Dorothea Paas - The Backstays - Izzy Gazelle

Photo - Miriam Paas

Dorothea Paas - Waves Rising.

Toronto’s Dorothea Paas is today sharing her new single, "Waves Rising", coming just ahead of her debut album, Anything Can't Happen which is out this Friday, May 7 via Telephone Explosion.

The record was put together between Hamilton, ON and Toronto with mixing duties helmed by Max Turnbull (Badge Èpoque, U.S. Girls) and Steve Chahley whilst taking in members of Little Kid and Robin of Bernice. Over the last decade or so, Paas has worked with a number of Toronto-based projects, cementing herself as something of a stalwart in the city – these include (but are in no way limited to) U.S. Girls, Jennifer Castle, Badge Èpoque Ensemble and more.

Anything Can't Happen arrives from Doro's own push/pull relationship with the church, Paas initially felt uncomfortable about religion's utilising of music to control people and their emotions – now, however, Paas wants to tap into that idea, questioning the power and ability that music has to cause transcendence.

I find her way with lyrics to be pretty compelling, offering these fairy straight forward observations but embedding them with this universal wisdom which to me feels quite a feat given it's only her debut record – there's a lot more depth to this than the debut would necessarily suggest.

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The Backstays - Forever Gold Bricks.

"When the pieces first came together, it was about trying to escape but never being able to move on; like chasing after something intangible,” said The Backstays’ Serenna Chapman of single ‘Forever Gold Bricks.’ “I'd say this is a cautionary tale about how running away, towards empty, superficial things ultimately never works."

That push and pull mark the defining faultline of Tributaries, The Backstays’ debut album (released 05/01). A meeting point between heartland rock songwriting and darker, atmospheric indie rock, Tributaries sees the band experimenting with a more expansive sound that equally evokes new wave and post-punk.

"’Forever Gold Bricks’ is meant to be part of the ebb and flow of the album,” said The Backstays’ Pete Johnston (he/him). “Because so much of making this record was us learning how to fit these different sonic elements together, we wanted to take each song somewhere new, to see what sounds lent themselves to different stories."

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Izzy Gazelle - DOWN.

Emerging artist, Izzy Gazelle makes her way onto the rock scene with raw passion. Her new single “DOWN” is determined to cut out all the unnecessary noise. The hard-hitting track is released today May 4 on music streaming platforms.

Written and produced by Izzy, “DOWN” was inspired by the current sociopolitical climate. She says, “I think we're in a place in history where we have an abundance of information, some of which can be misleading around political or social justice issues and so I want this song to promote the idea of standing up for one’s self and staying curious about the facts and truths as opposed to being mere consumers of information." Her vocals are raw and reinforce her message with urgency, singing “Do you wanna get on your knees?... Don't you let me down,” amping up the bass and rhythmic riffs on the drums. She’s made the choices clear—fall at the mercy of deception or stand against it.

Izzy Gazelle is an artist based in Boston, Massachusetts. She describes her sound as a combination of raw rock & roll and blues with extra sauce. She cites Howlin’ Wolf, Tina Turner, Led Zeppelin, James Brown, Queens of the Stone Age, Bad Brains, and Jimi Hendrix among her influences. Izzy kick-started her music career in 2019 with a vibey stripped-down psychedelic rock cover of Post Malone’s “Sunflower”. She followed up with a dramatic slow-building, thought-provoking “sleep tonight” single in the wake of George Floyd protests and social injustice in 2020.  A modern DIY artist, she writes and produces to fully establish her vision. She is currently writing new material.

“To me, it’s about making good noise and bringing good vibes— the good, the bad, and the ugly even when it makes us uncomfortable.” says Izzy.

Izzy Gazelle · DOWN

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Wy - Dorothea Paas - Sophia Fracassi - De Arma

Wy - Window.

Wy are a band strongest at their most vulnerable. The Malmö indie duo, Ebba and Michel Gustafsson Ågren, have showcased their musical skills across two albums, 2017’s Okay and 2019’s Softie which gained them recognition from KEXP, Line of Best Fit, NBHAP, Tonspion, CLASH and more as well as tours in Germany, Scandinavia and the UK. But what makes them stand out as a band is the raw, brutal emotion they capture in their music.

A Wy song at their best sounds like opening it all up, and letting the feelings flow where they will, letting the pain, anger, fear, hope and love steer the song. Those emotions are spun into the band’s skyscaping, cinematic sound, and turned into music that has a force behind it, a power that hits you, even when it's at its softest. And that power that illuminates the band’s songs is more present than ever on their new album Marriage which is out on May 7th, Window is the fourth single.

