22 year old Londoner Nilüfer Yanya has revealed her new single "Baby Luv" -- her first release since the acclaimed Plant Feed EP in July. The single will be Nilüfer's first release on her new U.S. label ATO Records -- and Blue Flowers Music in the U.K. Nilüfer will also travel to the U.S. for her first North American shows at New York's Mercury Lounge (November 14th) and Los Angeles' Masonic Lodge at The Hollywood Forever Cemetery (November 16th).

Emerging in 2016 with her debut EP Small Crimes, Nilüfer Yanya has gone on to establish herself as one of the most promising British songwriters and guitarists of her generation. Nilüfer's 2017 follow up EP, Plant Feed proved her breakthrough moment with Pitchfork crowning her a 'Rising' artist, MistaJam selecting her as a 'New Name' on BBC Radio 1 and Broken Social Scene and The xx all handpicking her to perform as support at their headline dates.

Watch the video for "Golden Cage," which Pitchfork previously said "is the kind of song you love to sing, sure, but it's as much the kind of song you want to be":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbwZIRcsdDo

Videoman writes music for lonely people. On September 29th, the Montreal-based band  released their debut album, A Kind Of Serenity, featuring the album opener, Salt & Wine. Have a look at the video for the track here. The record will be available for pre-order on September 8th, with an instant-grat download of the first single, Adeline. The group will celebrate the release with a hometown show in Montreal on October 5th at Petit Campus.

After years in Los Angeles studying classical music, Videoman frontman, Pasquale D’Alessio, returned to Montreal and became a Resident Artist with Opera de Montreal with one goal: to compose an opera. Looking for a modern take for the script, he teamed up with musician and writer, Mitch Findlay. The duo began working on the story, and quickly realized the project was evolving. No longer an opera, but an album.

Toronto-based singer-songwriter Shawna Caspi released her fourth studio album Forest Fire on September 1st, 2017. Engineered and produced by Don Kerr (Rheostatics, Bahamas, Ron Sexsmith), the album is complete with Shawna’s remarkable lyrical fingerpicking guitar style, elegant arrangements and powerful messaging in which Shawna strives to be unafraid, to embolden quieted voices and to tell the truth above all else.

Dave Arcari is one of those guys that is often out on the road touring, gigging and travelling around his native UK, Scottish homeland, much of Europe and more recently the USA. Known for his hard, driving and percussive style, Arcari favours steel-resonator guitars and banjos for his, at times pretty unique, take on blues and roots music, with a fine eye for Scottish traditional folk music which he attacks with absolute confidence and thundering acerbity.

In many ways it’s hard not to think of Arcari as a bit of a ‘wild man’, a blues rebel with a purpose and power that spills out with every song he works. Most of the 26 tracks on this live release are self-penned and all feature his distinctive blues take and gripping, grit and whiskey-fuelled vocals. I’ve been a fan of this guy’s music for some years now and have caught his live performance where he really does come into his own clearly enjoying the performance and his audience participation.

Today, Lee Ann Womack has released the latest cut from her forthcoming album The Lonely, The Lonesome & The Gone the shimmering and ghostly "Hollywood." Written by Lee Ann, Adam Wright and Waylon Payne, the track poignantly portrays a relationship riddled with doubt and uncertainty.

As millions across the nation gathered recently in their respective states and towns to watch the Great American Eclipse, Prophets Of Rage: Tom Morello, Tim Commerford, Brad Wilk, Chuck D, B-Real and DJ Lord, have now debuted the music video to their song, Radical Eyes. The fiery anthem is featured on their forthcoming self-titled LP, set for release September 15th, 2017.

Says Tom Morello, “On the heels of this historic solar event let's all aim to eclipse racism.”

Burning with a razor sharp message and a deep, unrelenting groove, Radical Eyes is the third track to be unveiled from the band’s new album, following the previously released, Unfuck The World, and Living on the 110.

“The Western world has created biased structures and stereotypes,” explains Chuck D of the song. “Opposing viewpoints and movements are seen as radical rather than diversity. ‘Radical Eyes’ is the lens everything is viewed through, any life movement in opposition is considered radicalized.”

On a gorgeous August eve, in the resplendent gardens of a Gothic Revival castle, Toronto's Crown Prince of soul Sean Jones came out to play. Used to seeing Jones testifying to the downtown soul set in enticingly lit clubs like Candyland, so odds were high the set list would be verry diff for the castle crowd. While Jones solo material can upon occasion go dark, the pre show vibe was tres partee and drinkee, hotly anticipating the sound track they came for. They would not be disappointed.

