On their fifth studio album, From Nowhere—out September 6th, Mo Kenney (they/them) embraces the textures of ambiguity and the rich blur of being, failing, and becoming. As they shift through lush arrangements that touch on dreamy folk, sparse alt-country, and warm, hazed-out lo-fi pop, everything is up for interpretation and nothing is fixed.

The driving single, “Evening Dream,” produced by fellow Dartmouth, NS, local, and Canadian favourite, Joel Plaskett, has all the hallmarks of a post-summer come-down as Kenney reminisces about the nebulous feelings of flings. It’s about a romance that just wasn’t meant to be, reminiscing about it and wishing them well. There’s that bittersweet process of losing a love, but knowing and accepting that it is for the best.

In their lyrics, Kenney opts instead to defy definition, making room for non-linear and fragmentary sentiments that challenge their own feelings about personal growth, acknowledge the slippery and shadowy nature of memory, and build love songs that conjure the bonds of friendship just as much as they hint at romance.

Parade is an experimental pop-rock trio based out of Toronto, Ontario and featuring Stefan Hegerat (drums, compositions), Chris Pruden (synthesizers) and Laura Swankey (voice, electronics). Drawing on their diverse backgrounds in jazz, classical, and electronic music, the trio pushes the boundaries of genre and form by blurring the lines between improvisation and composition to create unique and immersive sonic landscapes.

“Do You Know Where Your Friends Are Right Now?” was inspired by the social media fueled mental health crisis. It has been extremely distressing, for Stefan’s work as a music educator, to see how badly young people are struggling with anxiety and depression and he feels that there is a responsibility as an artist to advocate for solutions.

Their LP, Lullabies After Storms and Floods, was largely inspired by Stefan’s work as a grassroots organizer during the COVID-19 pandemic. The compositional content of the album provides both a critique of the institutions and systems which threaten our very existence, and utopian imaginings of a healing world. The hope behind Parade is that the music dwells on all we have to celebrate, while acknowledging all we have to mourn.

Folk singer-songwriter Dan Pallotta has a delicate and hopeful new single to share entitled “Kendra’s Pictures.” The Kendra in question was a neighbour of Pallotta’s who “took the most beautiful landscape and nature photographs that were filled with light.”

The song features a gently rolling melody which seeks to transmit a feeling of light and of beauty that transcends mortality. Pallotta took many approaches to the song’s production, experimenting with synthesizers, piano, and upright bass.

After trying out many renditions of the song that didn’t quite fit, it was Marc Muller’s lap steel guitar playing that gave “Kendra’s Pictures” its dreamlike quality. “It was big without suffocating the negative space we needed for the lyrics to come through,” explains Pallotta. “It gave the song an other-worldly feeling that the story was calling for.”

Sim Bansal, the bandleader of four-piece Action Forever, grew up in Brantford, Ontario. His obsession with music began at age five and, for the next two decades, his natural talents were fostered by a musical family upbringing and constant exposure to a unique and eclectic mix of influences ranging from ’80s pop, to progressive rock, to jazz, and indie.

The music of Action Forever, while lively, electric, melodic and danceable, explores darker themes such as loneliness in a digital age, abusive relationships, loss of identity, and mental health. New single, “Stay With You,” loosely tells the story of the troubled relationship of two lovers from the point of view of the abused.