I watched Fanatical: The Catfishing Of Tegan And Sara last night. It totally gave me the creeps. And made the legion of halfwits who are constantly trying to infiltrate my site seem like harmless scamps. Sadly, it didn’t help me understand what these losers think they can gain by hacking me. I’m not even remotely famous, I have no resoureces to exploit, and if they think I would ever pay ransom to rescue a bunch of album reviews, they’re even dumber than they seem. My advice to them: Get a life. Or at least a hobby. Like, perhaps, Canadian music. Here are a few excellent new singles and videos to get started:
Yves Jarvis | The Knife In Me
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Yves Jarvis — the musical moniker of Jean-Sébastien Yves Jarvis — releases the The Knife In Me, the first single from his next album, due in 2025. It’s a golden, textured track that feels at once like a handknit piece of fabric and a sheet of precious metal. “The sardonic masochist confronts the trauma of betrayal,” explains Yves. “RIYL: A claymation sequence of walking the entire Earth, the Apollo 13 mission, staring out the window wistfully, Anderson .Paak, Stevie Wonder, Electric Light Orchestra.” The video, directed by Derek Branscombe, depicts Yves in the kitchen of a sushi restaurant, preparing dishes — until he is stabbed by a fellow chef. From here, the kitchen catches fire, and Jarvis is ultimately shown slipping in and out of reality, creating a part-real, part-celestial scene. The Knife In Me was recorded by plugging gear into a half-broken laptop. Yves says The Knife In Me has “no pretense, no self-indulgence; [it is] music for the sake of music,” channeling the spirit of Paul McCartney’s II. “Lyrics that matter. Vocals up front, where people will actually hear them. If something’s true to you,” he explains, “it’s probably true to a million other people.”
Andie Loren | Some Special Light
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Toronto singer-songwriter Andie Loren’s music is a mix of dream-pop and rock. Her rich, warm vocals soundtrack songs characterized by her desire to understand human nature, and how love can consume us in both positive and negative ways. Andie’s new EP, Some Special Light, is a concept record that looks into our desperate need to matter to someone and the highs and lows that come along with it. Produced by Thomas Hammerton, the five tracks focus on a relationship between two people and, in particular, one person’s longing to matter to someone. There’s a desperation we feel in wanting to be important and significant to someone. Andie has felt that herself in many relationships and instead of focusing on what she needed, she was focusing entirely on the other person — what they thought, what they felt. It wasn’t healthy but it’s easy to lose sight of what you want when you’re crazy in love with someone.”
Skinny Dyck | Less Stress
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Skinny Dyck — the playful performing artistic alias of Western Canadian artist Ryan Dyck — is about to release the album Easygoing. His sophomore LP presents an elegant, subtle shift away from the country music environs he once wholly inhabited. But fear not twang fans: Rather than replace that sound wholesale, he and his collaborators have instead created their own hybrid approach. Or, as Dyck puts it, “I still like to collect my mail at the old shack off the highway, but I no longer want to live there exclusively.” To celebrate the album’s imminent release, Dyck is sharing the new video for Less Stress. “Maybe the drone-like guitar and backing vocal are a fragment of my own religious experience — married lyrically with the incessant pacing around the house that Shaela does when on the phone,” he says. “I find myself feeling less stressed when the journey starts, and anxious towards the end. What now? A new breath of life like the soft return and release of the door as a baby sleeps upstairs but the floor still creaks. A psychedelic guitar burnout at the end for posterity, I guess.”
