Everybody remembers their first love. It just takes a streetwise punk outfit like Ontario’s Back Alley Gospel to see it for the exercise in futility it was.

That kind of clear-eyed reflection abounds on the band’s new single, “Old Flames,” which flashes back to the rosy period in a relationship when you can’t get enough of each other, the smiles come easy and everything is going right. You know, before it all gets shot to hell.

We used to hold hands in the heart of the city
And if I went down, you were right there with me
But you had bigger plans, wanted better things
And it took its toll on everything
This old flame was bound to burn out one of these days

Singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jake Clemons has released both the single and music video for “Born Like Me,” (featuring Allison Russell and Tom Morello). The video was shot at Jake’s alma mater, The Virginia Governor’s School for the Arts (GSA) in Norfolk, VA and was directed by GSA alumnus Daniel Russell (Missy Elliot, SZA, Cardi B, Khalid and Jason Derulo/Meghan Trainor). The “Born Like Me” video features Jake’s original song with an additional intro composed by Chace Moss, an outro by Courtney Jay Connor, a performance by 25¢ String Quartet and visual performances by members of the school’s theatre, film, dance visual arts and music departments.

Listen on Spotify here: open.spotify.com/track/22DRnNCJ4JcROVSssS2cSh

The pantheon of great songs that namecheck fellow artists is both wide and distinguished. Now we can add another banger to the list: New Brunswick alt-rocker Kylie Fox’s “Brandi Baby,” the title of which does indeed refer to none other than Brandi Carlile.

“I used to straighten my hair to Brandi Carlile every day in high school, and she became a big influence for me becoming a musician,” Fox gushes. “Brandi has seen me through a few big stages. I planted a lot of trees to her music”—a committed environmentalist, Fox spent several summer vacations doing just that in British Columbia—“and wrote a lot of university papers. I’ve seen her live twice. I’m in the Bramily. She’s probably my dream collaboration.”

August 8, 9, 10 at 7:00pmET
Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre, 6 Sakura Way (formerly Garamond Court), Toronto, ON M3C 1Z5

Tickets available here: jccc.on.ca/event/2024/08/mr-jimmy-live-kobayashi-hall

Sometimes the song really does remain the same—all the way down to the last wildly bent guitar note and subtle rustle of a satin jacket against a 1959 Les Paul. It’s something Toronto audiences are about to find out, as Led Zeppelin revivalists Mr. Jimmy take over Kobayashi Hall for an absolutely uncanny trip back to the days when giants truly walked the Earth (and the rest of us got happily Trampled Underfoot).

It’s hardly a surprise that “Where there’s a will, there’s a way” would be the credo of a group whose discography includes a single as jubilantly persuasive as “Just Say Yes.” Yet none of that begins to cover the extent of the can-do spirit Nashville’s house-shaking Goldy lockS Band embody on the song and in the highly resourceful way they live their lives.

“I’ll stop at nothing ‘til I reach the top. I’ll keep on moving and I’ll never stop,” lead singer Goldy Locks vows on the track, a dancefloor-filling statement of intent that’s every bit as invigorating as “I Will Survive.” Strings saw away melodramatically and guitar power chords crash and churn while Locks applies her powerful voice to a musical promise to “start a motion where the money’s free” and “make it happen where we all agree.”

There’s a saying in Costa Rica that goes “The shortest distance between two points is as the crow flies; the longest distance is the short cut.” It’s an apt description of the making of Short Turn, the debut album by North American session supergroup The 501 East. The members of the quartet—who have backed up everyone from Corey Hart to Anne Murray to Kevin Breit—had been friends and colleagues for over 40 years before deciding to form a unit of their own seven years ago. They jelled so perfectly that making an album together seemed the natural way to go. And with a mutual decision to record it live “off the floor,” a quick and easy process seemed inevitable when they started work in earnest in 2019.

Flash forward to now, and the album is finally seeing release. There was the little matter of a global pandemic getting in the way, see, which necessitated a whole new approach to recording once the bed tracks had been completed. All the remaining parts were sent in remotely, meaning that once the last performance had been captured, the project had come to embody a second credo: “Necessity is the mother of invention.”

