Folk duo, Crowes Pasture, have penned a new song which addresses finding commonalities within American society.

The Bostonians’ touring has led them to tour up and down the East Coast, granting them insights into the political perspectives of a wide array of individuals.

The plaintive and acoustic “Agree On” is what the duo considers to be a “prayer that we will be able to find common ground in a deeply divided democracy.”

“We are struck by how much people actually have in common as parents, children, workers, Americans, brothers and sisters. For this country to move forward in a positive way, we need to acknowledge and respect differences, but we also need to appreciate the humanity that exists in everyone.”

Vanessa Mood (Vanessa Moodley) is a South African born singer, international award-winning songwriter, producer and entrepreneur. A newcomer to Canada, her music is soulful, passionate and often tells stories of intimacy that leave you feeling less alone in this world. 

Her sincere and heartfelt new song, “Work Things Out,” is about forgiveness—for ourselves and those we love. Faced with a challenging situation, this one felt unique, as previously in other relationships that had reached this point, Vanessa was willing to walk away. But with this one, that was not an option. 

Her life kicking off at the tail end of apartheid, Vanessa had no idea that a career in music was something that was available to someone of her skin color or gender. It was only after completing a degree in music, which started as an escape from the pain of her father’s death, that she realized that she needed music. She hoped for more than her early learnings of jazz and began by exploring her love for pop music. 

Marcus Lowry is a Canadian singer-songwriter, guitarist and producer based in Montreal. Since earning his Bachelor’s degree in jazz performance from the University of Montreal in 2017, Marcus has worked with a wide array of Canadian and international jazz, folk and pop artists. His debut solo album, Time, Time, Time, produced by Juno-nominated musician Joe Grass, is set to be released this coming fall. 

After reading Mary Oliver’s poetry collection, Devotions, Marcus felt inspired by how in tune she was with nature and embraced death with such calm and acceptance. In Marcus’s own life, he struggles with anxiety and Hurry Sickness, which means the inevitable passing of time is a recurring fear for him. These songs, and the journeys depicted in their lyrics, act as his personal reminder that this kind of fear can threaten one’s ability to explore all of life’s richness and beauty.

His debut single, “One Million Lights,” speaks directly to the beauty of life, and the painful acceptance of its ephemerality. The song draws us in immediately with a very gratifying groove that ebbs and flows and then slowly blooms into a liquid, lush soundscape of flickering pianos and crystalline effects over a rich bed of strings.

With a Tarantino-esque flair, HADEE. portrays the desire to risk everything going up in flames for what he wants, and he does so with a signature cool in his new single “KEROSENE.” The 80s synthpop-inspired track explores the reckless themes of romance and its evanescent nature. It expands on this theme through its chosen soundscape, each detail adding to the overall cinematic atmosphere. 

Straight from the start, we’re met with an almost haunting instrumentation that paints the visual of desert-glaring heat raining down. “KEROSENE” cements HADEE. as an upcoming artist with a versatility that leaves his listeners longing to explore.

The loud, naive sound of 90’s garage rock, beneath earnest vocals from the days of third wave emo, tell the story of da nang. “To be born in paradise,” the band takes its name after Đà Nẵng, a picturesque coastal beach town in Vietnam. Fronted by queer Viet lead singer John Thai —a first-generation Canadian, born to refugees in small-town Ontario—da nang is an intentional revisit to 90’s adolescence; a time when queer voices were never heard, or at least never this loudly. 

Thai prefaces their new single, “don’t hate me,” explaining that “social anxieties and fear of being my authentic self made it near impossible for me to feel comfortable making music. There were no out and open musicians at the time who I could relate to, certainly not Asian ones. ‘don’t hate me’ is a retrospective anthem for that queer adolescent kid who so desperately wanted out.”

Distorted guitars, a driving bass and drum beat and aggressive vocals come together to create a feeling of anxiety and excitement, the kind that comes from getting bullied, or giving the bully the middle finger.

Montreal’s provocatively-entitled Your ex and I captures the sounds of the original British invasion and later post-punk artists in their eagerly-awaited EP to be released early in 2023.

“If You’d Only” explores darker themes of lust, fantasy and expectation while never losing sight of their signature sound.

Red Vox is a an alt rock group hailing from NYC including Vinny of Twitch/YouTube fame as Vinesauce.  

The video for the driving alt rock tune was shot on location in Staten Island and stars fan fav “Gnorts”.

“Forgetter is a kind of tongue in cheek song that almost sounds like an advertisement for something, a vibe we leaned into after discovering it. I kinda stumbled upon the chorus riff and mindlessly started singing to it between songs during a studio jam. Once the rest of the song started taking shape, we changed the obvious sounding refrain into something a little more vague and interesting, forgetter. Lyrically it’s got a couple different meanings, but musically it’s definitely rooted in the rock from the 90s with a splash of some of the more recent psych rock. I think there’s always stuff we’d rather forget, but what is a “Forgetter” exactly?… I don’t remember.” -Red Vox