Singer/songwriter Mark Oproiu and his mononymous named band – featuring Chris Tondreau (lead/rhythm guitars, production); Calvin Beale (bass guitar); Michael Farina (drums/percussion); and Joel Joseph (keyboards) have released their debut single “Need Your Love.” The incessant, groove-oriented rock pastiche finds Mark Oproiu snarling over a tribal beat while guitars are ablaze. The band perfectly emulates the raw emotion and drive that Mark dreamed of as a child.

Check it out on YouTube here:

The ever-collaborative methods of artist/producer nasmore and his chameleon-esque approach to the art of making music have seen his songs find incredible success in a stunning variety of different styles over the course of the past year. As he surges into 2022, he’s returned with a slice of Stadium Rock.

Check it out on YouTube here:

It’s getting harder and harder to trust in the political process these days, no matter where you are, and German alt-rock band Joe’s Groove Huddle captures some of that distrust and uncertainty in their pumping new single “Believe Me” –

Combining the driving, hard-hitting pound of stadium heavy metal with the funktastic groove of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Believe Me” treats the topic of a politician speaking out of both sides of his mouth. “Writing the lyrics, I was wondering how many political decisions are influenced by lobbyists, and where that will lead in the decades to come,” said bassist Jochen “Joe” Kinzig.

Hear my message in disguise
On the radio
And I’m sure you’ll pay the price
When it comes to show

The fire of passion and desire is perhaps no more evident in a dance form than it is in flamenco. The famous, entrancing Spanish dance has been deemed part of the World's Intangible Cultural Heritage for its spirited incorporation of poetry, singing or cante, specific flamenco style guitar and the dance movements themselves.  It’s much more than a dance style and a perfect way for international award winning, multi-disciplinary singer-songwriter, actor and dancer Harriet Chung to present her songwriting debut, “Place for Dreams”.

Listen on Spotify here: open.spotify.com/track/7fuhIVc87Qct2OH5RkUA2H?si=sfhDkJCOQjGSK6gJpwMoxg&utm_source=copy-link&nd=1

A captivating tale of love and loss conveyed through the rhythmic hand claps and percussive guitar that are hallmarks of flamenco, “Place For Dreams” is an ideal showcase for Chung to channel her own creative fire.

Comprised of an intricate blend of pop fundamentals and Waterloo, ON’s Jai Bentley’s unique brand of laid-back heartbreak, this breakout artist brings a one-of-a-kind stylization to the ever-shifting plain of pop music with his newest single, “I Met The Devil,” – check it out on YouTube here:

Known primarily for his contributions to the rap genre, Jai Bentley is no stranger to genre-bending to tell a convincing story. Bentley’s stories of heartbreak and love are riveting, to say the least, making “I Met The Devil” a welcome addition to this young artist’s ever-growing catalog of music.

Singer/Songwriter/Square Dance Caller/Early Childhood Musician Hannah Shira Naiman is releasing her 3^rd full length album out October 7^th. Alongside is a video for the sprightly song “The Grouse.” Check it out on YouTube here:

The Wheels Won’t Go will be available on all major platforms and the video will be on YouTube.

Honoured with Traditional Singer of the Year at the Canadian Folk Music Awards for her album Know the Mountain (2016), Hannah Shira Naiman combines her powerful songwriting and impressive musicianship to deliver exciting contemporary versions of traditional music she was raised on.

Probing intensely poignant themes of self-destruction and relationship turmoil, Chris Caulfield turns pain into alleviative art in “Walls Come Down,” a new single out September 2nd, 2022. The track melds unblemished trap beats with impassioned, 2000s emo-rock sensibilities, akin to the genre-bending amalgam of artists like Machine Gun Kelly and iann dior.

Listen on Spotify here: open.spotify.com/artist/7g3mUTTgFVHHjfSW8UUXRU

The single chronicles a harrowing conversation between Caulfield and his wife, who sings alongside him on the song. In the Fall and Winter of 2021, the couple experienced a trying strife that tested their 12 years of marriage, but they came out stronger on the other side, creating a contemplative, conversational song that pulls at the heartstrings with the umbra of achingly familiar pain.

Chris Antonik, whose album, Morningstar, still sits at No. 1 on the Roots Music Report, has released a blues/hip hop hybrid single, “Trust in Me,” something a little different for the chart-topping blues-rock guitarist who has always pushed the boundaries of blues.

Check it out on YouTube here:

"I wrote this song as a commentary on how toxic, childish, and mean politicians were becoming in the media in the years leading up to the pandemic,” says the Toronto-based musician. “As a single parent, I needed to work extra hard to drown it out and outweigh it with positive behaviour examples for my kids because there was no help from the top.  How we talk to people is important and it's incredible how crazy the world was getting in this respect."

