By Will McGuirk
“My dream is that like the kaleidoscope, all people can come together and see how beautiful the world is with all of our differences together.” - Ryan Hicks
Sarah Burton, photo by Jen Squires
Slowcity.ca Open Mic: Georgia Harmer, Cots, Sarah Burton, Jess Kallen, Marthe Halvorsen, Down With Space, and Hot Chip
By Will McGuirk
Chastity
Slowcity.ca Open Mic with Chastity, Cots, Kyla Charter, Ellen Froese, Charlotte Day Wilson, Begonia, Rachel Bobbitt, Wet Leg, and Sam Weber,
By Will McGuirk
“It's about the feeling of not being heard, and just wanting to escape the cycle of thought - planning your next move, and thinking and thinking about what you could say to make them hear and understand you.” - Ellen Froese
“I was taught to believe that there was always a right or wrong and beyond that, that there was a heaven and hell waiting for us after we die and we just had to live our lives accordingly to end up in either place. I had a lot of fear of screwing up and a lot of fear of the unknown. As I've grown, all of those binary ways of thinking have more or less been shattered.” - Begonia
Absolutely Free, photo by Darren Rigo
Slowcity.ca Open Mic with Jasper Sloan Yip, Cots, Silver Pools, Homeshake, Charles Spearin, Astral Swans, Absolutely Free, and Bazooka Joe 204,
By Will McGuirk
This edition of the Open Mic is brought to you by the letter K and the number awesome. Thanks for the years of support Killbeat.
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“We all spent a year inside. Not just in our homes, but inside of ourselves. For me, it began with the surreal experience of life imitating art in a scary way. I was ready to accept certain fates... But it didn’t go the way that I expected, and now, the strange calm that I was struggling with for so long is gone, and the world feels new again.” - Jasper Sloan Yip
“Human bodies are like celestial ones; just as a planet’s course is carved out in relation to others, our course - where we go and what we do - is compelled by forces of attraction.” - Steph Yates, Cots
“ I see Christianity and Capitalism as large-scale pranks pulled by the powerful and this video aims to celebrate some shining slivers of artful resistance." - videographer Cashew Soda: Silver Pools’ “Crushed Hat”
“I just try to make music that is honest about how I’m feeling.” - Peter Sagar aka Homeshake
“To have time on my hands and a studio at my fingertips certainly helped in making this record, but thematically, there’s a kind of reflection in the music that maybe comes from having spent so much time at home as well.” - Charles Spearin
”Typical coming-of-age feelings of loss and confusion were further conflated by prioritizing an emerging potential of a new virtual identity more ‘real’ than a physical self.” - Matt King, Absolutely Free
Charlotte Cornfield, photo by Angela Lewis
Slowcity.ca Open Mic with Charlotte Cornfield, Cots, summersets, KeAloha, Halluci Nation, Bigmcenroe, Mauvey, Hayden Thorpe, and Babyshades
By Will McGuirk
“I wanted to express the joy of seeing people, of those little interactions that happen throughout the day that I missed so much in the last year and a half. When I wrote this song I was spending so much time walking alone through my neighbourhood, and I wanted the video to take place on the same streetscape but be the antidote to that solitude. To me the city is so much about the people in it.” - Charlotte Cornfield
“Human bodies are like celestial ones; just as a planet’s course is carved out in relation to others, our course - where we go and what we do - is compelled by forces of attraction.” - Steph Yates, Cots
“So much of our existence is an inconceivable wonder yet we’re so distracted that we rarely register the immenseness of the moment. Right there, beside us all along, is the wonder of everything.” - Hayden Thorpe