thought we should start speaking to bedouin issues or how a bedouin might feel, per se.”

However, a sense of wanderlust and existing on the fringes of society pervades the lyricism of the band’s sophomore album, 2005’s Sounding a Mosaic. Song titles like Shelter and Money Worries sound like high priorities for nomadic types, while rebel road songs like Jeb Rand and Criminal play like B-sides to Bob Marley and the Wailers’ I Shot the Sheriff.

Again, says Sinclair, what might sound like a connection is really just a coincidence, albeit an understandable one.

“During the time we were making Sounding a Mosaic, we were still very much exploring each other’s musical tastes and musical histories,” he explains.

“I know Jay had been listening to a lot more reggae than he ever had been in the past. A lot of older reggae deals with issues of isolation or being disenfranchised and we try taking older concepts and making them relevant to a younger audience.”

Making old things new again worked wonders.

Sounding a Mosaic’s hit single, When the Night Feels My Song, soared to being the No. 2 most-played track on Canadian radio, behind tunes by Nickelback and Green Day. And amongst the many awards Bedouin Soundclash has picked up is a Juno – 2006’s new group of the year.

It’s success, says Sinclair, but not one that hinges on an easily understood or easily explainable formula.

He grew up listening to reggae, soca, R&B and gospel; Malinowski for punk and folk; and Pengelly was big into jazz, progressive rock and even heavy metal. The seeming disparity of their tastes sounds like the “clash” in Bedouin Soundclash, but Sinclair says the band is really a product of everyone’s ongoing musical education.

“I don’t know what kind of band we are and I know a lot of bands say that. I guess we’re a pop band, because we take all these elements of things we like and make them accessible to a mainstream audience, hopefully bringing them to places they’ve never been before.

“It feels strange to limit ourselves to just one particular genre. We listened to everything and we still listen to everything. Although our tastes are eclectic, they’re also very similar. When you’re younger, things are more dissimilar, but the more you understand something, the more similarities you see.”

More cacophonic harmonies are to follow for Bedouin Soundclash. The band’s already recorded more than a dozen tracks for its new album, returning to the studio with former Bad Brains bassist turned producer Daryl Jenifer. It’s slated to drop early next year.

The album will also feature the talents of maestro, madman and longtime Beastie Boys collaborator Money Mark (Mark Ramos-Nishita) on keys – and then some.

“What he adds to the album is really undeniable,” enthuses Sinclair, “but random. He’d get us to play a track and he’d run around, picking up shakers, banging chairs on the ground or flicking a ruler, trying to get it to buzz a certain way. We didn’t really see how it would fit, but some of it’s great and it will end up on the album. It was awesome.”