Slowcity.ca Open Mic: Grevious Angels, Lucius, Clever Hopes, Donovan Woods, Villagers, Penny Shades, Jeremy Gignoux, and Geordie Gordon
Read MorePhoto by Raul Rincon
Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats
Slowcity.ca Open Mic: Tragically Hip, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, Gold and Youth, Brandon Wolfe Scott, Mike Plume, T. Buckley, James Sullivan, and Nation of Language
By Will McGuirk
“Blush is about saying 'sure, the world we've created is full of bullshit, but that's not some inevitably, it doesn't actually have to be this way, and we have an antidote, and it's each other.” - Matthew Lyall, Gold & Youth
“I wanted to write a song to myself as a reminder, almost like a mantra, to stay in the present and accountable.” - Brandon Wolfe Scott
“. . . I feel like the song is universal with its message that it’s the little things and moments that matter, the time we’re able to spend with one another.” - T. Buckley
Fleece
Slowcity.ca Open Mic with Chastity, Ekelle, Charlotte Day Wilson, Ada Lea, Joy Crookes, Alex Cuba, Fleece, Graham Wright, Talleen, Mary Jennings, Jon Stancer, and Rise Carmine,
Ekelle
By Will McGuirk
“‘When You Were Mine’ is a song I wrote about an ex-partner that ended up being with a man after we broke up. It’s a song about accepting their love, but wishing the same for myself. I wrote it with the backdrop of Brixton because that is where their love unfolded and where I spent a lot of my childhood. We recorded a brass section (it was my first time recording brass and excited was an understatement); we wanted it to sound messy so Japanese whiskey was involved and listening to lots of Ebo Taylor.” - Joy Crookes
“My social media feeds are crammed with dire and insistent warnings from scientists, experts and activists, and newsreels showing floods, fires, hurricanes and other horrific, climate related catastrophes. All of this chatter and imagery were swirling around in my head at the time of writing this song.” - Jon Stancer
“We wanted to reflect how our society can sometimes be shrouded in mystery and symbolism, money being the driving force behind the illusion.” - Alex Crow, Talleen
Seán Devlin, Photo by Katrin Braga
Slowcity.ca Open Mic with Seether, Foreign Films, Seán Devlin, Autogramm, Lenny, LiYON, Gabriella Verdugo, and Flara K
By Will McGuirk
“I felt alone, scared, and confused. During that time, music is what helped me through it. Listening to different artists and their songs touched me, in a way, and helped me to not feel alone.” - Gabriella Verdugo
"It was a cold March in Montreal, and the months of isolation had really started to skew our perception of things - it was hard to think rationally about our lives and where things were going. I had also just read novels by Charles Bukowski and Kurt Vonnegut, and I was over thinking and constantly on edge," - Collin Steinz, Flara K
“I was thinking about how a person's life can appear from the outside to be so settled, ideal, in the right place, while on the inside they may be struggling, drifting, gone awry. This sort of thing tends to be exacerbated by our suddenly very isolated lives, when all we get to see from our friends and loved ones is an idyllic representation that we're fed through social media. Not everyone is comfortable sharing their fears and struggles in the public forum. So this song is just an acknowledgement of my own fucked-up-ness at that time, and also a reminder to really check in with your friends, because they may be having a hard time, despite appearances.” - The Silo, Autogramm
Dany Laj and the Looks release "You and Me", new album 'Ten Easy Pieces' drops June 11
By Will McGuirk
"You & Me is a sixties-esque pop love blender with seven lines of lyrics, containing seventeen words slapped together with drums, bass, guitar, vocals, keys and tremolo. It's a vacation on your favourite pure-pop island." - Dany Laj
Dany Laj and the Looker, Jeanette Dowling, have been keeping the kool alive, and the kool, kids as you are asking, is all that which thrives out there in Fringe, right on the edge of all you know, hanging ten on that which is psyche-pop, power-pop, and pure-pop; all that which is shake shake shake in the basement and groovey in the garage, its car fins and pencil skirts and fisherman hats and Buddy Holly specs; its Captain Crunch and Captain Kangaroo and the Captain of the Love Boat. The Laj and the Looks are riding the what wave, which is the it wave kids and y’all need to get on it, if only to save your mortal sou, children, your mortal soul l!!!
You can start by getting the new record ‘Ten Easy Pieces’ out June 11th, 2021 on We Are Busybodies.
