Opening the album 'From the Balustrade', 'The First Thing' is a song about vulnerability, restraint and the search for authenticity. Its refrain – "The first thing is keep yourself at bay" – offers an unexpected piece of advice: not to withdraw from life, but to resist performance, certainty and the temptation to lose oneself in appearances. It suggests that stepping back can sometimes be the first step towards genuine connection.
Blending spoken word with song, 'The First Thing' unfolds through fragments of memory and recurring images: pines, birds, dawn, a strange star at the end of the road. Rather than resolving into a fixed narrative, these images remain deliberately open, inviting the listener to inhabit the song's atmosphere rather than decipher its meaning.
Carried by a warm yet haunting arrangement, with echoes of French chanson and the rhythmic directness of spoken poetry, 'The First Thing' establishes the emotional landscape of 'From the Balustrade': a world where tenderness and uncertainty coexist, and where moments of intimacy are inseparable from the fear of losing oneself within them.
Christian Wethered is a songwriter and poet based in Dublin. His music sits at the intersection of alternative folk, chanson and more experimental sound worlds. His influences include Leonard Cohen, Serge Gainsbourg, Fionn Regan and Laura Marling.
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Marsy announce their new EP Miss Wave, out November 20 via Heavenly Recordings, alongside the release of its title track. One part bucolic folk, one part Wire-esque angular rock ’n’ roll and five parts magic, “Miss Wave” introduces a young band finding confidence in their own weird selves.
From the track’s hypnotic, metronomic drone to the haunted dancehall of “My Old Guy” and the beautiful harmonic overdrive of “All My Love,” the EP captures Marsy finding their own sense of confidence and cohesion—and letting it guide them onwards and upwards.
Wrap up warm, play loud and prepare to fall in love.
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| Photo - Michael Koshkin |
James Felice released “Midflight,” this week the second song to be released from his sophomore album Homeworld Blue that will be released on November 13 via Conor Oberst’s Million Stars Records. Produced by Nate Walcott of Bright Eyes, “Midflight” captures the expansive sound of Felice’s sophomore album, which builds on the intimate world of his debut with lush orchestration, pounding piano, brass and strings, while continuing his lifelong fascination with the small, strange and deeply human stories unfolding against the vastness of the universe.
About the song, Felice explains, “This is a big swing! Pretty far outside my wheelhouse as a writer and musician. But this song was rattling in there somewhere and I needed to get it out, despite my shortcomings…despite my reach always and forever exceeding my grasp. But listen to Nate Walcott’s plangent and vivid orchestration. That is what makes this track speak and slither. There is detail and thoughtfulness and exploration on this track…from the opening cascading strings, to the delicate pizzicato of the verse, to the final culminating wild exclamation at the tail end. If any songs can be considered alive, I’d submit this one into the taxonomical record.”
Nate Walcott adds, “This was one of my favorite songs to work on on this record. James’s vision was clear and before we got to work he was saying something about waking up while falling from the sky and miles of xylophones. So I had to pull out all the stops on this one - full orchestra along with harp, timpani, the works. When it got to the mile of xylophones part I wanted it to feel like the speakers were going to explode sort of like in the audacious apex of the first movement of Berlioz’s Symphony Fantastique. That’s not the easiest thing to aim for but I’m grateful for James trusting me to go for it and for gifting the world this song.”
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| Photo - Peter Thor |
Vancouver, BC-based band runner share “My Man,” a playful, wistful country song about leaving one relationship and finding another waiting around the corner. Warm and easygoing, with a touch of romantic nostalgia, the track captures that strange in-between period when one chapter has barely closed and you’re already learning the small, intimate details of somebody new.
Singer-songwriter Kira Cuthbertson wrote the song while coming out of one relationship and entering another, reflecting on how quickly romantic lives can change, and how sometimes it’s better to enjoy the experience than search too hard for greater meaning.
“I was thinking about how there’s always someone around the corner if one relationship ends,” Kira explains. “I was feeling like I was just moving on from one to the next but also having fun and trying not to take any of it too seriously.”
That lightness comes through in one of Kira’s favourite lyrics: “How do you take your eggs?” It’s a deliberately ordinary question that captures something much bigger about the beginning of a relationship, when getting to know somebody often means accumulating tiny pieces of information that gradually turn a stranger into someone familiar.
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| Photo - Alexander Tamargo |
British-American trio Raynes are celebrating the release of their debut album Radio Remind Me, out now. The 10-track collection follows the theme and exploration of time, memory, and nostalgia (or anemoia). Aesthetically, the album draws from the design principles of the Art Nouveau movement of the early 1900s, both visually and sonically—in the same way that practitioners of Art Nouveau created organic and beautiful art with man-made materials.
