Songs of the Week: September 22 - 28, 2025

September 29, 2025 by Christine McAvoy in Song Of The Day, Songs Of The Week

“The Bridge” by Bahamas

This week Bahamas announced a new album titled My Second Last Album (I sure hope it’s not!) and released the first track from it, “The Bridge”.

His previous album Bootcut saw Afie lean into country music, and if this new track is any indication, we’re getting back to classic Bahamas sound. Featuring light flute and catchy bass licks, the dreamy tune is accompanied by an equally dreamy video featuring his family walking and frolicking along the water together.

The new album will be released on October 24th and I cannot wait to hear the rest of the music!

Christine

“Rusty Mountain” by Neko Case

Neko Case released her new album, Neon Grey Midnight Green, last Friday and ahead of that gave one last tease with “Rusty Mountain”.

The new single is a gorgeous, sprawling song with Case’s iconic voice joined by swirling strings, as she insists “We all deserve better than some love song.”

Neon Grey Midnight Green is available now everywhere, and this week Case embarks on a massive North American tour, which includes a show here at the Vogue on November 13!

Kirk

“Skin Of My Teeth” by The Strumbellas

The Stumbellas new song “Skin Of My Teeth” follows up the singles “Hard Lines” and “Maybe It’s Me” from their recently announced new EP Burning Bridges Into Dust (due October 24).

The band’s Dave Ritter says: “‘Skin of My Teeth’ is about how it feels to hold tight to a dream. Obstacles, doubts, and disappointments make you want to quit. They make your dreams feel heavy, or worse, ridiculous, like everyone can see that you’re a fool to keep trying. But hope clings like a spider’s thread, and as the creeping keys and spy-movie guitars break into the chorus, we feel the grit and determination that convinces you never to give up.”

The band is hitting the road to celebrate the new album starting in November, and the Vancouver stop is on December 7th at the Commodore Ballroom.

Christine

“Burn After Reading” by Dust Cwaine

Speaking of new album released last week, Vancouver’s Dust Cwaine released their latest Twin Lakes, and celebrated with a new video for “Burn After Reading”

The song follows the album’s theme of thoughtful, introspective lyrics informed by Cwain’s past, paired with incredibly catchy music; the chorus for this one will be stuck in your head all day.

Check out the video below, directed by Cole Schmidt, and make sure to catch the Dust Cwain album release party this Thursday (Oct 2) at the Fox Cabaret!

Kirk

Songs of the Week: July 21 - 27, 2025

July 28, 2025 by Christine McAvoy in Song Of The Day, Songs Of The Week

“Twin Lakes” by Dust Cwaine

Vancouver drag performer and indie-pop rocker Dust Cwaine just dropped the second single off their upcoming album with the title track, “Twin Lakes”

With a frenetic urgency to it, the new song is about Dust growing up in the Kootenays & the passing of their father, as they explain: “I wrote this song about growing up in an isolated community, and the pain of being further isolated from the people within it. I realized that in death, my father had bypassed any chance to be held accountable for the things he put me through. This song imagines what it might have been like to finally say what needed to be said.”

Still no release date for the album, but you can check out the video below — directed by Luke Beach Brown & filmed at the Britannia Mine Museum — below!

Kirk

“Caught Light” by Great Lake Swimmers

The new album from Great Lake Swimmers, Caught Light, officially has a released date of October 10th - just in time to kick off their tour with Elliott BROOD!

Last week they released the title track “Caught Light”, which might be my favourite of the new music so far. The press release makes reference to photography (quite literally catching light), which as the photographer around here I can appreciate.

As for the song itself, singer Tony Dekker says it is about “a skydiver who strays off course while in the air, and then takes stock of his surroundings while on the ground in unfamiliar territory. The ‘caught light’ of the song has multiple meanings, in that it implies the metaphor of a mirror reflecting one’s life back to one’s self; the photographic aspect of light being ‘caught’ on paper and creating a physical document of the ephemeral; and also the discovery of a lack or a low reservoir, being ‘light’ on what is needed to make meaningful sense of the predicament of being lost.”

More songs with photography metaphors please!

Christine

“Lost Without You” by Luca Fogale

I have a playlist that is simply called “Morning” that I listen to almost every morning when I’m camping, and when Luca’s song “I Don’t Want To Lose You” comes on I stop whatever I’m doing and just listen to it.

When I saw the words “Luca Fogale” and “Piano Ballad” I knew I was going to love this new track immediately and I wasn’t wrong.

“Lost Without You” is beautiful, elegant and heartfelt - it tugs at my imposter-syndrome when it comes to relationships. Luca says: “I wrote ‘Lost Without You’ as honestly as I possibly could and the result was a song about accepting love at a time when I was not fully able to accept some parts of myself, in the hopes of finding a way to dismantle the patterns of thought that have held me down.”

This is his third single of 2025, so I’m hoping that means even more is coming out soon!

Christine

“midnight magic” by Ada Lea

We’re only a couple weeks away from the release of Ada Lea’s new album, when i paint my masterpiece, as she releases the third single from it with “midnight magic”.

The ethereal song is is accompanied not only by a surreal video, but a painting as well. Alexandra Levy painted it herself, and then collaborated with visual artist Clarice Hana to bring it to life in a video where “a giant creature woman births a candlestick holder, a cloud-sized egg, a piano, an enormous tube of paint and finally, she gives birth to me,” Levy explains. “The OBGYN has 4 eyes and uses 3-foot scissors to cut the cord.”

