Toronto pianist, singer, composer, and songwriter Rick Maltese has released "Simply Love," a warm, Ray Charles-inspired pop and jazz single drawn from his album 'Rick Maltese & Friends Vol 2.'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sRc7XkKid0

The song basically conveys that what already exists between two young lovers is working and is enough. When we’re young it’s easy to succumb to pressure to do the “expected” thing for family - get married, have children, settle down.

Eric Jensen has spent the better part of two years writing songs about the things people carry silently, and with "You're Not the Only One," out August 14, 2026, the Minnesota based artist behind Waves of Defeat delivers his most direct statement yet. The song has been finished since February, but Jensen sat on it deliberately, waiting until the timing felt right for the track he considers one of the most important he has written.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/BpOR3z5Y6-8

Tina Dico is introducing herself properly to Canadian audiences with "Surfing," the first single from her forthcoming new album, 'Balancing Small Things On Sharp Edges,' due October 23. The release marks a significant milestone for the Danish singer/songwriter, who has topped the Danish album charts five times and is now returning to North America through her first release on a Canadian label, DMP/Fontana North/Universal.

 The Elem Photo Credit Shay Ifergan

 THE ELEM opens a bold new chapter with "Could It Be Me?," a genre-blurring rock anthem that pulls faith, paranoia, and self-importance into the same orbit and asks what separates them. Formed in Portugal in 2025 by songwriter and producer M.L. Leichter, THE ELEM works without borders, collaborating remotely with a rotating cast of musicians to build music that feels intimate and expansive at once, and "Could It Be Me?" stands as the clearest statement yet of that vision. 

Linda MacLeod has spent a lifetime making music, whether anyone was watching or not, and with her new single "I Tried to Get Through," the 75-year-old Cape Breton-born, Halifax-based singer-songwriter is proving that a voice this determined never really goes quiet. The song arrives as the first taste of her forthcoming album, 'The Well Known Unknown,' due later this year, and its title could not be more fitting for an artist who has spent six decades earning every inch of her career the hard way.

Listen on Spotify here:

https://open.spotify.com/track/6qqDkib9nA6Rpy2lB3cRmv

Nico Francker Photo Credit Persova

With the release of "Where We Begin," Nico Francker continues a body of work that has grown from a simple idea: the songs should come first. Nico Francker is an original digital Pop, Soul & R&B artist created by Danish songwriter and creator Nicholai Kristensen, who guides the songwriting, musical direction, storytelling, production, and creative vision behind every release.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb4Qzw1YJJo

Abby Nissenbaum has never been shy about calling out the gap between what country radio promises and what it actually delivers, and on her outrageous, rip-roaring new single "Gentleman," she takes direct aim at the genre's most persistent myth: the dream cowboy. The track, released alongside her sophomore full length 'Want To Be Wrong,' arrives as a cheeky, big-hearted rebuttal to every love song written about a man who talks a big game and delivers the bare minimum.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gu8Ti1-boc&list=OLAK5uy_lfNr4vqHnsWuLyo6I9i3E61ihbno_ligI&index=5

 Following the news of her signing to Kscope and the release of her single ‘Breathe’ earlier this year, acclaimed singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Maiah Wynne has today announced her new album, Into The Waves, alongside a brand-new single, ‘See The Water’.

https://www.youtube.com/maiahwynne

 Toronto based, Newfoundland born singer-songwriter Tonia Evans (Cianciulli) releases her deeply personal cover of Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill," out July 16, 2026, from her forthcoming album 'Love Me Till I'm Me Again.' For most artists, a cover song is a chance to reinterpret a classic. For Evans, this one is something far more significant: the only song, she says, that could carry the weight of the past year of her life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=tYCE4Pf_hpm7S3fY&v=5WC3C7rHRPc&feature=youtu.be

Toronto rocker Emily Mac releases her new single "Animal," the closing statement on her debut EP ‘ROCK N ROLL ANIMAL,' out now. Where the earlier songs on the EP dig through heartbreak and hard truths, "Animal" arrives as something looser and more playful, a song about choosing fun over hurt and going after exactly what she wants.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XHwU1Ba4qo

The musical chameleon with eclectic tastes, Alex Hirsch releases his new single "Memory Lane," out now, a country and Americana front porch-style ballad built around the pull of the past and the people who stay with us long after we have moved on. Set against lap steel guitar and layered harmonies, the song settles into an easy, unhurried groove, the kind that invites a listener to pour a drink and sit with their own memories for a while.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbLJ8EsmEKk&feature=youtu.be

The new single from Paul Westin is a combo offering of country and rock, reminiscent of early Springsteen but keeping the country rock feel all the way.