Grace Gillespie
Slowcity.ca with Elizabeth Leslie, Once A Tree, Snotty Nose Rez Kids, Mattie Leon, Peter Katz, Grace Gillespie, Ghost Love, Busty and the Bass, Gillian Stone, and Black Collar Union
By Will McGuirk
“Now is the time to look up from your phone and look around you. What can you do to effect change? I'd like for listeners to come away with a feeling of power, that we, as a collective society, are powerful, but only when we are not divided.” ~ Elizabeth Leslie
“To our knowledge there hasn’t been an Indian and ‘Indian’ (Indigenous) mash-up in Hip-Hop. It seems like an obvious choice that Indigenous people and Indian people would collaborate, as their histories are intertwined in one colonial historical moment where, thinking he’d reached India, Columbus dubbed the people he sought to conquer and eradicate, ‘Indian’.” ~ SNRK
"Part of what I wanted to do with this new music is to not have it be just about my story. It’s in there – it’s all in there – but I think that my older approach to writing was about holding on rather than letting go; This music feels like letting go to me. And I hope that when people hear it, they can hear their own story in it and that maybe it can help them feel like letting go too." ~ Peter Katz
Slowcity.ca Open Mic with Kate Boothman, Jack De Keyzer, Matt Berninger, Austra, Sylvan Esso, Rhye, the Blue Stones, Figure Walking, Flara K,
By Will McGuirk
Kate Boothman, has released her latest single, the brightly breezy “My Next Mistake”. May be just what one needs to hear on this morning, scratch that, it is what you need to hear. Up and at them folks, up and at them.
Blues guru Jack De Keyzer has a new album dropping Sept 15, 2020. "Titled “Tribute” this is Jack’s twelfth album and features twelve original tracks. The first single “Lets Do It” is now available with video by Steven Frank.
Matt Berninger of The National will release his debut sole album, ‘Serpentine Prison’ on Oct 16 2020. The album will be on Book records/ Concord records. The first singe is “One More Second.” There’s a beauty tippy-tapp organ break provided by the legendary Booker T Jones, who also is the album producer.
“I wrote “One More Second” with Matt Sheehy (Lost Lander, EL VY) with the intention for it to be a kind of answer to Dolly Parton’s ‘I Will Always Love You’, or sort of the other side of that conversation. I just wanted to write one of those classic, simple, desperate love songs that sound great in your car”. - Matt Berninger
Austra’s new album ‘ HiRUDiN’ is now out and available on Pink Fizz records. A remix for the track “Risk It” has been released. And its a banger!!
“India Jordan recently put out one of my favourite records in a while (complete with a very on point Tipping The Velvet reference) so I was very honoured they agreed to do this remix. The new track is sunny and euphoric and everything I dreamed it would be!” - Katie Stelmanis (Austra)
Electro-pop duo Sylvan Esso have released “Frequency”, the third single from their new album, ‘Free Love’, coming out September 25, 2020, on Loma Vista Recordings. The song is accompanied by a new video directed and styled by Moses Sumney.
“We had a fantastic and rewarding time collaborating with our friend and fellow North Carolinian, Moses Sumney, on building a visual world for Frequency. He had such a beautiful vision for the project, one that ran parallel to the song's initial source in a way that showed us new spaces it could inhabit. It's a beautiful exploration of being together and apart at the same time – we feel it rings clearly in this moment.” - Sylvan Esso
Fresh Breath
Slowcity.ca Open Mic with Fresh Breath, Eric Bolton, Brandy, Mobley, Ryan Maynard, Sylvan Esso, and Grizzly Coast,
By Will McGuirk
Pump it up we are told, you are not trending they say, your SEO is a no no no, and we say we aren’t bothered, we will get there we say, we are slow for a reason we say but most importantly we are here period, we don’t chase the likes and shares, we just care and if you care too then like and share. So yah when That Eric Alper sent us this track from Kingsville duo Fresh Breath we are all over it like slow molasses.