Lily Monaghan | Mona Lisa (ft. Jed & The Valentine)
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “After making a strong first impression in early 2023 with her debut EP Introspection, Lily Monaghan returns with the gorgeously intimate single Mona Lisa, the first preview of her next release, slated for 2025. Although the song is simply arranged around Lily’s voice and acoustic guitar — with support from fellow rising Canadian folk duo Jed & The Valentine — it displays her increasing maturity as a songwriter, presenting a deeply poetic exploration of how we perceive beauty and aging. “I wrote Mona Lisa in my head while I was walking around the Louvre in Paris back in 2022,” Lily explains. “There was something about being packed sardine-style in a room of people lining up to get a zoomed-in photo of a painting of a woman that for me became an eerily accurate representation of modern society and its values. It made me think of the emphasis that is placed on the desire for fame, beauty and youth. Why does a life seem to have less value if it is one of aging, mundanity, and anonymity? Mona Lisa came out of these questions I asked myself, and wondering if Mona Lisa herself could have known she would be eternally objectified as a famous depiction of youth and beauty.”
Fraser Teeple | Went Off (Live From The Carriage House)
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Shaped by two decades of work as a climbing arborist, London, ON’s Fraser Teeple approaches music like a tradesman: he respects the strong tradition he stands within, and works carefully and with dedication to master the skill of telling a story, creating an image, or crafting a melody. His upcoming album We Built A Fire sees Fraser collaborate with producer Matthew Johnston at Slow Magic to create a record that is at once ethereal and rooted, dirty and clean. The music Fraser makes is tied to the country music tradition, in that it tries to respectfully hold a light to stories of broken people, of anti-heroes, and of folks on the outside. He delivers his songs with as much soul, courage and vulnerability as he can. The gritty and soulful new single Went Off, taken from We Built A Fire, offers an observance of the opioid and cost of living epidemic ravishing North America. “I wrote this song after watching people in my neighbourhood — the decaying east end of a middle class city — end up carrying the judgment of the people around them, through some brutal match of choice and bad luck.”
Courage Of Choice | Two People
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Following the release of collaborative LP Always By Your Side in March, the Bracebridge, Ont. project Chorus Of Courage share sharing new music featuring Cait Alexander. Alexander penned Two People following a horrific experience where her ex-boyfriend nearly murdered her. “This song was written immediately after the shattering of my life. Following a violent act of abuse, writing music was the only thing that made sense to me,” she explains. The stripped-back piano and voice of Two People relay lyrics that capture an intimacy, juxtaposed with raucous and distorted guitar which represents the extremity and chaos of an abusive pattern. Alexander and Chorus Of Courage sought to translate the entire spectrum of emotion that is often part of the abuse cycle: “The journey within is unpredictable and layered with intention and intensity.”
Unknown Voidz | Lack Of Everything
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Ontario’s Unknown Voidz were founded by Zan Khan, who recruited Ryan “Gooby” Goonoo on the drums and Jon Couzelis on bass. They will open for Being Dead on an upcoming Ontario tour to promote their second EP, Deception By My Side. Produced by Toronto scene pillars Keegan Porter and Ty Begley at Metrolab Studios, it features noticeably more mature and honest songwriting compared to the trio’s debut. The EP was partially written during Covid lockdowns and speaks on mental health/life problems. The lead single Lack Of Everything is titled in regards to the person who inspired its creation. Zan wrote it in an angry state of mind while realizing that he was being taken advantage of and used by someone who did not reciprocate empathy or support.”
Bad Tractor | Moira
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “On their new album Inland Sea, Bad Tractor fuses their country, punk and psychedelic influences into a sound that can truly be described as their own. Following in the sonic footsteps of The Mekons and Sadies, the five-piece band based in the wilds of eastern Ontario are in many ways a reflection of their surroundings, with the eight songs on Inland Sea capturing the beauty of rural life, while also highlighting the threats to its existence. Inland Sea is the followup to Bad Tractor’s 2018 debut album Blessington, and displays the evolution of the band’s primary songwriters Tim Hadley and Ian McKendry, as well as the band’s overall growth as live performers. All of that has benefitted from nearly all members of Bad Tractor also being a part of Grievous Angels, the long-running and prolific folk-rock project helmed by outgoing NDP MP Charlie Angus. The others splitting duties are keyboardist/vocalist Alexandra Bell and drummer Nathan Mahaffy, with bassist Corey Rump rounding out the current lineup.”