A Canadian artist, hailing from Maple, Ontario, Paul Westin, with an edge to his music that is much needed in these current times of predictable releases.

“Gypsy Girls” has great guitar solos, and believable vocal delivery, Westin seamlessly blends honest stories of life’s ups and downs with arena rock energy. A  rock n roll spirit shines through with country tracks that make you want to hear more from this artist.

At just 22, Noah Kosta has already spent seven years building the kind of stage command that usually takes decades to earn, and his debut album 'Right Here,' out now, marks the arrival of a jazz pop vocalist with the tone, phrasing, and instincts to carry that tradition forward. Raised on the classic sound of Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack in his grandfather's home, Kosta channels that Big Band lineage through a voice that is entirely his own, drawing inevitable comparisons to fellow Canadian vocalists Michael Bublé and Matt Dusk for a new generation of listeners discovering that sound for the first time.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gj_IZvor8UA&list=OLAK5uy_lEYafhl10ebzUuAe8yVoyxgJ3CBTdXM68

Mary Garnett Edwards has spent more than five decades turning her own life into song, and her raw, raspy new single "Boneyard" stands as one of her most haunting works yet. Out now, the track pulls listeners into a money scarce, small town world of poverty, broken trust, and a rage filled ending that closes with a hanging, with Edwards crying out lines like "I walk the road as the moon shines bright, I hear the spirits in the forest night, I feel my knees they are a quiver." It is a performance built on grit, and one that finds Edwards, born in Edmonton and now based in North Vancouver, working at the height of her storytelling powers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n8otW0TsoI

 Independent artist Darling Nikki has released her debut EP, 'Hippie Soul,' an entirely self written, self produced introduction to an artist who has spent her career building a sound and a philosophy entirely her own. Blending soul, funk, and vintage pop into a modern retro sound rooted in analog, 70s inspired production, 'Hippie Soul' plays out as a full artistic statement, one that Darling Nikki describes not simply as a project title but as a reflection of who she is. "I make Hippie Soul because I am a Hippie Soul," she says.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Mgg3xWW1cU

Saskatoon folk rock outfit Blue Umbrella releases its debut album, 'Recklessly Yours,' out now on streaming platforms and vinyl. Led by singer-songwriter Ryan Meili, better known across Canada as a family doctor, public health advocate and former leader of the Saskatchewan NDP, the record blends 70s folk rock with the grit of 90s prairie bar bands, carrying the depth of perspective that comes from a genuinely well lived life.

Long before "supergroup" became a music industry buzzword, Elektra Records assembled one of the format's earliest and most electrifying experiments: Rhinoceros, a late-1960s heavy-soul/rock outfit whose blend of muscle and melody made them favourites among musicians and critics who understood exactly what they were witnessing. Decades later, Rhinoceros remains one of rock's great under-the-radar treasures, a band cherished by those who found them and overdue for discovery by those who have not.

Founding member Alan Gerber, the pianist, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter whose fingerprints have been on soul and blues music for half a century, is giving a new generation every reason to go looking, with the arrival of his new single "Over Again," the latest offering from his new album 'The Well.'

Tobique First Nation's Mike Bern Explores the Legacy of War and Fatherhood on "The Belt"

Tobique First Nation, New Brunswick singer-songwriter Mike Bern has released "The Belt," a haunting new single that looks unflinchingly at the lasting effects of war on one man's fatherhood. Written from a child's point of view, the song moves between fear, respect and an eventual understanding of a father whose battles did not end when he came home.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWxvz9woY3w

 Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario’s Ryan Bissell has released his debut single, "Get Up Get Ready," a raw, urgent alt-rock track produced by Paul Gigliotti and marking the arrival of a songwriter who spent decades writing music before he ever finished a song. Released through this own label, the track kicks off a catalogue born out of one of the more unlikely origin stories in recent memory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCTw7iSCTOE

Winston-Salem, North Carolina singer-songwriter and guitarist Clay Howard has released "Lovin'" (Sunshine Mix), a bright, danceable reimagining of a standout track from his 2026 album 'A Little More Nothin’,’ and finds Howard distilling three decades of Southeastern stagecraft into three irresistible minutes built around a simple, universal message: love one another.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=wPdkLT3GdXiW7Pfm&v=YS0wfYR4jpE&feature=youtu.be