An air of mystery surrounds Martin Tielli.

And cracking any sort of puzzles that adorn his solo debut, We Didn't Even Suspect That He Was the Poppy Salesman, aren't made any easier during a phone interview with the soft-spoken Rheostatics guitarist.

"There's a long-album-title competition in Toronto that's held every year. I think I got third place this year," he wryly comments on the oblique album title. Then ...

He interrupts our phone interview as a streetcar rumbles by his Hogtown pad in the background: "Somebody knocking at the door? Sorry, hang on ..."

When he returns to the phone, not a word is mentioned of what transpired. Rather, he slips back into where he left off:

"There was a very slow and dark period, where a lot of bad things were happening and I had a lot of time to think about them. I didn't even know I was writing a lot. I opened up a folder one day and I just went 'What? Seventy new songs?' And that's a conservative estimate. In a month-and-a-half, I actually accumulated something like 85 new songs."

NO CONFESSIONALS

In his solo appearance Sunday night at the Great Canadian Theatre Company (to kick off the 2001-02 Acoustic Waves season), Tielli won't present a series of self-penned confessionals on his personal trials and tribulations.

"Enough people are writing about themselves," he says. "For instance, (Rheos bandmate) Dave (Bidini) wrote the chorus to How Can You Sleep about me a long time back and I recently rewrote all the verses making it a composite of several people, me NOT included."

Instead, each of the 11 songs that comprise his debut disc are treated as if they were one of Tielli's well-sketched paintings of some piece of scenery, be it a known or unknown destination.

"I don't try to make sense of each song until the end, then I make sure it's all copacetic," Tielli says. "Initially, I don't know what a song is going to be about. It's usually things that are sort of unspeakable. That's what music's for, anyway.

"I'll actually figure out what a lot of these songs are about probably two years from now."

What isn't a mystery, though, is that the solo effort is merely an outside diversion, much like the 1994 effort Circo under the nom de plume Nick Buzz (a wry reference for a guy who's known for his cigarette habit). Tielli affirms the Rheos will have a new album out next month on Perimeter Records entitled Night of the Shooting Stars.