David Rawlings is quite the guy these days. A still youthful picker with an extraordinary command of the roots and traditional end of US country music, often now called Americana, Rawlings has been plying his trade for many years, always earning praise, accolades and generating interest in both the genre and his own, personal take on it all. Surprisingly, perhaps, he also remains firmly footed and rooted in a bubble of modesty and humility that, frankly, is a rare thing in modern-day Music City, Nashville, where he is based.

With a new album, ‘Poor David’s Almanack’, a genuine solo effort, due to drop in a few weeks time, he is relaxed, confident and satisfied with the result of his own writing and recording that features his long-time music partner Gillian Welch and is produced and released on their joint-enterprise label, Acony Records.

Anyone who might just have wondered what might have been if US Dobro and Weissenborn slide-guitar wizard Jerry Douglas had chosen another musical path, might just be in for a genuine surprise with his latest release, ‘What If’ on Rounder Records next month.  What If, indeed.

Generally, and perhaps a tad unfairly, regarded as a bluegrass picker, Douglas is a guy who has been a pro musician for over forty years and used to joke that just being out on the road, working, trying to feed his family, cost him a thousand bucks a day in missed session work in Music City, Nashville. Nowadays, with control over both his life and his music, he chooses when to tour and when and with whom to work. For around twenty years, he has been an integral part of Alison Krauss and Union Station, where his sparkling virtuosity has played a huge part in the band’s continued success and distinctive, award-winning sound.

If you like Sheryl Crow, Bonnie Raitt, and Kasey Musgraves, you will love Ali Handal.

Her sass and up-front attitude is refreshing, insightful and beautiful. Her guitar prowess is playful and technically flawless.

The phrase That’s What She Said, has been used in our culture for a while but not really put into a musical connotation like this. Ali takes her natural ability to converse and connect while being poetic and authentic.

Songs cover the gamut of love, life, cats and surviving cancer… with a sly-grin on her face, she makes the listener fidget in their seat. She plays off her guitar licks; her rhythms are like a pair of black boots with spurs. While cancer isn’t a laughable situation to be in, sometimes laughter is the best medicine.

White Hot Guilt release a brand new - Electric Circus inspired - video for their single Little Things. "Electric Circus was always a program close to my heart," shares Josh Warburton (July Talk & one-half of the duo). "I actually appeared on a Halloween episode in the late 90s, and the fact that it was originally recorded during the afternoon allowed it to be this magic pot of gold that any Queen West pedestrian could stumble upon. To create a retrospective parody featuring a White Hot Guilt tune only felt natural.” Indie 88 premiered the video on the July 21st album release day. The self-titled album is available now via TDM Inc, distributed by Fontana North at fontananorth.lnk.to/WhiteHotGuiltEP.

After a brief hiatus, Country music legend Adam Gregory is back, and the award-winning singer is bringing a fresh new single with him available now on iTunes, Apple Music, Spotify, and Google Play.

“Dirt Road Therapy” is the first of many upcoming singles to be released, which, along with several performances including the Big Valley Jamboree in Alberta on August 6th, lead up to the launch of Gregory’s latest album due to come out early 2018.

This initially seems to be a new independent release from a new US band. But a few years ago the Jack Roberts Harvey Band punched out an excellent, pulsing blues album called ‘Devil On A dirt Road,’ an album that was easily one of the best independent releases of the year. Jim Roberts and the Resonants is none other than the same basic outfit with a new, reinvented name and, yet again, another top-dollar, blues release that could once more prove to be one of the finest indie offerings of the year.

Award-winning artist Ann Vriend (AV) releases new video for the single "Get Back To Me," included in AV's new EP Anybody's Different, (Aporia Records) which has already received significant media attention. In addition to the Maple Blues Awards Cobalt Prize win for "All that I Can," the Australian EP release reached #2 on theirSoundslike Café national playlist, and "Will You Be There" has been added in high rotation at Quesada and z-teca burrito restaurants across Canada. The EP has been charting on national campus radio, reaching #1 on theCJSR Edmonton Top 30 and continuous charting on CKUA's Top 30 from April to July hitting #12. Ann was also nominated for Female Artist of the Year for the 2017 Edmonton Music Awards.

