In the realm of music, there are songs that transcend mere melodies and lyrics, touching the very soul with their heartfelt resonance. "Hold Me Tight," the latest release from the talented artist Harriet Chung, stands as a shining example of such a song—a poignant anthem of love and security that captivates listeners with its emotional depth and sincerity. Check it out on YouTube here:

 Crafted by the skilled songwriter George Chiang and brought to life through Chung's soul-stirring vocals, "Hold Me Tight" is more than just a musical composition; it's a journey through the intricacies of human emotion, wrapped in the soothing embrace of harmonious melodies and heartfelt lyrics.

The award-winning Oregon-based jazz singer-songwriter Halie Loren is proud to release her new full-length album Dreams Lost and Found out now via Nettwerk/Justin Time Records. 

This collection of songs explores themes of longing, seeking, and seeing with new eyes — the falling away of old illusions and outgrown desires, finding new visions for love and life, allowing some dreams to die to make space for new dreams to be born. The album captures the live essence of her music, that has led to tours and performances for audiences worldwide. The 14-song effort sees Halie lend her take on standards, originals, and her personal favorites. 

When you need a pep talk in how to get the most out of life, you always want to turn to a woman who grows food out of her own poop.

Okay, hear us out. Yes, it’s true that Goldy Locks, lead singer and mastermind of Nashville’s house-shaking Goldy lockS Band (yes, that’s how she spells it), recently appeared on a 2023 of TLC’s Extreme Cheapskates to explain how she uses her own feces as garden compost. She also mentioned that she collects stray socks from the laundromat to use as sanitary napkins and cuts down on her bar tab by finishing strangers’ discards. But before you dismiss her as some sort of crackpot, you owe it to yourself to take a listen to her band’s new single, “Just Say Yes,” a simply undeniable instant anthem that could convert just about anyone to her philosophy that the glass is always half full (especially when it isn’t yours).

Listen on Spotify here: open.spotify.com/album/6w5oQUynNcVNuJz8mkosIc

After four decades in the music business, Glen Foster has earned the right to break any rule he wants. And this happy iconoclast shows no signs of compromise on “White Funeral,” a whimsically morbid country-blues number that appears on his latest album, the trend-bucking Unnatural Tendencies. Check it out on YouTube here:

Like a winking eulogy to a vanishing era, the song finds Foster chronicling the impending demise of one Old Snake, a “hardened old metaphoric character” who gets stranded in the desert just as it’s starting to snow.

Ruth Moody is releasing the second single from Wanderer,her first new album in over a decade. Moody's clear soprano soars on "Already Free," a song Moody says is "for anyone who is ready to let go of the weight they are carrying and be free”.

Check out Ruth Moody on YouTube here: youtube.com/@ruthmoodyvideos

"I wrote the lyrics during the pandemic This was me, saying ‘I’m not coping well, I’m losing my grip’ and finding strength in that admission. It’s a song about that moment of reckoning, that acceptance of vulnerability and surrender that ultimately helps us to find our resilience.”

Les Stroud, the renowned Rock musician from Huntsville, Ontario, is proud to announce the release of his newest single, “Ancients Call,” – Check it out on YouTube here:

 This impactful and moving song breaks through musical limits, encouraging listeners to rekindle their bond with the earth and the knowledge of their ancestors. Ancients Call is more than a mere track; it's a deep dive into Stroud's spiritual and emotional exploration, inspired by earth ceremonies around the world.

Drawing inspiration from the survival expert’s adventures while filming the series Beyond Survival, Ancients Call mirrors his immersion into numerous earth ceremonies, from Ayahuasca and San Pedro rituals to ceremonies honouring the elements and Incan high priests.

It’s been quite wild ride for Ottawa roots singer/songwriter and keyboard player Jeff Rogers over the past 6 months.

Last fall he had the thrill of opening for The Legendary Downchild Blues Band on their sold-out Ontario theatre tour, to great response. The February 16, 2024, American and international release of his new album Dream Job, recorded in the revered music mecca of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, helped the album hit Top 5 on the Roots Music Report Canada Album Chart alongside The Dead South on March 30, 2024. Stellar album reviews south of the border from respected magazines like Downbeat and praise from Billboard Canada as “one to watch in 2024”, have helped put Jeff Rogers on the map internationally.