Toronto-based musical collective, Art of Time Ensemble, come together to celebrate Canada’s best poetic export, Leonard Cohen, with their album ‘Songs of Leonard Cohen Live'. Released on September 29th. The collaborative group of Canadian musicians from the world of jazz and classical music came together in 2018 and over three nights recorded the live album in front of a captive audience.

They also partnered with fifteen Canadian authors and poets on this album, many of whom knew Leonard Cohen personally.

Check it out on YouTube here:

Tim “Timber” Masterson has been in and amongst Toronto, ON’s music scene for as long as he could remember. His earliest memories came from listening to his mother play the family’s 100-year-old Steinway piano, an instrument he now uses to compose his own songs. As a young adult, Masterson was a part of the city’s art party scene where he was inspired to make his own music. Heavens So Dark is Masterson’s first attempt at a full album. It’s the result of his artistic journey up to this point – playing piano at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, guitar at The Viper Room in Los Angeles, and organizing warehouse jams in Toronto and New York.

The Damn Truth, celebrated Montreal rock and roll band, today announced a September 10, 2022 show in Toronto at the storied venue El Mocambo before launching their United Kingdom Tour in October 2022.

The Damn Truth includes Lee-la Baum (lead vocals, guitars), Tom Shemer (lead guitar, vocals), PY Letellier (bass, vocals), and Dave Traina (drums, vocals). The band’s third album, Now or Nowhere, showcases their definitive sound and explores the deeper side of the band, current times, and everything else in today’s tumultuous world. In addition, three noted Grammy Award winners are featured on the album: Bob Rock, Vance Powell, and Nick DiDia.

Lead singer Lee-la Baum says, “I believe that we are here on this planet to connect with one another and leave this world a better place once we've left  it. That is our mission in every Damn Truth concert- to connect and share love wherever we go.”

Check out YouTube:

Award-winning, JUNO-nominated, Oshawa-native group Wednesday is set to be named a Lifetime Achievement and Hall of Fame Award recipient at this year’s Oshawa Music Awards - The OMAs.

The 2022 Oshawa Music Awards will take place Thursday, September 29th, and are proudly presented by Durham Region Economic Development and Tourism, 360insights, Spark Centre, Trent University Durham GTA, and Durham College.

A chance meeting in Oshawa in July 1967 of Paul Andrew Smith and Randy Begg set the seed that became Wednesday. Randy and Paul spent the summer hanging out, playing impromptu concerts at local Oshawa parks and drop-in centres until meeting up with Mike O’Neil and John Dufek. The Cellophane Spoon was formed and managed by John Hall until 1971 when the task was taken over by Bill Diel, a former keyboardist with Ronnie Hawkins and Fats Domino. In 1970 the name was changed to Wednesday with the release of their first single ‘Hang On Girl’, recorded in Toronto and produced by John Driscoll and released on Ampex Records.

Pianist Taurey Butler is a native of East Orange, New Jersey and now makes his home in Montreal. During his last year of high school, a prescient teacher, who was also a distinguished percussionist, Barry Centanni handed Butler a CD of Oscar Peterson and advised him to listen. He did, and from then on, he knew where he was going. ”I didn't know a piano could do that!" he recalls and began to focus more on jazz studies.

With his self-titled debut, released on Justin Time Records in 2011, Butler firmly established his signature artistry in his adopted home base – he is a well-known and favorite performer in Montreal’s preeminent jazz clubs, including Dièse Onze, the Upstairs Jazz Bar & Grill and the illustrious Festival International de Jazz de Montréal. He has toured internationally with stops in Asia, the Middle East, and in the USA including New York City’s Blue Note Jazz Club and The Cotton Club in New Orleans as well as the Detroit and JVC Jazz Festivals.

Drunk dialing your ex — or, worse, that person with whom you were just in a situationship — is never ever a good idea. And while Toronto pop songstress Sam Casey knows that, first she’s going to wrestle with it for a while (like we all do) in her soulful and starkly honest new single, “New Company” – already available, but now has a new remix, courtesy of Alex Exists.

Directed by Agata Waclawska, Sam Casey and Alex Exists have collaborated on a new music video for the song, a widescreen epic version of the song from Sam’s current EP, New Company.