“There’s a destructive nature, we think, to our collective obsession with social media and hand-held devices on our mental health and well-being. This song is a gentle reminder to be present and live in the moment.” - Fresh Breath
“There has been so much change in my personal life as of late, as there has been globally throughout this worldwide pandemic era, and also in the much needed time for raising awareness and education on racial disparities and discrimination, so for all of this I’m excited about ‘Genesis' and its meaning of a new beginning and moving forward in love and fresh breath.” - Eric Bolton
Mark of Cain
Slowcity.ca Open Mic with Martin Kerr and Ann Vriend, Mathew V & Jocelyn Alice, Jon McKiel, Amtrac, Venture Boi,
By Will McGuirk
Today’s Log: Monday, raining, listened to . . .
Liza Anne, photo by Phoenix Johnson
Slowcity.ca Open Mic with Liza Anne, Grace Gillespie, Missy Bauman, Brielle Ansems, Mike McKenna Jr., Noah Reid, Great Lake Swimmers with Picastro and Ayla Brook & the Sound Men
By Will McGuirk
Woodshedding done, time in front of the fire in contemplation, time spent thinking, time listening to one’s own thoughts, taken, time now to begin. Begin, begin again, start, start again, seed the thoughts and see which ones take, which ones grow, which ones prosper. I have my idea now, I will drop it soon, and maybe it grows.
“This song is the feeling of having too much of a good thing. It is a reckoning with the responsibility that comes with interacting with people through a period of your own unhealth paired with the hope that you can handle yourself better in your future tomorrows.” - Liza Anne
Liza Anne will open for Bombay Bicycle Club June 16 at the Danforth Music Hall in Toronto
““Goodbye” is a song about relinquishing music and giving up the dream, written at a time of much uncertainty and worry about what would become of my songs. Its lyrics mark the realization that it will never really be all over. The music wants to be alive and free.” - Grace Gillespie
Missy Bauman will celebrate the release of her new album "Sweet" Apr 16 at The Burdock in Toronto
“It seemed to be a similar story from different eras, and each character had unique ways of coping and remembering. Many of the 8 songs on the album pay tribute to stories that are true, dark and heavy in nature, and depicted through the voice of a sympathetic narrator,” - Mike McKenna Jr.
Pantayo, photo Credit : Sarah Bo
Slowcity.ca Open Mic with Arkells, James Blonde, Pantayo, Sorry, Mauve, Wray, Emma Charles Glass Tiger x Pino & Loeb, and the Long Beach Dub Allstars
By Will McGuirk
Slowly the door to the woodshed is being opened, slowly the nose emerges, then cheeks, in time a whole head and slowly the door opens wider and songs flutter out, one by one by two, by three, by five, eight. . .
“You never know when the universe will deliver a tune from the song gods, but “Years In The Making” arrived just when we needed it.” - Max Kerman
“Sometimes love can come to you unexpectedly. I wrote this after thinking back in awe at how suddenly the emotions can come to you. . .” - Mauve
Slowcity.ca Open Mic with Ellis, Missy Bauman, Soccer Mommy, Minuscule, Picastro, Harrow Fair, 100 Mile House and Real Estate,
By Will McGuirk
Sometimes we have so much to consume, so much to take in, so much media to see and hear that it becomes difficult to take a breath on a song, never mind trying to digest any of it, and we are slowcity.ca, we encourage you to sit and digest what you took in first, better for your overall health, but even we can feel the need to keep up, to dip in, and in and in again into the stream and then along comes a voice which just stills you regardless, slows you, slows your heart, slows your head, and one can sit on the bank, beneath a tree and watch the whole thing stream by with eyes closed..
“I want the record to feel like a relic from the past that’s been damaged and degraded with age, because it kind of represents the problems that I've developed as I've grown up, and how they've changed me.” - Soccer Mommy
Soccer Mommy is playing Wednesday Apr. 8 at the Phoenix in Toronto ON.
"The song is a recognition of the difficult work any relationship can be but what can happen when you take that leap. Even when the future isn’t clear. Hope starts here. No courage without fear." - Harrow Fair
Harrow Fair is playing Saturday Apr. 18 at the Dakota Tavern in Toronto ON.
100 Mile House, photo by Jessica Fern Facette
“I was asking myself a lot of uncomfortable questions throughout the process of making this album. Wondering if being an artist is irresponsible or selfish, particularly with the world in the state that it’s in, particularly as a parent of young kids.” - Martin Courtney
Slowcity.ca Open Mic I Heart Heart Edition with Madison Violet, Tops, iamtheliving, Paul Chin, James Blonde,
By Will McGuirk
“The ear is the avenue to the heart” - Voltaire.