Categories: Music

New Music Saturday

New Music

Montreal’s provocatively-entitled Your ex and I captures the sounds of the original British invasion and later post-punk artists in YXNI. Their self-produced EP is an ode to heartbreak, longing and depression.

“Heartbreaker by Design” is Your ex and I at their most vulnerable in a harrowing tale of jealousy, gaslighting and infidelity. What if you found out your partner has been secretly dating their ex for two years? The song exposes the true story behind their singer’s discovery of an ex’s double life – from deleted emails to made up receipts for so-called business trips. How

much would you look the other way to stay “happy”?

Renowned Canadian singer-songwriter, Tara MacLean, wrote “Let Her Feel the Rain” following a breakup at the age of 19 which was deeply affecting.

“I noticed that I felt numb, and I went and laid outside on the grass at night in the rain, and just let it fall on me. I just needed to feel it, to feel the pain, and then let the rain wash it away. And it did. I wrote this song when I came inside, still wet and muddy. This was the song that made me realize that music was going to save my life,” explains MacLean.

Decades later, MacLean has reimagined the song with layered background vocals and strings evocative of the lush environment which she calls home in the Pacific Northwest.

“In so many ways the song is about rebirth,” says MacLean. When it came time to shoot the video for “Let Her Feel the Rain,” MacLean returned to her ‘nest’ on Salt Spring Island to perform the song, complete with hair and makeup done by her children.

Ryan Hicks is an alt-pop singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer from Regina, Saskatchewan. Having previously released three full-length albums throughout his career, he’s happy to now share his fourth record, Experience.

The LP was recorded over a five day span with producer/engineer Jonathan Anderson at Protection Island in Vancouver, BC. Experience is a deeply personal and cinematic record that reflects the ups and downs of three years throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

The titular focus track, “Experience,” is a love letter to live music and experiencing it with others, inspired by his own experience at a Father John Misty, Jason Isabel and Jade Bird concert in Minneapolis. After that show, he made a promise to himself that if he was able to play live music and go to shows again, he would never take them for granted.

Ways In Waves is the brainchild of Brian Raine, a multi-instrumentalist and music producer originally from Yellowknife but currently living out of Edmonton. With malleable form and the spirit of experimentation at its core, the group began as a live duo before expanding to a five piece live band with Raine picking up vocals as well as guitar and keys parts.

Raine has chosen to focus the sound of the project into a tighter, brighter, more aggressive sound. Combining aspects of rock, art-pop, and electronic music together into a mixture that propels the listener through controlled chaos. “Who In War” uses the previous single “Everything Taken” as a starting point, and pushes the layering of textures and instruments toward an intentional maximalism. The bombastic and surreal build of the song culminates in an explosive cacophony that sounds like a celebration during an air raid.

chris