photo by Cotey Pope
Big Daniel Romano news today!
A new song, “Empty Husk”, from a new album (Finally Free - due out November 30th), and a tour announcement!
He’ll be in Vancouver on February 25th at the Biltmore, which will give you plenty of time to listen to the new record, starting with today’s song (and video!) below…
Good news: Young Galaxy just released a brand new song called “Future“, just ahead of their upcoming EP, Snow Leopard!
Bad News: They also announced they are going on the dreaded “indefinite hiatus”.
Silver lining: While it may be the end of Young Galaxy, there will still be creative endeavours coming from the minds of Catherine McCandless and Stephen Ramsay. In a statement released with the single, they said:
Young Galaxy has been the singular site of all our creative coordinates since 2006. Generatively, as source, as the conduit for all our content, and as the bloom of each album cycle, it is the flower we have presented to all those who want to listen, see, and appreciate.
YG has had a linear movement until now with Stephen and I as it’s central driving force. And to satisfy our need to change and be challenged, each album bloomed differently than the last with loved and varied people to help present it. But now the two of us see that it is a matter of survival, personally and creatively, that we transform our singular process from its linear movement to multiple processes / branched movements.
Young Galaxy will go on hiatus so that we can go inside, stir it up, and regenerate. There will be many more Ramsay and McCandless blooms but they will have new and varied origins, conduits, and presentations. We both wish to focus on solo work, interdisciplinary collaborations, and ways of presenting content beyond prescribed music industry limitations.
Most of all, we want to thank you, the fans, for your support. To all who have listened, come to our shows and kept in touch, you have truly been the reason we have continued to love doing this and believe in it, through the ups and downs of these past 12 years. Thank you again.
We will have lots to announce in the coming months. We will see you soon.
caterpillar to butterfly
As sad as this is to hear, I am very much looking forward to what they’re up to in the future. McCandless has one of the best voices in Canada, and it would be a shame not to hear it again.
With her new album out at the end of the week, Chersea is giving one last sneak peek with the song “I Can’t Be You”.
Said to be her most heartfelt track on the album In Limbo, her fragile voice carries the song to an intensely emotional ending, as it “explores gas-lighting – the manipulation of someone through psychological means into questioning their own sanity. The affected person views their emotional situation through a distorted lens, and becomes willing to sacrifice their own happiness and health to conform to the flawed perspective,” Chersea says. “The effect of that sacrifice allows the cycle to continue and in the process, one loses their individuality, as well as their grip of reality. “I Can’t Be You” follows that journey of the victim trying to reconcile his or her own thoughts about the situation. As they begin to discern that it’s not their fault, they realize that their desperation is only a by-product of codependsey. They have been under the illusion that their identity requires outside validation. Acknowledging that they will no longer be the product of their partner’s gas-lighting, helplessness transforms into a proclamation of inner validation: “I can’t be me” becomes “I Can’t Be You.””
More new tunes from Vancouver’s own The Pack A.D. who are currently out on tour in Ontario and are heading this way.
The duo play a free show at Neptoon Records on September 30th, where they’ll be playing songs from their album Tintype, as they will be reissuing it!
But right now, you can watch the video for their song “Woke Up Weird”, which is off of their latest record Dollhouse, below!
Last week we got the first tease of the upcoming album from Alexandria Maillot.
“Make It Out” is a slow-burner that builds to an intense finish, and she says the song is about “the struggle of an artist trying to find their way back to their creative lifeline.”
Check it out below!
Just when you thought a band named Mounties couldn’t get any more Canadian, they release “Canoe Song”.
The mega-combo of Hawksley Workman, Ryan Dahle, and Steve Bays are back with a tease for their upcoming album with a song I guarantee will be lodged in your brain for the rest of the day.
photo by Holly Chang
After his song “Troubled Mind” came out in June, I’ve been waiting for the new Dan Mangan album to be announced, and now we have it!
More or Less will be released on November 2nd via Arts & Crafts, and we also got another single, this one called “Just Fear”, which came with a lyric video, which you can see below!
What better way to get ready to see We Are The City tonight at the Vogue (as a part of the Westward Festival) than with their new song “Mid-Tempo Drama”.
The aptly-named slowburner features distorted vocals, and a video following singer Cayne Mckenzie driving from dusk through the night until… well, you’ll have to watch it to find out.
Also, rumour has it that they’ll have some vinyl of the upcoming album At Night at the Vogue tonight, well ahead of the October 5th release date.