Jenny Owen Youngs gets nerdy, Kayla Diamond splits it down the middle, Mani Khaira does the robot, Schysma go back to the beginning — but we’re at the middle of another excellent Midweek Roundup. Let’s get back to it:
16 | Jenny Owen Youngs | Dungeons & Dragons
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Jenny Owen Youngs is excited to share her new Echo Mountain EP today. With its release, fans can hear the new single Dungeons and Dragons for the first time. The song, says Youngs, “is about using a role playing game as an early escapism tool. It’s also about the fear of turning into the worst parts of the people who raise you.”
17 | Kayla Diamond | 50/50
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Kayla Diamond shares 50/50, an anthem of personal power. 50/50 is a unique take on a love song. It’s a love song about you (the listener), versus a breakup song about two people. This homage to self-esteem is timely as taking care of your own emotional needs became paramount in 2020, Kayla reflects on this on her latest track 50/50. As Kayla explains, “Sometimes you need to show yourself some love, even if it means hurting someone else.”
18 | Mani Khaira | Machine (ft. Brennan Clost)
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Canadian singer-songwriter Mani Khaira is a keyboardist whose music evokes raw vulnerability combined with unexpected vocal power. Mani’s captivating sense of confessional storytelling takes listeners on a sonic journey of self-love and acceptance on his most recent release Face First. “Machine is an analogy of how we lose sight of ourselves within a monotonous relationship and become mechanical-like a machine in motion,” explains Mani. “My vision was to find a dancer capable of transmuting my music into dance. After seeing Brennan’s lyrical movement, my director Meeshelle approached him to see if he resonated with a collaboration. The results speak for themselves.”
19 | Schysma | Origins
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Origins is a track from Schysma’s upcoming self-titled album due for release on March 26. According to the band their new self-titled album will be, for the listener, a journey in the world of the deepest and darkest self exploration. It has a different and more biting sound, shorter and catchier songs, and more electronic elements.”
20+21 | BSÍ | 25Lue + Dónakallalagið
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Today, rising Icelandic DIY-pop duo BSÍ preview two distinctly different sides of their forthcoming debut album: 25Lue and Dónakallalagið. The gentle 25Lue is the final song on the melancholic side of the album. It describes a certain reconciliation and a peace with the past, paired with a tender, mellow feeling, ’80s synths, lo-fi dreaminess, and a vague hope for the next summer to come soon. Quite the contrary, Dónakallalagið is the energetic and screaming counterpart from the second half of the album. The lyrics are an anthem against all the people that have, for too long, sexually harassed and overstepped people’s boundaries. Dónakall is an icelandic term which usually describes that cis-male-white-hetero-energy that everyone is tired of dealing with and wants to make extinct for good.”
22 | Ballaké Sissoko & Camille | Kora
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Malian kora player Ballaké Sissoko released a new single and video for Kora, lifted from Sissoko’s forthcoming 11th album Djourou due for release on April 9. This latest collaborative track — which arrives alongside a simple yet striking performance clip shot in Paris’ Bois de Vincennes park by Julien Borel and Vladimir Cagnolari — sees Camille deliver lyrics which are a love letter to Ballaké’s instrument itself. Speaking about their partnership, she recalls: “When I met Ballaké, we said to ourselves that to talk to each other we had to play together, and that’s how we spoke best: we played under a tree, outside, and part of the melody came to me like that, I wanted to write a song about the kora, the mystery of this instrument, and I started asking him questions: about woodwind, etc. but it’s not a luthier’s song, it’s a love song. Love is fire, love is water. And the sound of the kora is like flowing water.”
23 | Tamaraebi | Brown Angel
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Brown Angel is the brilliant new single and video from Tamaraebi, the first track to be lifted from the London musician’s new EP Spectrum, which will be released May 19. “Brown Angel is a modern-day psychedelic blues song with hip hop and R&B undertones,” comments Tamaraebi. “It’s been described as a stoner’s love song. The video was directed by Attend Jamera and we came up with the concept together. We shot it in an old pub in Peckham at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests last year. I wanted to do something visually that contributed to black art and also celebrated the varied beauty of blackness — from a fuller figured model to really dark-skinned ones. I wanted everyone to enjoy the beauty of blackness in its natural element.”