Marriage is the first record since signing to Rama Lama Records (Melby, Steve Buscemi's Dreamy Eyes, Chez Ali etc.) and the  sound of Wy moving forward and backwards at once. Leaving the more produced style of last album Softie behind, it turns to the simpler sound of their earlier work for music that’s rawer and sharper. On both the indie-rock and the pop songs of this album, there’s less between the listener and the heart of the song - this is music that’s very direct, both in theme and sound, with melodies that hit cleanly and leave nothing even trying to hide. It’s the work of a band that have grown into themselves and what they do, and making the strongest songs of their career.

That album, in a way, begins with a wedding. Ebba and Michel have been together since their schooldays, but a couple of years ago they tied the knot. The songs on Marriage have all been made since their wedding, and so in that sense the timing made it a natural title for a record that’s something of a scrapbook from the first two years of that marriage. But there’s also a deeper sense to it. Both in sound and theme, Marriage is more of a conceptual record than their earlier work. Ebba writes the band’s lyrics, and on the previous albums her themes were specific to her. 

But on this album, their relationship is at the heart of the songs. The lyrics have come from the experiences they’ve shared together, which they’ve then worked together into what they want to say, to each other and to everyone else.  “I have always written the lyrics”, says Ebba. “But this time they feel like our lyrics, and not just my diary set to our music. We've talked a lot with each other about what we want to say. About who we are and where we can find our place in the world. The title has been in place since we started, and that was because a lot of the songs revolved around our relationship since we got married. Not so much the relationship between us, but more about the internal conflicts that appear when you’re in a long-term, safe relationship, where you’re really sure about each other, but you’re not sure about yourself”.

The journey to the record has been a difficult one. The band started work on Marriage not intending to make an album. They went into the studio with the idea of making an EP, wrote some songs, but couldn’t quite nail what they were going for - the songs didn’t quite feel right together. So they went into overdrive, wrote a bunch more songs, and suddenly found themselves with over 20, and within those 20 what they realised was an album.

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Dorothea Paas - Container.

Beloved Canadian songwriter, Dorothea Paas is today sharing "Container", the latest single to be taken from her forthcoming debut album, Anything Can't Happen which is set for release via Telephone Explosion Records on May 7, 2021. "Container" follows off the back of the album-titled single which earned praise earlier this month from FLOOD, NPR, The Line of Best Fit (Song of the Day), Exclaim and more. You can listen to the new single here.

For over a decade, Paas has played her unique, prismatic style of folk songcraft for audiences across North America, and lent her talents as a guitarist and vocalist to artists including Jennifer Castle, U.S. Girls, and Badge Époque Ensemble. The songs on this album have been a long time coming, transforming through a near-infinite number of forms whilst being performed at house shows and in sold-out venues. All of this makes Anything Can’t Happen feel far more mature and complex than a debut album. It’s a statement of purpose, the next step in a decade-long process of artistic growth and evolution, and a bridge between the DIY style of Paas’s previous cassette releases and a more refined studio sensibility.

Recorded between Hamilton, ON, and Toronto, and mixed by Max Turnbull (Badge Époque Ensemble and U.S. Girls) and Steve Chahley, these songs bring a diverse range of musical influences into the conversation: inflected with the layered reverberations of Grouper, shot through with the piercing harmonies of the Roches, electrified with the searing energy of Sonic Youth. You can hear Neil Young in its surges of grittiness; Joni Mitchell’s Hejira in the album’s lyrics and Fairport Convention in Paas’s voice. The influence of Stevie Wonder – one of Paas’s greatest musical role models – is present too, in the album’s conceptual foundations.

"I think of many of my songs as "love songs about not being in love"," explains Paas of the warm, intimate new single, "Container", whose melody was inspired by Karen Dalton’s “Something on your Mind". “That song has such a home in the main chord,” she continues. "I wanted my song to have a sense of ‘home’ to continually re-center the stream-of-consciousness lyrics that take the listener around the spiral. The chords and vocal melodies wander, but we always return to the warm C chord to move us possibly toward some conclusion, or maybe ground us as we move further into the question."

"I can drift away from it, but I always have to return.” That coming-home is reflected in the lyrics in an unexpected way: “It’s a love song about anxiety and the lifelong relationship that I have with it. Will it ever evaporate, or is it mine forever? And then: Of course, it’s always going to be mine.”

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Sophia Fracassi - Wish I Never Met You.

Ontario based singer/songwriter Sophia Fracassi makes melodic, emotive and passionate contemporary pop with skill far beyond her years. 

Her music is heavily piano driven with vocals that draw on eleven years of voice training and an impressive mezzo soprano range. Almost as soon as she could speak, Sophia was singing. 