Raynes’ intention in creating Radio Remind Me was to make organic and beautiful music with vintage synthesizers, electronic drums, and more electric guitars than ever. Radio Remind Me was produced by Mat Charley of Raynes and co-produced and mixed by GRAMMY award-winning engineer Chris Sclafani (The Weeknd, Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande).
“Radio Remind Me is an album built on our belief that people still care about music. That maybe sounds a little strange to say (obviously people still care about music!), but it’s become incredibly easy to shuffle and skip our way through life, constantly hearing songs but rarely really listening.
We’ve constructed this album very deliberately. Every aspect of it, from the lyrics to the arrangements to the track list itself, is designed to work together to create a complete work of art. There’s a reason the first track is the first track; there’s a reason the last track is the last track.” – Raynes.
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As anticipation builds toward the release of his 2027 full-length debut album Losing Time, D.B. Tait has offered another preview in the form of “Where Are You Going Now,” a woozy, country ballad highlighted by Tait’s soaring vocals, which, combined with Allison Burke’s supporting voice, build into the sound of a full-blown choir. The song continues to establish the Canadian singer-songwriter based in Prince Edward County, Ontario as a northern contemporary of the new generation of alt-country artists led by MJ Lenderman, Greg Freeman and others.
Tait explains, “I started to write ‘Where Are You Going Now’ a handful of years ago when my grandfather was going through dementia, and seeing the brilliant man he was begin to slip away. Like many of the songs I write, it's not meant to be specific to just that, but to any relationship that you feel drifting away. Musically, it is probably the closest thing to a traditional country song that I have ever written, at least instrumentally, with lots of steel guitar and a focus on more acoustic sounds.”
As with Tait’s previous 2026 singles “Before You Go” and “Nothing To Lose,” “Where Are You Going Now” was largely recorded in his home studio, with Tait tracking most of the guitars and vocals on his own. Close collaborators Ian Roantree and Mitch Cory from the band Kojak added overdubs, while fellow Prince Edward County singer-songwriter and Littleknown Records head David James Allen handled the mix.
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| Photo - Alea Doronsky |
Night Teacher has shared a new single produced by Katie Von Schleicher (Cassandra Jenkins, Frankie Cosmos, Lady Lamb). “Reckless” opens on the earthy pluck of a banjo and a vividly recalled meet-cute. Songwriter Lilly Bechtel conjures a fond but somewhat ominous feeling, her memory unfolding with autumnal moodiness.
We met in November, when the deer get reckless
You told me in yellow leaves
How their desire for life for a little while
Outruns the fear of dying
“It’s about meeting someone in the small Virginia town I grew up in, and navigating the double-edged sword of shared history,” shares singer and songwriter Lilly Bechtel. “It’s about the challenge of finding new ways of being in a small hometown where old, familiar voices can feel at times stabilizing and other times limiting. It’s about my struggle to separate my fear of getting hurt from legitimate warning signs as I puzzle through who and what to believe, and the tension between a deep desire to have a new experience without ignoring the wisdom—or dangers—of the past.”
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| Photo - Travis Nesbitt |
After leaving an indelible impression with their previous single “Kenwood,” Rosina Cove follows it up with another expansive and inspiring song, “Don’t Forget.” Both tracks will be on the band’s full-length album Left Of Me, out Jan. 15, 2027. “Don’t Forget” once again displays the Edmonton, Alberta modern folk-rock collective’s big-hearted Canadiana sound, based around the core trio of lead vocalist/guitarist Peter Stone, vocalist Vicky Berg and lead guitarist Drew Malcolm.
In a joint statement, the group says, “‘Don’t Forget’ continues the theme of healing and returning to self that ‘Kenwood’ introduced. At its centre is a reminder to hold on to your sense of self through periods of change and to stay close to the people who recognize and hold space for who you are.
“Throughout the project, the idea of rebuilding is explored not as a complete reinvention, but as a process of remembering—of finding your way back to the pieces of yourself that remain beneath the weight of change, trauma, loss, and personal transformation. Sometimes, it means returning to who you were before the world and others asked you to be anything else; rebuilding isn’t always about becoming someone new, but rediscovering the parts of yourself you may have lost along the way.”
Rosina Cove debuted in 2023 with the album Someday We Will Make It There, and have fully matured on Left Of Me with an intoxicating blend of bright jangle-pop and cinematic folk-rock, highlighted by expressive harmonies and sparkling production courtesy of Harry Gregg, also a member of Juno nominees Second Hand Dreamcar.
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