Son of James’ new single “Come On” is oh so careening and funky that you’d have a hard time believing what’s making that gritty, swaggering sound is a delicate Chinese instrument. Especially with bandleader Shon Wong’s whiskey-soaked commands to “Come on!” harkening back to James Brown’s “Get on up!”

Listen on Spotify here: open.spotify.com/album/0NC6hm1WWRMjkbShMEI3cr

But when you listen again, you hear it – a Guzheng (Chinese harp) in the intro, and the sound transcends its genre to become something entirely magnetic and magical.

“The Chinese have such beautiful instruments that pierce your heart, rip through your soul and give you goosebumps,” Wong explains. “These instruments are the key ingredients to a Chinese Canadian sound that I am creating. A blend of funk, rock and soul – a sound I call ‘Chynatruckerfunk.’ Only with music of our own can we truly celebrate our identity.”

In the twilight realm of goth-rock, where melancholy reigns supreme, a flicker of transformation emerges. Windsor, ON-bred and Phoenix, AZ-based post-punk enigma Some Days Are Darker.

Their very name whispers of duality, suggesting that even in the deepest shadows, light may linger. Their latest single, "Dead Romance," weaves this delicate balance into a tapestry of haunting beauty and introspective empowerment.

From its inception, "Dead Romance" was a vessel for catharsis, evolving over years as frontman Lear Mason navigated the emotional battlefield of love lost. The track's moody aura captures the essence of moving through and on.

On their new single “I Gotta Know” Calgary-based indie rockers Sea of Lettuce practically roll out your towel and hand you a piña colada. Such is the beachy-ness of their vibe, which conjures ocean breezes, warm sun, and total paradise.

Spending seven days in heaven
Just about every week
This really got me thinking
Maybe you’re meant for me
I never thought that it could be like this ’til now

Full of easy beats and heavenly harmonies, “I Gotta Know” is part of a larger theme of relaxation in spite of struggles on Sea of Lettuce’s upcoming new album Any Day Now, which began to develop during a vacation band member Daniel L’Amarca took to Hawaii.

Following his acclaimed 2023 release ‘Wintersong’, independent Canadian musician Ryan Shane Owen has unveiled ‘Summersong’. This new album is a rich tapestry of musical genres, from classical opera to traditional folk, evoking the sun-soaked ambiance of Mediterranean countries. Produced, arranged, and performed entirely by Ryan himself, the album showcases his versatile vocals in 10 languages.

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: Two Toronto jazzmen and a Brooklyn DJ walk into a bar. And when they all walk out, they’ve written the slap of the summer.

Okay, that’s a bit of an oversimplification. But it’s still a good thumbnail for how we got Papaya,” the intoxicating first collaboration between Canadian national treasures of jazz Alex Bird and Ewen Farncombe and Venezuelan-born, New York-based Latin-dance giant Cheo. And boy, is their story a case of being in the right place at the right time.

Winnipeg-born and now Toronto-based musician Odario releases his latest single “Sunset Flicks” in anticipation for the upcoming extended play The Balm.

Produced by Alister Johnson, “Sunset Flicks” is an homage to the beauty of golden hour, that time just after sunrise or just before sunset, and seeing Toronto thaw out of the winter into the dreamy summertime. In his own words, “[Sunset Flicks] embraces escapism after long dark winter episodes… rollin' thru town with a loved one and getting reacquainted with your city”.

Odario is a staple in Canada’s hip-hop and R&B scene, collaborating with the likes of Polaris Music Prize Winners, Cadence Weapon and Haviah Mighty, Posdnuos of De La Soul, Shad, The Halluci Nation, Mad Professor and legendary Toronto rapper Saukrates.

It's a roughly 36-hour drive from Michael Lawson's original hometown of Seattle to the legendary Muscle Shoals recording studio - FAME Studios - in Alabama. But the roots musician was inspired by a body of water about a three-mile drive further east: the Tennessee River. The result is an infectious new single entitled "Not Alone" from his new studio album Tennessee River Shakedown was released on June 14.

"The goal was to write a collection of songs that captured the history and spirit of the music of the Tennessee River," Lawson says of the album, produced by Jimbo Hart (Jason Isbell). Lawson worked with what he called "the Dream Makers," a group of Muscle Shoals session musicians and Hart that Lawson used to perfectly capture a sound that's simultaneously current and timeless.