You are definitely going to need to check out the video below, and then keep a look out for when i paint my masterpiece on August 8th. Ada Lea is also hitting the road this fall for a massive tour, which includes a stop here in Vancouver on October 25th at the Kingsway Club!

Kirk

“itero” by bloom effect

Last week the Vancouver-based transatlantic trio bloom effect announced their upcoming EP oscilón, with the release of the first single, “itero”

The track is an instantly catchy, fuzzy shoegaze jam, which is described as “a melancholic anthem for love that could’ve been.”

Check it out below & let it wash over you, and you can pick up their new EP oscilón on September 19 via Kingfisher Bluez.

Kirk

Songs of the Week: June 02 - 08, 2025

June 09, 2025 by Christine McAvoy in Song Of The Day, Songs Of The Week

“Save Your Soul” and “Say Goodbye, Tell No One” by Kathleen Edwards

Last week Kathleen Edwards graced up with not one, but two brand new singles, while announcing her next album, Billionaire. Both “Save Your Soul” and “Say Goodbye, Tell No One” are classic Kathleen jams, with soaring choruses and sharp, barbed lyrics.

The album was produced by Jason Isbell and Gena Johnson, and Edwards shared, “I decided to call the record Billionaire because the word is used in such a caustic way these days. But we should all want to be billionaires in life, to be rich in experience, friendship, purpose, and the pursuit of the things that bring us joy.”

If the new songs are any indication, I can’t wait for Billionaire to drop on August 22, (pre-save it here!)

Kirk

“Little Plans” by Dust Cwaine

Vancouver’s Dust Cwaine returns with their latest single “Little Plans”, the lead from their upcoming album, Twin Lakes.

Co-written by Hotel Mira’s Charlie Kerr, the song is an upbeat, synth-rock banger, which Dust explains is “a T4T love story that celebrates the joy of trans love. I wrote it in my living room with my friend Charlie Kerr. I was excited about the new person I was seeing, and this potential for transformation and magic seemed to be all around me. I told him I was so in love that every time I saw this person, I refused to wash my hands after they left so the scent would linger. That excitement of new love, and that particular power that T4T love brings, can take the everyday minutiae of your life and transform it into something you would have never thought was possible.”

The album is out later this year, but you can watch Dust slowly twirling through some familiar Vancouver locations in the video below!

Kirk

“Peter and the Wolf” by Patrick Watson

We’ve been getting a few singles and teasers from Patrick Watson, but officially have an album announcement - Uh Oh will be released on September 26th!

Little bit about the album from the press release: “The eleven new, original songs find Watson meditating on the idea of life being a series of “uh ohs”, a little phrase uttered in response to everything from childhood accidents to our most overwhelming anxieties. For Watson, it came to mind when faced with the biggest “uh oh” that a singer could endure: he lost his voice. Unsure if or when he would be able to sing again, his new album took a new shape. A collection of collaborations with friends and strangers; artists that he wanted to hear sing. Uh Oh represents a vision that Watson has chased for his entire life, the culmination of 20 years of musical exploration and lived experience that enabled him to translate the films in his mind to the sounds and words swirling in your ears.”

The new track “Peter and the Wolf” doesn’t have a collaborating vocalist, it’s an eerie and dark tune “inspired by the ghosts of New Orleans and the pitch black-ness of being in the forest in the dark”.

Christine

“Eye Of The Storm” by Georgia Harmer

Georgia Harmer has been releasing a steady stream of music this year, and now we finally get news of an album release, with the release of the title track “Eye of the Storm”.

The soft, intimate song highlights her stellar vocals, and Harmer says it’s “about the feeling of carrying the weight of someone else's well-being on my shoulders. It's about the feeling of responsibility and helplessness towards the problem of someone else's sadness. It's about emotional labour and my default willingness to take on the feelings of people around me, whether it even helps them or not. And how the weight of that can hold me back from my own life.”

Eye of the Storm is out on August 15th, and below you can check out the very mood-appropriate video — director Norman Wong with cinematography by Tristan C-M. She’s also announced a slew of Canadian tour dates, including here in Vancouver at the Biltmore Cabaret on November 22!

Kirk

“Andy Magoffin” by Two Hours Traffic

I Never See You Anymore, the first album in over a decade from East Coasters Two Hours Traffic, is finally here!

The song was inspired by people and places that the band never sees anymore since they stopped touring full-time - hence the album title.
The song references Two-Minute Miracles’ Andy Magoffin, and a tavern in Sackville they used to perform at that’s now closed.

Filled with sing-a-long-able bah-ba-da-buh-ba’s and a fun guitar solo to close out the song, this one is CATCHY!

Christine

“Headcrusher” by Penny & the Pits

Penny & The Pits is the new project from Maritime musician and Motherhood bassist/keyboardist Penelope Stevens, and last week they shared a new one from their upcoming album, Liquid Compactor.

“Headcrusher” is a raucous surf-punk anthem about “trying to blame yourself for someone else's bad behaviour. But then it's also about refusing to do that anymore and just sending them out to die at sea,” says Penelope Stevens.

Liquid Compactor is out on June 27th, and of course the video is an homage to the beloved Kids in the Hall bit!

Kirk