Tired Kid, the moniker of Toronto musician Thomas Kelly, creates music inspired by 90s alt rock bands that meet classic bands of the 60s and 70s. His lush and sentimental song, “Scotch,” was produced by Aaron Goldstein. 

The song was inspired by Kelly’s walks to coffee shops, his friends, and guitar tones by the band TOPS. 

Jason Kent has been making music his whole life as a frontman with his band Sunfields, and has recorded and toured as a sideman in an array of Montréal bands. His debut album was released in 2006, and his sophomore album Soft Commotion, fifteen years later. Now he brings us his latest album, Common Tongues (out June 2nd), which delves into the caverns of song with grainy vocals, acid-laced guitars, boisterous pianos and swampy undertones of vintage folk rock. 

“Fake Those Blues” captures a moment in time of a singer banging away at his piano. The whole time Kent was writing this song, he was just trying to keep up with it because it was literally written and recorded in two days. 

Lyfe Indoors has been an emerging indie artist scene favorite since the birth of the bedroom project in 2014.   Poetic lyricism,  esoteric and alluring imagery and a sound that melts pop, shoegaze and synth into a transportive listen.  After a brief hiatus, he has returned with “Binary Crime” the first single off an upcoming (TBD) new collection of tracks.  In speaking with him over multiple calls, we both realized the internet is cheapening modern existence, it’s an all encompassing hollow feeling you can’t quite touch on fully.

“‘Binary Crime’ is a tune I wrote when feeling a bit lost in technology.  Post-covid, it’s a lot easier to be numb to everything online.  That’s difficult and I wanted to make a song that exemplified that.  The lyrics are up for interpretation but at the end of it, everything is just 1’s and 0’s”- Lyfe Indoors 

As longtime members of Blue Sky Miners, the musical duo of Eric “The Duke” Duquette and Jena “Goldie” Gogo had released two albums, toured North America, and enjoyed national radio play. Still there seemed to be uncharted musical waters on the horizon.

The rag tag pirate-like community of (aptly named) Protection Island turned out to be the perfect coastal environment for the pair’s musical evolution to take place. Fire lit jams, a newfound connection to nature and deep reflection on their roles as settlers in this land gave spark to a collection of new songs that the now Vancouver-based twosome are proud to present as Duke & Goldie on May 12th, 2023.

Following on the heels of their debut single, “Courage,” Duke & Goldie are now unveiling “Rocky Mountain Feeling.” While mostly a straight-ahead rocker kind of song, the descending chord changes at the end of each chorus alter the song’s key in a chromatic descent. It adds a bit of complexity to the overall tone and hints at the deeper, more nuanced nature of the lyrics.

DEAR-GOD is the musical project of 22-year-old artist Robert Ortiz from Brampton, Ont. With a self-produced vision that incorporates punk, hardcore and industrial sounds with rap cadences into something truly singular, DEAR-GOD has occupied a unique and exciting space since arriving in 2019 and was later named as one of NME’s 100 Artists to watch in 2021.

The new song, “Copiapó” is a reflection on Ortiz’s personal experience growing up and feeling alienated. He’s always struggled to find where he fits in and feel accepted for who he really is. As much as he’s made efforts to open his arms to people and come with respect, he finds that the cycle has unfortunately followed him into his adulthood too. 

That’s why he chose to work with Juno-nominated rapper, Clairmont the Second, on this track. They share similar values as artists, and both of them prioritize working with people that make them feel uplifted and creative. 

“This song was a way for us to come together to inspire others to find their people,” says Ortiz. “No matter how much people will make you feel lower, you will always find those people who will empower you.”

DEAR-GOD is the musical project of 22-year-old artist Robert Ortiz from Brampton, Ont. With a self-produced vision that incorporates punk, hardcore and industrial sounds with rap cadences into something truly singular, DEAR-GOD has occupied a unique and exciting space since arriving in 2019 and was later named as one of NME’s 100 Artists to watch in 2021.

The new song, “Copiapó” is a reflection on Ortiz’s personal experience growing up and feeling alienated. He’s always struggled to find where he fits in and feel accepted for who he really is. As much as he’s made efforts to open his arms to people and come with respect, he finds that the cycle has unfortunately followed him into his adulthood too. 