"Playing with session guys of that caliber gave me a new way to think about songwriting," Lawson says. "Since those guys could play everything, it meant that I could write anything. And because we all mesh so well as a band in the studio, the songs always seem to work."

One of the hardest things about a relationship is realizing when to let go. And when the relationship is with a song you’re writing, you can sometimes have just as much trouble knowing when it’s finished.

Both scenarios are at play in “Mourning Girl,” the latest single from British Columbia’s favorite acoustic-pop duo, LooPS. A sad farewell to a love that’s run its course, the song has an arrow-through-the-heart immediacy that belies the long and involved path it took to reach its final form.

In a full-on show of tearjerking balladry, lead singer Kevin Roy pours out a metaphorical 40 to a girl who isn’t coming back, while partner Jon Fennell chimes in with piano and backing vocals that provide a poignant echo:
Mourning girl, filled with dreams left incomplete
A shattered soul left on my own
Mourning girl, I wish I could have seen the sign
She’s left me now, she’s never coming home

For decades now, Les Stroud has been using his platform as an award-winning filmmaker, composer, singer-songwriter, author and world-famous adventurer to lobby passionately for the preservation of the natural world. With the release of his new song “One Giant Farm,” he’s inviting us all along to make a deeply emotional reckoning with a particularly devastating reality: the sacrifice of marine life on the altar of human greed and whim. Check it out on YouTube here:

Sometimes a moment of epiphany arrives for a musician when they are on tour, in the studio or simply near a piano or guitar. In the case of Saskatchewan singer-songwriter Jeffery Straker, it was after slipping and falling while hitting an icy patch running in Regina. That fall was the seed for "Carry on with Grace," the latest single out now from Straker's new full-length album Great Big Sky.

When musicians leave their hometown for bigger musical hubs like Austin or Nashville, it can be a double-edged sword. One obvious drawback is sacrificing being with family and friends for a chance at stardom. Some leave jaded and hurt, often with a 1000-yard stare from the experience. But for Indigenous Newfoundland musician Jason Benoit, the return to ‘The Rock’ had him heading home beaming. The result is "1000 Mile Grin," the title of his steady, confident toe-tapping single out now from his latest EP The Deadwood.

Toronto Indigenous Blues/Folk Artist D.M. LAFORTUNE Releases "Mr. Businessman’s Blues" From Upcoming 25th Anniversary Edition of ‘Beauty And Hard Times’

There are plenty of reasons for an artist to want to revisit their work, and many of them go beyond simple OCD. As she marks the 25th-anniversary rerelease of an album she’s issued twice already, under two different titles, Indigenous Toronto blues-folkster Diem (D.M.) Lafortune has more of those reasons than most—some good, some bad, but all of them as bracingly honest as her eternally vital music.

When you finish your workday, you want to leave the stresses, strains and struggles of the job at the door and feel comfort, companionship and love from your better half at home. Canadian country singer Brittany Brodie is bringing those feelings to the surface with her latest stellar single "Like A Woman Should".

Brodie, who grew up in Mount Forest, Ontario but now calls Nashville home, wrote the song at the Nashville Songwriters Association International with help from co-writers and friends Natalie Otto and Charles Austin. "We wanted to write something very down-to-earth, real and romantic about loving your man when you get in from a long day or a long week and just want to show him appreciation when you reconnect after being so busy," she says. "Making time for each other."

Andrew Irving, the multi-faceted singer and songwriter from Hamilton, Ontario, has announced the release of his newest single “Hometown Heroes”.

Inspired by two of his lifelong friends, a firefighter, and a police officer, Hometown Heroes honours the courage and dedication of first responders who work tirelessly to make our world a safer place. This touching song spotlights the many everyday heroes whose selfless actions and unwavering commitment improve the quality of life in our communities.

“Movies and TV shows have taught us to admire superheroes”, Irving explains. “But we don't often enough think about the heroes that surround us in our day-to-day lives, in our cities and our hometowns."

When Irving and his longtime collaborator, Mike McCormick, first experimented with a new chord structure and ambient guitar riff, they realized they had created something exceptional. This uniquely epic sound called for an equally epic theme.

“And the result of this collaboration was Hometown Heroes”, Irving proudly proclaims. “It’s a song that not only celebrates first responders but also encourages everyday acts of love and kindness.”