Modern musical partnerships are no new things. Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash; Duane and Gregg Allman; Doc and Merle Watson; Simon and Garfunkel; Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge – you get the picture, no doubt. With Nashville treasures and general US recording remarkables, Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams you again have the real deal, a pair of seemingly intuitive musicians, singer-songwriters and all round stellar performers who seem to have arrived on the scene already fully formed.

Grabbing the chance to speak with both Campbell and Williams at home in world-festival-famous Woodstock in upstate New York on the brink of the release of their latest album, ‘Contraband Love,’ on Red House Records, it becomes readily apparent that this pair do almost everything together, including interviews. Both are in relaxed mode though about to hit the road playing with Emmylou Harris before kicking off with two New York nights, on a gruelling US-wide tour that they both agree will be tiring at times.

One of Canada's most lauded independent bands, Lowest of the Low, announced earlier this year a string of live dates this summer including an appearance at Hillside Festival this Friday and a headlining show at The Danforth Music Hall on September 9th. Now the band are excited to announce that their fourth studio album Do The Right Now is set for release on September 8th via Pheromone Recordings.

On the single, front man Ron Hawkins reflects, "Powerlines is a song about my experiences writing the first Low album, Shakespeare My Butt. I had recently broken up with a long time partner and moved into a punk rock squat with some crazy characters I called friends. Every day I walked through the city with a notebook and drank in bars and went to galleries and shows and hung out in my little bohemian circle of anarchists, punks and poets. I became the protagonist in the movie of my life and the city was a cinematic sidekick and factored into the lyrics like a companion."

The underground West Coast hip hop/funk pioneer, Declaime (aka Dudley Perkins), connects with West Coast hip hop heavyweight, Blu, for the cerebral new single, Internally Yours, which premiered via Mass Appeal. Serving as the lead single for Declaime's forthcoming album, Young Spirit, the song features production by Georgia Anne Muldrow.

"Internally Yours is about inner truth. I'm talking about all the cats running this world to see that they are just like us,” says Declaime. “Their heart beats just like us. The whole album is about how the media and government, food messing with the kid's heads and their young spirits. Blu's speaking on some truths he had locked inside of him."

Due out on August 18 via SomeOthaShip Connect/eOne Music, Young Spirit balances Declaime's unique rapping delivery over psychedelic funk and jazz-laden production by Georgia Anne Muldrow and Madlib. The album also includes guest features from Saul Williams, Aloe Blacc, and more.

Declaime and Georgia will be going on tour in September. Stay tuned for updates on the cities they’ll perform in this fall.

Sarah Jickling, neurotic songstress and theatrical front woman of pop-rock band The Oh Wells, is taking to the stage on her own as Sarah Jickling and Her Good Bad Luck and will be releasing her first solo album When I Get Better on Friday, July 14th. When I Get Better documents Sarah’s mental health issues and is a candid portrayal of her ongoing struggle with debilitating anxiety and bipolar disorder. The first single ‘This Time’ explores the difficulties of maintaining friendships and romantic relationships while living with a mental illness. Click here to watch the acoustic live video and album teaser premiering today at The Revue. Sarah Jickling’s new solo project pairs the unbridled emotion of her voice with synths and loops, and graduates lyrically from high school daydreams to honest accounts of a chaotic young adulthood. On When I Get Better, Jickling paints an honest picture of the past few years of her journey to recovery, and explores what it means to “get better” when living with a chronic mental illness.

Last winter I walked into a Kim Doolittle show just as she was wrapping up a song called "Snowballs Day In Hell." It's a droll little narrative about why she no longer takes requests at shows and I wished I'd heard more. Got my wish on a muggy summer's eve when I entered HRL just as the lady was getting started on, yeah, "Snowballs Day In Hell." so finally heard the whole thing and it was worth it.

If you were looking for a mosh pit last Saturday, you probably didn't find it at the Danforth Music Hall. But the self-described 'old farts' of Toronto's own Do Make Say Think definitely delivered excitement for the crowd, even if it was more in the form of a mesmerized audience swaying back and forth, bathed in purple light.

Originally an art project which practised in the basement of the CIUT radio building, Do Make Say Think is now over 20 years deep into a career that is as innovative as it is referential. Their music lacks lyrics, but is packed with emotion and energy. The average track length is maybe 9 minutes, and when I first heard it long ago as an artsy 14 year old, it reminded me of Godspeed You! Black Emperor complete with emotional rollercoaster, the jazz drum beat which is reminiscent of a train chugging forward into eternity but without the despair or obvious political messaging of Godspeed.