The Young Novelists – In City & Country
From the outside, the new record by The Young Novelists, In City & Country, is a lyrical investigation of small town Ontario life and its (in)compatibility with the big city escape hatch. On a deeper level, it’s about not being ...
The re-jigging of Dan MacDonald’s Cape Breton fiddle
Out of the thousand or so MacDonalds living on Cape Breton Island, probably only half of them are fiddlers. Dan MacDonald settled in Toronto “for the duration” sixteen years ago, so now there is one less. But they do proliferate. ...
The LYNNeS – Heartbreak Song for the Radio
Out of Ottawa, here come The LYNNeS, Lynn Miles and Lynne Hanson, bearing a fresh Heartbreak Song for the Radio, an album with an aggressive sound which may propel the already successful award-winning songwriters into a new category of international ...
Global Toronto Apr. 4-7 Part 3 (Gallery)
The first Global Toronto conference took a four-day weekend this past weekend to expose the sounds of Toronto’s complexly interrelated cultural communities to international and national world music audiences alike. The focus of the event was twofold. Presenting rich and ...
Suzie Vinnick – Shake the Love Around
Shaking up the party and sharing her uplifting spirit with a faithful fan base has been the main occupation for Saskatchewan native Suzie Vinnick over the last 25 years. On her sixth solo album, Shake The Love Around, Suzie has come up with a ...
A Month Of Sundays
What with abstinence resolutions still freshly in mind, Christmas bills arriving daily and those recent temperatures of mass destruction, a Toronto venue seeking a January audience for an event of musical significance, is as rare as…well…what is that idiom ...
Glen Hornblast: Once In A Blue Moon
With a name as obstreperous as Glen Hornblast’s, you could be forgiven for expecting to hear a scallywag songster, full of roar and bombast. Longtime fans of traditional open stage circuits, however, know Glen as a compassionate and insightful songwriter, ...
Between the jam and the high place
Wherein we discover again where music comes from: backyards, kitchens, basements, parties, public places where goodwill is cultivated and coerced into an improved socio-musical consensus concerning what is good and better and best. A waning August moon makes a decisive ...
Minor Empire: Cool sound & shamanic mystique
If asked, how would you describe your impression of Turkish music? If you’d had the opportunity to form one at all, it might sound something like this: initially you are impressed by the ornate vocal calligraphy, in misty scansion, as ...
The Wheat Pool: Saying goodbye to a favourite
Why do we love a band? As soon as that question is asked, one’s heart rushes for a private image, the cover of your inner jewel-case. You know who you love. Their flag is always there, waving, even when the ...