We were delighted to see that Rêve released a full album - Saturn Return - in December, and it was nominated for a couple of Juno Awards this year. We'd be happier if she'd release it in the States.
What delights us even more is seeing more depth from someone who will, undoubtably, become a big star, even if her whole 2024 seems to be contained to Canada. This song, from the album, was released as a short film on January 5th of this year - so, yeah, that's why there are some pauses in the song. It's a great, deep, softer song - with some ambient beats, but not the thumping dance numbers that brought her to prominence.
The song was co-written by Max-Antoine Gendron and Rêve, and it should be a hit everywhere, but, for now, we're going to have to be happy with Canada.
Brooke Nicholls is an artist... and worship leader.... from Hamilton, Ontario.
That's right. This is church music. Which is part of the the reason why I'm posting this on a Sunday morning. And it's GOOD. I don't post a lot of religious music, but I do when it's good music.
The other part is that she's a Juno nominee this year, for Best Contemporary Christian Gospel Album of the Year, for Glory To God. This song, which literally declares that Jesus is enough, is a centerpiece of that album, which is really good.
According to WikiPedia, Softcult are a Canadian grunge duo from Kitchener, Ontario, and the duo are actually twin sisters.
They are so much more than that. They bring back the aethestic of the shoegaze movement from the early 1990s, bringing in elements of grunge.
They're also Juno Award nominees this year, for Best Alternative Album, for their EP See You In The Dark. This emotional song is a centerpiece of that record - the darkest and a song that has deep, dark themes but still retains a poppy feel.
This video might be triggering, because of the flashing lights and the themes of sexual assault, which is also the subject of the song. It was directed and edited by Mercedes Am-Horn, who also happens to be one of the twins in the band (her sister Phoenix is the other, and she produced it). They bring an excellend DIY feeling to their music and the visual that matches it.
Of course they perform the song live, and, believe it or not, they even tour the US. This is from a show in Dallas from last March - they built their Maple Leaf March case last year! - and you can hear the emotion a little stronger in the live version.
Usually, when I double up on a day, it's the same artist - or else someone died.
No one died. And neither
Today, I'm doing it because I don't want to move anything else and because Once A Tree - the duo of Hayden and Jayli Wolf - released a new song today, and it's really great.
Also, they're a Canadian act that released music in March!!!!!
I decided to do a double today. Both Connor Price and Havian Mighty are Canadian rappers.
This was originally just going to be a Connor Price post, though. A respected actor before he got really prolific in the hip hop beats, he is nominated for three Juno Awards, including one for his album Spin The Globe. This song is from its follow up, Spin The Globe: Season 2. These are high concept albums - he literally spun a globe and pointed at it, collaborating with artists from whereever his finger hit.
On this song, the Toronto native must have not hit very far, because Haviah Mighty is from Brampton, Ontario. Her 2021 mixtape Stock Exchange was a Juno winner in its own right.
Guys, that's the CN Tower in the background. It doesn't get much more Canadian than that.
Why yes, they HAVE performed this song live, and yes, BOTH of them. Toronto, make some NOIIIIIISE!
So the road we took to get to posting this literally right the hell now is long.
You see, I had another Mother Mother song slated to post right now. We will call back to this post in that post, which is fully written and probably won't see the light of day until 2026.
As I researched that post - and this band, by the way, is from British Columbia - and realized I had so much for this March I could not fit them in until 2025 at least, I started exploring some of their other catalog.
And I found this absolute gem.
"Hayloft" was one of Mother Mother's first singles, originally from their 2009 album O My Heart. Written by lead vocalist Ryan Guldemond, he wrote the very "angular" melody first. He then wrote lyrics to match them - and started with the lyric "my daddy's got a gun"..... and it takes 40 seconds to get there. The song, about young lovers hiding in a hayloft, soon followed - and the song ends with the young lovers being caught by her daddy in the hayloft - and yes, he's got his gun.
The song ends ambiguously. Which is super frustrating.
The video is very much in the style of Franz Ferdinand or the White Stripes. It's cool as heck.
On its initial release, it was not a big hit song. It was still a fan favorite - and so they performed it live. This performance in 2019 is a great example of that. The energy of the song really comes through.
However, in 2020, TikTok became a thing, and people discovered the song. It made a lot of money. And people wanted to hear it.So they performed it when they could. Here is a 2021 version of the song performed acoustic.
And, this prompted the band to write a followup song, "Hayloft II", but not before renaming their biggest hit "Hayloft I" and making a new video for it.
The new video tells a less ambiguous story.
They followed it in 2022 with "Hayloft II", which is a very different song - very fuzzy, very angry, and very much tells a continuation of the story of "Hayloft" in which revenge is extracted and the hayloft is burnt to ashes.
Now, of course, they perform BOTH songs live - although not exactly back-to-back, putting a third song - 2021's "Girl Alone" in the middle of "Hayloft I" for some reason. Here they are performing "Hayloft I" in Chile in 2023.
Here they are performing "Hayloft II" in Europe/
And, here they are, as performed live, with all three songs in the Rolling Stone studios.
I've literally been waiting all year to post about Vishtèn. I discovered them last April, as part of a collaboration they did with The East Pointers. I posted it anyway, in April, but also, I went on a discovery of their music.
What I found was a fantastic folk band from Prince Edward Island whose music was heavily rooted in Acadian traditions. The Acadian culture is a minority primarily based in New Brunswick, whose language can only be best described as "Frenglish". Because of this, Vishtèn is primarily seen as a Francophone group... but they are so much more than that.
We'd be remiss if we didn't mention vocalist Pastelle LeBlanc - the primary vocalist on this song - passed away in 2022 after a battle with breast cancer. Her voice is certainly missed, and this is a song that shows you why.
Here is the band live in 2020 - playing a small hall in PEI - and you can see the chemistry the three had (after all, Pastelle, her partner and her sister were the band). Their sound is both bright and folky.