At five years old, she began performing for large audiences, and at nine years old she wrote her first song. Now, at just sixteen, she has the uncanny ability to create music that speaks to the experiences that unite us as human beings. 

Raw, honest and heartfelt, the listener is invited to share in the sentiment of each song and claim it as their own.Currently working in the studio to bring her songs to life, Sophia is on the cusp of promising future in Canadian music.

Sophia Fracassi · Wish I Never Met You

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De Arma - Illusions Of Love.

De Arma have released 'Illusions of Love' as the first single taken from their forthcoming album "Strayed in Shadows", which is slated for release on June 25, 2021. The Swedish goth rockers also reveal cover art, tracklist, and further details of their sophomore full-length.

De Arma comment: "We never had any serious intentions to write a ballad, but I guess that many might want to place this song into that box", remarks Andreas Pettersson. "It is simply a song about being delusional about love and the feeling of being in love with something that is actually not there. The longing for something that you wish for, but that will never appear. It is just love. For good or for worse."

Melancholy is a delicate matter. This haunting emotion can in one moment sting unbearably painful yet at other times even deliver a bittersweet pleasure to the afflicted. Yet there can be no doubt that this feeling permeates all of the songs on DE ARMA's sophomore full-length "Strayed in Shadows" in one way or the other. And while the Swedes shift musically in and out and between melancholic metal, gothic rock, shoegaze, and even post-punk, melancholy remains the duo's anchor point.

Although geography is often overrated in the interpretation of music, there is no denying that long winters' darkness high up North seems to have an effect on artists. Frontman Andreas Pettersson hails from Arvisjaur in the historic Swedish province of Lappland and drummer Johan Marklund lives in the the town of Skellefteå, which lies just across the Gulf of Bothnia to the west of the Finnish town of Oulo – home of such renowned brothers in melancholic spirit as SENTENCED and CHARON. The North is leaving a dark mark on its people.

On "Strayed in Shadows" the line-up has undergone a significant change. In the place of FEN and FELLWARDEN mastermind Frank "The Watcher" Allain, who sang on the album debut "Lost, Alien & Forlorn" (2013), guitarist and bass-player Andreas Pettersson, who founded DE ARMA in 2009, took over vocal duties as he already does in STILLA among other bands. This decision was partly caused by the extremely personal nature of his lyrics for "Strayed in Shadows". Those, who have followed the many bands and projects of this very creative Swede might be surprised by his vocal expression in the album, which is supported by the beautiful guest performance of Maria Oja on the tracks 'Illusions of Love' and 'Days Of Judgement' – a constellation inviting comparison with acts such as ANATHEMA and ANTIMATTER.

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Clea Anaïs - Electric Religious - Dorothea Paas - Kyle McKearney

Clea Anaïs - Hazy Days.

Calgary musician & RALEIGH co-founder Clea Anaïs returns to music today with the release of her debut solo single, “Hazy Days.” Anaïs had taken a break from music to pursue a career in aviation. COVID-19 had other plans. With the world in a pandemic lockdown, Anaïs' focus returned to her first love… music.

Discussing “Hazy Days,” Anaïs stated, “'Hazy Days' captures that moment when you meet a new person and know simultaneously you love each other, but that no matter how things play out you won't move forward in this life together. It is about the practice of really being present with someone, because the second you let go, time will catapult you forward again, and the moment will be lost forever.During the second verse, I imagine the tailors of time embodied by wise deities in the original gardens. I envision them spinning the tapestry of fate from delicate spider web timelines. The track stretches and plays with our perception and relationship with time and reality. ‘Hazy Days’ feels like a brief flash of summers past, and I hope the listener is transported to a nostalgic moment they would like to remember."

A mixed race, multiethnic artist, Clea was raised in Calgary by a Mauritian dancer, and a British painter, Clea’s compositions center on two things: her multifaceted artistic sensibility, and an emotional intelligence as sharp as a shard of bright-colored crystal. Clea creates art that moves in interesting ways, and through this there are moments when she is vulnerable, and those moments move you because they are some special combination of being listenable, evoking thought/memory, and feeling new.

Her session work spans many genres, having worked with Richard Reed Parry (Arcade Fire) on his project Music for Heart and Breath, doing residencies at the Banff Centre, and recording with bands like Woodpigeon, 100 Mile House, Reuben and the Dark, and Astral Swans. “Hazy Days” is the first of two singles expected in early 2021, hinting at a full-length album.

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Electric Religious - Catherine.