On June 27^th, Rogers will hit the stage with his 10-piece band at the Ottawa Jazz Festival to open for American alternative/indie darlings Lake Street Dive, who just happen to be one of Rogers’ favourite bands.

With the buzz building, Rogers is set to release his brand-new lyric video for his first single “Lock & Key” TODAY. Watch it now at https://youtu.be/hZXP6n_NG8g

Cashbox Canada has spent the last few years forming a strong bond with Sweden and we have seen so many talented emerging artists that deserve some recognition. So we now have a column devoted to that called Knock! Knock! based on the song by Sweden’s Bara Jonson and Free. The artist reviews will be written and presented by Malin Osth and Jonas Tancred of BjF, carefully chosen by their expert musical ears and featured here, proving as always that music has no borders.

Knock! Knock! Meet:

Agnes Mai – An Old Soul With A Young Heart

Submitted by Malin Ostha and Jonas Tancred

One way of describing Agnes Mai is that she is a 21-year-old singer-songwriter from Lund, Sweden. Softspoken, maybe a bit shy.

Another way to describe her is that she from her first note grabs a firm hold of you and that she will not let go until she has told you all her stories, until you feel what she felt, until you understand.

When one man honestly commits his emotions to record, that’s par for the musical course. But when he conscripts nearly 200 people to join him in it … well, you’re in for a lot of feelings.

And a lot of feelings is what we get on “Hearts On Fire,” a spotlight track from Brookfield, Nova Scotia-based singer/songwriter/ukulelist James Hill’s latest album, Uke Heads. Hill enlisted a legion of his friends and fans to appear with him on the record, with the new single as a particularly effective advertisement that an enormous collective can still convey the solitary sorrows and joys of an individual soul. Watch YouTube here:

Break out your velvet couches, champagne flutes, and Soul Train swagger: Performance artist, musician and author John Orpheus brings back the golden age of get-down on his mood fixer of a new single, “Get Right!” Watch on YouTube here:

Like an urgent, time-traveling bulletin from an era when funk, punk and pop coexisted happily on the dancefloor, the new record finds the Trinidad-born, Toronto-based Orpheus applying his talent for musical shapeshifting to deliver a motivational sermon that's nostalgically succinct:

If it feel right, jump on it
If it ain’t right, we don’t want it
If it ain’t right, we don’t get your money

Canadian singer and songwriter Annabel Gutherz unveils her new single, “Shame,” out now. Following the success of her latest single, “Eclipse,” this new track continues to introduce listeners to Annabel’s unique blend of classic rock influences and modern pop sounds. "Shame" was co-written with and produced by Mikal Blue (OneRepublic, Jason Mraz, Colbie Caillat) and Bret “Epic” Mazur (Crazy Town, Prince, The Black Eyed Peas). Check it out on YouTube:

Every once in a while, you need to hear a friend say, “Just keep going.” Would that they could all do it with the priceless gift for melody Canadian country upstart Angie Bohlke brings to the subject on “Don’t Give In,” a musical wellspring of support that’s the latest single from her debut album, The Best Part of Me. Check it out on YouTube here:

It’s impossible to remain unswayed by Bohlke’s sincerity as she implores a loved on to persevere and vows the result will be worth it. Imparting thoughtful coping strategies like “trust in yourself” and “think of something beautiful; a place you’ve never been,” she makes the emotional stakes plain on the song’s absolute haymaker of a chorus:

Having a foot in two cultures can sometimes feel like being torn between two lovers, and never getting any satisfaction. Turkish-British alternative artist Onur Sevigen tackles this conundrum in his sensual, suspenseful, and cinematic new single “My Way” – check it out on YouTube here:

Fusing R&B, hip hop, and a falsetto rivaling Prince, “My Way” is percussive and passionate and perfectly captures a spirit in conflict.

“Growing up the son of immigrant parents packs on more challenges than one’s average coming of age story,” Onur explains. “Trying to navigate relationships, life, ambitions and also not belonging fully to either country is almost like being bisexual and not ever fully experiencing what it is to love both sexes, or at least being repressed in a way by society to choose one or the other.”

