Alternative pop artist ROKI unveils her Lovable EP, and her singles “The One” and “Hands Up” have already been met with positive reviews. Produced by ROKI, Ben Kaplan (Mother Mother) and Winston Hauschild (Wanting Qu), Lovable heralds a new era of sound: dreamier, brighter, and hopeful for new possibilities, and carries with it a message that we are all lovable, even in our imperfections.
“Natural” is ROKI’s second songwriting collaboration with Tea Petrovic (who she previously worked together on “Hands Up”), as well as Nat Jay. ROKI wanted to write this song as a gift for someone close to her heart, to celebrate their positive relationship.
Lovable’s message and core theme is of love, the ups, the downs, the desperation at times, and at other times the ease. It’s an ever-evolving, ever-changing dynamic that pulls at our emotions.
Hailing from Toronto, The Effens deliver a dark, razor-sharp grunge-glam sound, channeling the raw energy of ’90s grunge and the defiant spirit of early-aughts indie-rock. Infusing their music with honeyed pop melodics and contemporary post-punk creativity, they craft a gripping and wild musical experience.
In one of the coolest collaborations, The Effens teamed up with Denz Mcfarlen from the Canadian punk band The OBGMs for “Someone’s Gonna Get You.” Not only did Denz complete the song with his vocals, but he also shared lyrical input when they were coming up with the concept of the song. It’s about the fear and paranoia that people are contending with right now, living online.
After more than a decade-long retreat from recording and performing, singer/songwriter Allen Dobb is returning with a new album scheduled for release February 9th, 2024. Alone Together is a collection of ten new original songs drawn from characters, stories, and landscapes that are part of Dobb‘s experience working as a range management specialist in the interior of British Columbia.
The continual motion of being on the road can be addictive and the feelings that come with being away from home and family are hard to reconcile in a relationship. The backstory for “Here and Now” is elusive…it could be about the life of a rodeo cowboy or a touring musician. Either one works, because there are lots of similarities between those two lifestyles. The characters in this song have been through a lot, and who knows if they are going to be able to make up the difference.
Just Graham is a songwriter at heart. Since picking up a box violin at the age of 5 through the Suzuki Music program in Toronto, he has always played by ear and listened for the melody.
Drawn to the intimacy and immediacy of the stage, Graham reached his 10,000 hours by performing with countless groups through the “10’s”. A singer and multi-instrumentalist, the highlight of this chapter was co-leading Canadian orchestral indie outfit Common Deer from 2014 to 2021, who toured extensively in Canada and the U.S. to support three studio releases.
In the stillness of the pandemic, songwriting flooded back in. A new honesty emerged both in texture and words. Graham now knows a greater responsibility and seeks his best both in sentiment and delivery. Owning his stage name from a solo project back in 2007, Just Graham wants to remind you that love isn’t dead, and beauty lies in imperfection.
“‘Athelone’ is a love letter to my partner,” he shares about his lush new single. “It reflects on the closest relationship in my world and sentiments that I found impossible to put into words and music for many years. Written in a state of clarity after a 5-day outing into the wilderness, the song felt like it had always been there and just needed the space to become real.”
M’Grasker are a coven of humanoid meat sacks forged in the Vats of Creation by Dr. Gorp, himself. Their mission: to Rock. However, they are also permitted to Roll. Human terminology might define them as a “band,” however they would be more accurately described as Biological Property of M’Graskorp Unlimited Enterprises and Subsidiaries of the GlanGlan Group.
After a sufficiently long gestation period in Dr. Gorp’s humong creation tanks, the lovable lads from lab 7 were able to record and write the song, “She’s Drugs,” ahead of schedule/budget. “She’s Drugs” is a song about how love is the only drug we need, except for some of the other drugs we still need.
Sydney based Indie Punk outfit Acacia Bloom have unveiled their heartfelt debut EP called ‘Something You Said’, which premiered exclusively via
AAA Backstage.
“At its core, Something You Said is about the numbering ways that people can come into your life and change its course. For better or for worse, we are all a product of these experiences. This EP is a heartfelt exploration of how love, loss, joy, and hardship help to shape us into the people we are.”
Acacia Bloomdebuted earlier this year with the release of their single ‘Cactus’. They quickly followed up with the release of another two singles that cemented Acacia Bloom as one of Sydney’s must watch up-and-comers.
After heading into the studio to cook-up their debut EP, Acacia Bloom are now ready to showcase the culmination of all their hard work as a band to the world.
‘Something You Said’ is available on all major online stores and streaming services.
A Filipinx-Canadian multi-instrumentalist and loop artist, Alex Maher‘s solo performances combine genre-bending mashups with passionate originals to showcase his musical instincts. Fusing classic soul influences, funk, electro-pop and jazz chops, his songwriting explores human connection in the modern age.
The song “Red Planet” is a metaphor, using the image of the barren and desolate planet Mars as a parallel of what becomes of us when we allow depression and frustration to linger unaddressed instead of letting the light of love in.
“The album is born from an unusual balance: trying to write music that reflects on trite Alberta stereotypes: ranchers, cowboys, lumberjacks, while also hypothesizing about something foreign and otherworldly.
Alberta has a long history of folk festivals and singer-songwriters. While that might be a musical starting place and an important memory for us, it’s not an aspiration or ultimate goal. The challenge is to be true to where you’ve come from without stopping yourself from dreaming wild dreams,” explains Jeremy Witten, vocalist and co-writer, whose main collaborator on the record was bassist and co-writer Dean Kheroufi.
Crop Circles includes “I Can’t Just Stop,” a song which captures a relationship falling apart during a cold Edmonton winter, as Witten reflects on an inability to let go of deeply felt emotions.
“Everyone knows that the pandemic created a lot of stress…and that stress either drew people closer together, or else did the opposite and exacerbated relational fault lines,” Witten explains.
The jaunty pop number belies its heartful and frustrated lyrics: “When I called you it was freezing cold out and when I told you I still love you, you hung up. I could see my breath though–that’s when I knew that my love was just steam.”
Crop Circles takes a darker approach to the band’s infectious pop melodies, which feel as if they were born out of the middle of a deserted plain. The album is interspersed with old radio interludes from when Alberta farmers began finding crop circles in their fields in the 1980s.
And yet, the band’s fascination with “crop circles” moves beyond their Canadian prairie context, floating high above the stratosphere, reaching for the ones who formed crop circles in the first place, with an impressive arsenal of spacey synthesizers and an array of cosmic samples.
Since 2015, The Dream Eaters have evolved from a dream pop band into a full-on video art project with an extensive catalog of weird and darkly humorous music videos of their catchy pop songs, growing a cult fanbase. The duo started working together after vocalist Elizabeth LeBaron, originally from Calgary, started working at the same bar as singer/songwriter Jake Zavracky, originally from Boston, in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY.
At face value, “mood pills” simply refers to a pill one takes to enhance their mood. The song deals with what that does to a relationship – how it affects the overall dynamic of a relationship when one person is taking a mood-altering drug and the sexual dysfunction that comes from taking psychiatric drugs.