That’s why he chose to work with Juno-nominated rapper, Clairmont the Second, on this track. They share similar values as artists, and both of them prioritize working with people that make them feel uplifted and creative. 

“This song was a way for us to come together to inspire others to find their people,” says Ortiz. “No matter how much people will make you feel lower, you will always find those people who will empower you.”

Since earning his Bachelor’s degree in jazz performance from the University of Montreal in 2017, Canadian singer-songwriter, guitarist and producer Marcus Lowry 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. 

Like the morning haze that recedes to reveal a calm and clear day, Lowry’s intimate folk musings on “Leaving the Shore” drift and buoy through waves of delicate chamber music, subtle electronics and nautical field recordings. “Leaving the Shore” offers calm and serenity to the inevitability of change and the challenges that often come with it. 

To really enhance this feeling of a sea voyage, the song incorporated actual nautical field recordings from the personal collection of his producer, the great Joe Grass. In the song’s climax you can hear seaport bells and the sounds of rolling tides, which were recorded by Grass near his hometown in New Brunswick. 

Best known as drummer and co-founder of JUNO Award-winning rock bruisers The Sheepdogs, Sam Corbett conceived of his solo project NUTANA in 2018 while undergoing treatment for testicular cancer. At age 34. While his wife Ashley was pregnant for the first time. Talk about harrowing.

And yet his towering debut album, named for the neighbourhood in Saskatoon where Corbett grew up, isn’t doom and gloom. Far from it. Rather, the 10 dazzling original songs and two captivating covers (Buffy Sainte-Marie, Tame Impala) on NUTANA hit all the retro, loose-limbed, and melodic notes one expects from a Sheepdog, albeit with lyrics that frequently deliver a wallop. 

Self-produced, it features a marquee roster of guests including Jim Bowskill (Blue Rodeo) and Chris Mason (The Deep Dark Woods) on “Ave H Blue”—alongside Clayton Linthicum (Kacy and Clayton), Shamus Currie (The Sheepdogs, BROS), and former Sheepdogs guitarist Leot Hanson, among others.

“Ave H Blue is the street I live on. When I was diagnosed in summer 2018, we had to cancel a couple of shows so I could have surgery,” Corbett says candidly. “I had some follow-up tests, and the cancer had spread to my lymph nodes. I had to back out of a couple of Sheepdogs tours to get the treatment. That was a very hard decision because I’ve been in the band from the beginning in 2004. I’d never not played a Sheepdogs show. The radiation treatments made me very sick and weak; I couldn’t even play the drums. But I could play the piano, and I started writing a bunch of melodies and songs that later became this album. It’s what I worked on when the guys were on tour, and I was recovering at home.”

Toronto-based multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Shanti Abbott, also known as Puma June, evokes a hopeful sadness through her introspective songwriting. A self-taught guitarist and Suzuki-trained violinist, she has a dreamy yet rich, experimental chamber-pop style, with a sprinkle of R&B.

The “emerging Canadian artist you need to hear” (Exclaim!) wants to continue to change the conversation in pop music – pushing discussions on the hard truths and painful pasts that shape us into the people we become. She has a particular focus on familial trauma, with her music centred around regaining power and recognizing the duality of people.

“Glass Curtain” is ultimately about shedding the weight of the darkness of the past. “My sister, brother and I didn’t have an easy childhood,” Puma June discloses about the new single. “This song started as an apology to my siblings for how much pain they felt, and my own feeling of helplessness to take that hurt away. It grew into more of a call for us to come together and let [it all] go.”

Kingston, Ontario alt-rock band Kasador have never been scared of change. And the three friends at Kasador‘s core—Cameron Wyatt (vocals/guitar), Boris Baker (bass), and Stephen Adubofuor (drums)—have been through a lot of it, including losing their former co-lead singer when he stepped down in 2020.

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Wyatt, Baker and Adubofuor began the process of growth and building that would eventually produce the music for their second LP, the upcoming Youth. This period encouraged a tightening of the screws: songcraft was dissected and refined, and a new, grittier sound emerged. The result on record is an essential document of a band realizing that things won’t—can’t—last forever, and how to make sense of the gap between youthful dreams and very adult realities.

The band collaborated with producer and co-writer Brett Emmons of The Glorious Sons for their icey punk rock frenzy of a song, “Lock On.”