24 | San Holo | It Hurts!
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “San Holo’s forthcoming album bb u ok? spans an impressive 20 tracks and see’s San carve his own trailblazing lane, crossing over into the indie world with the use of analog instruments and collaborations with rock band American Football and Rivers Cuomo. Today he shares a melodic and emotional new single It Hurts!, which features San’s distinctive guitar style on display once again as he steps even further into a new alternative direction. San says: “I wrote It Hurts! about love originally, but just like a lot of my music, it’s just as applicable to life in general. There are ups and downs in life and plenty of moments that hurt. Life can be tough. Life can be ugly. But it’s that pain that makes it all real, whether that’s pain coming from love, or the struggles of life in general. Sometimes feeling pain is better than feeling nothing at all. Everything shapes you into who you are — the good and the bad.”
25 | Haviah Mighty | Good On My Own Tonight (ft. Tobi)
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “After a year of global pandemic, isolation and space, Haviah Mighty’s single Good On My Own Tonight arrives with divine timing. While the song is a reflection on doing things solo, she teams up with fellow Toronto artist Tobi to share relatable experiences. “Good On My Own Tonight focuses on the moment of clarity when you realize that you’re better off on your own. Whether it’s a relationship that hasn’t been working, or a friendship that has made you feel weird for a while, this song speaks to those internal thoughts around finally putting yourself first,” Haviah says. “The beat was produced by myself and Mighty Prynce, and TOBi and I had been talking about working on something for years, so we finally made it happen.”
26 | Jason Collett | Crab Walking Home In The Rain
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Jason Collett has worn many hats over a story-filled career now spanning 20 years. He sprang from the Toronto collective Broken Social Scene, earning success in his own right as an indie-rock troubadour with a warm and poetic tone. His career-spanning Best Of album will be released March 19, spearheaded by the singer-songwriter’s first new recording in five years. Crab Walking Home In The Rain was arranged and produced by beloved indie-folk artist Andy Shauf, marking his first production for another artist. Shauf’s signature touches — chiming guitars sprinkled with piano, interjections from the clarinet section — lift Collett’s lyrical sleights-of-hand in a seamless stroke of inverted melancholy. Crab Walking is less a lament for times disappeared than it is a unifying call for the present. “Old haunts and landmarks that once were and are no longer,Æ Collectt comments. “Conjuring good memories of good times.”
27 | Balance Breach | Show You The Sun
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Balance Breach have taken the advantage of these exceptional times and released a lyric video for the song Show You the Sun, off of their 2020 debut album Dead End Diaries. Show You the Sun represents the gloomy and atmospheric side of the album. It’s also one of the darkest songs from Balance Breach, who say: “Music- and lyric-wise, we wanted to bring something from our debut album back to the spotlight after a while from the album release and we felt that the message in Show You The Sun is quite topical to the times we’re living. Let’s take care of each other and try to see the sun ahead!”
28 | Capra | Samuraiah Carey
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “On April 23, Capra will release their debut full-length In Transmission. The new single Samuraiah Carey can be heard now. Formed in 2016 by guitarist Tyler Harper and drummer Jeremy Randazzo, who had previously worked together in multiple projects. The initial idea was to create something that would be fresh while still giving listeners a sense of nostalgia for the sounds of the late ’90s and early 2000s hardcore and punk scenes. They ultimately added bassist Ben Paramore and vocalist Crow Lotus, and everything came together. “This band symbolizes that hard work, determination, passion, and drive can lead to success. We’re all very outspoken on our past struggles and intend to help others that feel like they’re in a hole so deep that they can’t climb out of it.”
29+30 | Born Ruffians | Heat Wave + Husha
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Born Ruffians — Luke Lalonde, Mitch DeRosier and Steve Hamelin — will release Pulp on April 16. The album is the conclusion of a trilogy that began with Juice and Squeeze in 2020. Listen to Heat Wave and Husha now. “Husha has been kicking around YouTube and various hard drives, a bootleg of sorts, for nearly 10 years,” Lalonde says. “And Heat Wave is a head bobbing, slow-burn banger that just needed a little more gestation time.”