Some things never go out of style, like having your heart broken and boozing away the pain. Vancouver country crooner Justin Mattock pulls up a barstool and aligns himself squarely with that proud tradition on his latest single, the irresistibly besotted “Where I Come to Drink.”

An instant classic of the tears-in-your-beer genre, the song chronicles the fallout of what Mattock has called “a goodbye that wasn’t meant to be permanent.”

“We had stories in this bottle/ Never time to take a sip,” our crestfallen narrator laments. “Black and white label and a colt cigar hanging off my bottom lip.” The picture painted and the stage duly set, his voice rises in righteous self-pity to let us know just what this night is going to entail. 

Exploring the contents of our grandparents’ houses as children can be a profound sensory experience, a journey back in time for our imaginations, and a map of clues to who we are, where we came from, and who we can become. For Michael Saracino, it was the wonderment of his childhood discoveries of Christmas cards from Duke Ellington, scribblings from Louis Armstrong on a Blue Note napkin, and his grandfather Ernest’s own simple words of advice that molded those deep, lasting impressions. In his lifetime, Ernest Orlando was a part of establishing the Toronto Jazz Society along with lifelong friend, pianist & composer Norm Amadio, which helped bring touring jazz musicians to the city, which brought touring jazz musicians into Canada and provided them a place to perform. “If you want to play music forever, that’s great'', Ernest had told Michael as a boy. “Just make sure you have a plan.”

Finding new love after experiencing heartbreak can be both thrilling and exciting. No one knows this more than Oyo, Ibadan, Nigeria-born, Montreal-based Afropop singer ADEOLUWA. Following the heartbreak displayed on his previous EP "Kings of Detours", ADEOLUWA returns with his julibant new EP "For The Fourth" and the single "Jeje". Check out YouTube:

 Steady drums, soothing background vocals, and a sprinkle of trumpet open the song as ADEOLUWA sings the first verse. The drums enhance the silky, steadfast tone of ADEOLUWA's vocals as he tries to woo a new lover. When the chorus comes in, the chanted chorus combines with the horns, drums, and background vocals from earlier to create a sensual mood.

Titling his debut album The Insomniacs’ Lullaby was the first clue that Wolfgang Webb wanted to take us on a trip through the long, dark nights of the soul. But just how long and how dark those nights can be doesn’t really hit home until you’ve heard two of its spotlight tracks, songs steeped in a melancholia that only the anguish of personal experience can convey.

Take “Before You Sleep (The Pills),” which weds some truly harrowing imagery to an uncompromising dirge with the compellingly funereal quality of Leonard Cohen—and a mournful lead vocal that has more than a tad of Tom Waits-style grit.

Check it out on YouTube here:

What’s in a name? To indie-folk/pop songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Sheena Legrand, the answer is “Just enough to make you change it when the time has come to hit the gas.” For her return to recording activity after a 10-year hiatus, the former Sheena Grobb has taken on a whole new moniker to better reflect the direction of her life - and the updated musical approach previewed on her new single, the hauntingly beautiful “Green Light.” Check it out on YouTube here:

In her husky, sultry semi-whisper, Legrand gives voice to the prayers of anyone who’s ever wished that life would stop throwing up roadblocks—only to realize they were the one in the driver’s seat after all.

At first listen, Canadian rapper Pimpton’s latest single, “Moonroof,” sounds like nothing more than a seductive invitation to a cozy nighttime drive. I mean, check out that slick come-on of a chorus:

Open up the moon roof
Let ya hair down baby, we gon’ fade away
We connect like a Bluetooth
Live from the belly of the beast, but in God we pray

Check out “Moonroof” on Spotify here: open.spotify.com/track/3JowxNSthMQ2prAuIv7qnq

What’s in a name? To Philadelphia electronic/EDM /vaporwave artist Paul G. Marchesani, the answer is apparently “a lot”—which is why he’s had more than 20 of them.

For 10 years, Marchesani has been recording under multiple musical aliases—starting with “Crossing Bridges” and snowballing from there—which he says has been the only way to preserve the distinct character of the more than 1,500 (!) tracks he’s laid down in that time. But every once in a while, he feels the urge to compile standout recordings by his various identities under a common umbrella. Hence “Forest Kids Collective,” whose new album, Galileo Grandiose, collates some of the best of Marchesani’s work into a remarkably smooth and cohesive listen.