Electric Religious is the project of Edmonton-based Métis singer-songwriter, Brandon Baker, whose guitar-driven music has been described as “bursting with inspiration, insight, and hope.” 

Deeply influenced by the psychedelic sounds of Jimi Hendrix, Baker took his moniker from a Hendrix quote: “When I get up on stage, that’s my whole life. That’s my religion. My music is electric church music. I am electric religion.” The debut Electric Religious album, Yeah, Yeah, No (2018) featured the single “Revolution,” which achieved a coveted spot in the CBC Searchlight Top 100 in 2019, and spent multiple weeks at #1 on the Indigenous Music Countdown. 

A virtuosic guitar player whose live performances are undeniably impressive, Baker has performed for audiences as large as 50,000 during the opening ceremonies for Red Bull Crashed Ice, which was broadcast to over 1.7 million viewers. Other accolades for Electric Religious include an “Artist to Watch” nomination at the Edmonton Music Awards (2015), and a nomination for Aboriginal Artist of the Year in Baker’s home province of Saskatchewan (2009).

Electric Religious · Catherine

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Dorothea Paas - Anything Can't Happen.

Beloved Canadian songwriter, Dorothea Paas is today sharing her new single, "Anything Can't Happen" alongside which she is announcing her long-awaited debut album, also titled Anything Can't Happen and set for release via Telephone Explosion Records on May 7, 2021. For over a decade, Paas has played her unique, prismatic style of folk songcraft for audiences across North America, and lent her talents as a guitarist and vocalist to artists including Jennifer Castle, U.S. Girls, and Badge Époque Ensemble. The songs on this album have been a long time coming, transforming through a near-infinite number of forms whilst being performed at house shows and in sold-out venues.

All of this makes Anything Can’t Happen feel far more mature and complex than a debut album. It’s a statement of purpose, the next step in a decade-long process of artistic growth and evolution, and a bridge between the DIY style of Paas’s previous cassette releases and a more refined studio sensibility. Recorded between Hamilton, ON, and Toronto, and mixed by Max Turnbull (Badge Époque Ensemble and U.S. Girls) and Steve Chahley, these songs bring a diverse range of musical influences into the conversation: inflected with the layered reverberations of Grouper, shot through with the piercing harmonies of the Roches, electrified with the searing energy of Sonic Youth. You can hear Neil Young in the grittiness of the title track’s guitar; Joni Mitchell’s Hejira in the album’s lyrics, Fairport Convention in Paas’s voice. The influence of Stevie Wonder – one of Paas’s greatest musical role models – is present too, in the album’s conceptual foundations.

This first album-titled single is a meditation on trust at three levels – in relationships, in the self, and existential trust in the future. In tandem with these ideas, the music, which draws on off-kilter percussion fused with Paas's silvery vocal and guitar work, moves from rhythmic and confrontational, to drifting and introspective, and finally comes to an anthemic, euphoric conclusion.

The refrain "anything can happen at any time" is sung with confidence, but its meaning is ambiguous. Layered guitars, stacked harmonies, and heaven-bound synths feel big and bolstering, while also carrying a wide range of emotional possibilities including abandon, joy, fear, and grief.

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Kyle McKearney - Devil Water.

Kyle McKearney is a well-accomplished artist & songwriter; ready to take the world on with his unique, modern-vintage, Americana sound.

Born and raised in small-town northern BC (Canada), Kyle grew up surrounded by family and their love of Country & Bluegrass music. After high school, Kyle had the opportunity to move to Nashville, TN, where he spent his days submersed in learning how classic Country and Rockabilly songs were crafted. He eventually made his way back to Canada and settled in Calgary, AB, where him and his brother Shade started a band together. It was then that Kyle really dug in, and started perfecting his skills in: singing, songwriting, all aspects of recording, touring and performing, which have led to being a full time career.

Over the years, Kyle’s been a part of a few successful projects that found him: co-writing a song with Roger Taylor (of the legendary band, QUEEN), on a national tour with Nick Carter (the Backstreet Boy), along with garnering three Top 20 CHR/Top 40 hit songs on Canadian commercial radio, a top 30 at Pop/Hot AC radio, a Top 30 on Active Rock radio, and a Canadian Radio Music Award nomination in 2017 (an incredible feat for an independent artist).

He spent 6 months of 2019 on the road, playing guitar and touring across North America with Queen’s production of “We Will Rock You” the musical; his 15th year of experience in touring. To date, he has sold over 35,000 digital units equivalent.

Kyle has also co-produced all of his new music with Russell Broom (Paul McCartney, Jan Arden, George Canyon, Brett Kissell) and has just released his debut single “Devil Water.”

Kyle McKearney · Devil Water

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