You can check out the new remixed video here:

Slow, smooth, sassy, soul ballad-y, and fresh from her forthcoming New Company EP, the song eventually comes to the foregone conclusion that the embattled narrator needs to find a new man. But just for tonight, she sits with her phone in her lap and fights with herself and an absent paramour –

Toronto rock and roll group Propter Hawk’s new single, “Theatre Of The Whole World,” buzzes with triumphant energy while telling a relatable story of yearning to escape from the mundane cycle of everyday life – even if you are not prepared to do so.

Watch “Theatre Of The Whole World” on YouTube here:

"People are fascinated by those who go out and explore the world, but they are a lot more fascinated when things go wrong and how they react to it,” songwriter and guitarist Andrew Blake says. “Seeing what people are capable of enduring, both physically and mentally – I wanted to write about someone who tries to have that experience but doesn't quite have the spirit or knowledge that they need to endure it. Once I had that concept, the lyrics sort of wrote themselves. I had the entire world to take reference from."

An excellent showcase for Calgary-based Ollee Owens' soulful, bluesy voice, her upcoming debut album Cannot Be Unheard, coming out September 16^th, lives up to its title. Leading a cast of expert musicians, Owens encompasses soul, R&B, Gospel, and blues to establish herself as a true contender on the Canadian music scene. For more information please visit any of the links below or Owens’ website.

Cannot Be Unheard is an exploration of life birthed from her personal, yet universal experiences, both good and bad, and the lessons learned along the way. Examining various feelings of self-worth, and being careful with one’s actions, to the very concept of love itself, the songs touch on Owens’ philosophy of moving through the world with intention, love, and the affirmation that one is worthy of the happiness that life offers.

Propelled by a powerful, distorted electric guitar, the soulful ballad "THROUGH THE DARKEST NIGHT" pays tribute to a long term romantic relationship that stands up to the tests of time.

Talk about Promises Kept… Downhome Halifax country maven Lisa Richard is back with some “News You Can Use” -

The East Coast crooner shares a deeply personal, uplifting, and uptempo track that shines a light on homegrown values, staying optimistic, and finding the good in the everyday.

The magic behind Lisa Richard’s heartfelt songwriting is the authenticity that oozes from every note; her vocal prowess delivers on the melody, unearthing what matters most to each of us. Matched with her ability to write a track that is equal parts catchy as it is sincere, “News You Can Use” is another capturing of the moments that matter the most. Richard is spellbinding, and captivating; coercing you to swim in nostalgia, and you appreciate the world at present.

Gender is a construct cobbled together by a multitude of influences over the millennia, but our concept of a deity, or deities, has certainly had a significant impact. Ottawa-based pop artist Lady Charles tackles religion’s influence on gender and the LGBTQ+ community in the lighthearted, dance-heavy banger “Godx” – check it out on YouTube here:

Synth-y and steeped in the ’80s in the best possible way, “Godx” boasts a bubbly groove and a fierce-but-whimsical bassline.  “I wanted to write a song about gender that touches on issues like how colonialism enforced the gender binary and how LGBTQ+ people have historically been excluded from religious life,” Lady Charles said. “I did not, however, want to create something too serious or overt, and instead wanted to create a silly pop song you could dance to that would still feature those themes beneath the surface.”

Award-winning, Toronto-based singer-songwriter Julian Taylor is set to release his next album, the powerful and engaging Beyond the Reservoir, on October 14, 2022, via his Howling Turtle, Inc. label, with distribution via Warner Music/ADA. For more information please visit any of the links below or Taylor’s website: juliantaylormusic.ca

Beyond the Reservoir’s name is grounded in a specific geographical touchstone Taylor recalls from the days of his teenage youth in Toronto. “I used to hang out at a place called the St. Clair Reservoir,” he says. “If my last album, The Ridge, was a childhood record in a lot of ways, Beyond the Reservoir is an adolescence record – a coming-of-age story – about moving into adulthood. It addresses identity, loss, sadness, hope, and redemption, and the themes of resilience, courage, and strength. It has this infinite sadness to it, but it also has this infinite hope to it as well."

From the lush geographic tapestries of Pangnirtung, Nunavut comes chart-topping, award-winning rock singer/songwriter Joey Nowyuk with his interpretation of a legendary Rankin Inlet artist with the riveting new single “Tappaani” – check it out on YouTube here:

Performed in his native language Inuktitut, heartthrob Joey Nowyuk’s spell-binding rendition appears on his kinetic new covers album, Inuugama. The album title translates to “I am Inuk” and is a sonic celebration of Nowyuk’s Inuit culture and language.

“Tappaani” is a meditative musical experience that continues to establish the rest of the album as a homage to popular Inuit music. The single is a stylish take on Ishmael Naulalik’s classic song with rhythmic sophistication, Inuktitut lyrics, and compelling guitar work that breathes new life into the original recording.