Guelph, Ontario singer-songwriter Trina Chakrabarti releases "Take A Stance," out now, a deliberately stripped-down protest song built to let its lyrics carry the whole weight of the record. Where her debut EP, 'Underworld,' processed personal trauma through myth and metaphor, "Take A Stance" drops the allegory entirely. "I wanted this song to be more stripped down, and really have the lyrics shine," Chakrabarti says. "Just like I want to embrace the anger of my personal experiences, I believe in embracing the anger from world issues."

Mager BooBoo, the solo project of Canadian expat artist Robert Bachtell Eastland, releases "Monkey See Donkey Do" out now, the second single from his upcoming debut album, 'Oops!.' Where lead single "Dumb" turned everyday clumsiness into an anthem, "Monkey See Donkey Do" aims its animal metaphors at something bigger, the question of how much of who we are is actually our own. "Who are we really," Eastland asks, "slaves to the system, or little sparks of being following what we've always been taught?"

 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Ca8tLR5M7qs

Keith Holland releases "Get on Board," the second single from his upcoming sophomore album, 'Castles in the Sand,' arriving this September. Where lead single "Life" wrestled with the meaning of existence in the abstract, "Get on Board" tells an actual story, a fever dream about a ghostly train, an old conductor, and a passenger who learns his time has not yet come.

Katie Dauson has released "Fresh Sugar”, a country rock love ballad built around the feeling of finally finding the person who makes everything else make sense. The song came together fast and unexpectedly, written on her dad's birthday, after a spin of a Raspberries record on vinyl handed her the hook and title in the same instant. Dauson turned the turntable off right there and started writing in the family room of her house, the same place she writes almost everything.

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

Irish Millie has spent her entire life turning the way her mind works into music, and on her most ambitious project to date, the Peterborough, Ontario singer, songwriter, and fiddler steps fully into that instinct. Her new album, 'Can You See Me?,' is out now, and with it comes the release of "Boy At My Funeral," a sweeping, cinematic single featuring Marshall Pula that captures the record at its most emotionally dramatic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QVHQj-Pj4U

Vancouver based vintage soul, blues and roots quartet Honeybear will release its new album, 'The Cure,' on September 4, marking the follow up to a debut that turned four longtime friends into one of Canada's fastest rising roots acts. The band celebrates with two album release shows, first at Upstairs in Victoria on September 9 alongside Emmett Jerome, then home in Vancouver on September 10 at the Hollywood Theatre.

https://www.youtube.com/@honeybear_the_band

Christopher James has spent his career serving the song rather than a single sound, and his new single "What If I," out now via Young Outlaw Music, makes that philosophy the entire point of the record. The song grew out of a question James kept circling: does a country artist really have to choose one lane and stay in it? "I could fit myself into a Toby Keith or George Strait sized box, but I'm Christopher James, y'all," he says, and the song sets out to prove exactly that.

 Listen on Spotify here: What If I • Christopher James

London, Ontario singer-songwriter Stephen Ingram releases "Leaving Song," the second single from his upcoming sophomore album, 'Silly Things,' arriving September 25. Where lead single "Sour Candy" traced Ingram's growth into himself, "Leaving Song" turns toward the place that shaped him first, Hamilton, and the complicated pull of a hometown that never quite felt like home.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6t4jF7TBSsU

Kamloops Teenage Blues Phenom Jake Soberlak Announces Debut Album 'I'm In Trouble' + BC Tour 

Jake Soberlak Photo Credit Kevin Bogetti-Smith

At 17-years-old, Jake Soberlak of Kamloops, British Columbia plays the blues with the authority of someone who has lived inside the music for half a century. Today, the young guitarist, singer and harmonica player shares his debut single "You Gotta Leave," the first taste of his forthcoming album 'I'm In Trouble', arriving September 11, 2026. The song announces the arrival of one of the most compelling young voices working in Canadian blues today. 

Submitted by Pat Silver

He’s been known as Mr. Maple Leaf of Canada in Peru, The Dancing Salesman on Mister Rogers’ TV Show, and the Hot Mikado on Broadway, but to me, he’s Joey. 

Watch Joey Hollingsworth – The Interview

 ASTRA writes from the uncomfortable spaces most songwriters avoid, the ones where softness and rage occupy the same breath. The Indo-Canadian singer-songwriter, born and raised in Ajax, Ontario and now based in Barrie, confronts that tension head-on with "IDGAF," out now, the single that refuses to let an abusive relationship have the last word.

https://youtu.be/iTMSru8mkMU?si=_5GuIa0LORVn-pXM

Vancouver's Son of James has released a cover of The Chicks' "There's Your Trouble," rebuilt through the band's own Chinese Canadiana lens and pulled from an unlikely source: a Lunar New Year party still in the planning stages.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX87QN1UD5k

For more than a decade, Huguette Lavigne has built a devoted audience the old-fashioned way, one improvised piano piece at a time. Her sixth album, 'Sometimes It's Just That Easy,' arrives at a moment when instrumental music is finding an entirely new generation of listeners, and the Ottawa based pianist and composer is proving that music built entirely on feel can speak to both a longtime jazz crowd and a much younger one discovering it for the first time.

 Listen on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/track/4vvCW6LYsAFuIQt5k4F3rU

45 years after they first plugged in, Messenjah is not slowing down, they are staking their claim as one of the most important bands Canadian music has ever produced. Today, the group releases "No More," a bold, defiant new single that finds Canada's reggae originators sounding as fierce and vital as they did the day they started, and demanding, once and for all, that the world take notice.

 Listen on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/album/2Loe8h5D7txiwBVweO051J

George Stroumboulopoulos and Marie-Mai to Host September 26 Celebration at Massey Hall Honouring The Tragically Hip, Mike Reno and Paul Dean of Loverboy, Leslie Feist, and Roch Voisine, Allison Russell, Amanda Marshall, Charlotte Cornfield, Isabelle Boulay, Ludovick Bourgeois, Matt Lang, Ruby Waters, Sara Dufour, Sebastian Gaskin, TALK, Tia Wood, and Todd Kerns Join Newly Announced Performers; Boi-1da to Make Special Appearance; Inductors Include Bruce McCulloch, FINNEAS, Jay Baruchel, Jim Vallance, Laura Stacey, and Marie-Philip Poulin. 

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