Songs of the Week: November 10 - 16, 2025

“Right Hand Man” by Katie Tupper

Last week, Katie Tupper announced her debut album Greyhound with the release of her new single “Right Hand Man”

The track showcases her smoky vocals and soulful sound with a funky, upbeat vibe, as Tupper explains “This song is about the weight and pressures someone puts on you in a relationship— when you become someone's only source of happiness and they are vocal about it. It becomes a compromising place to be in and clouds your decision making about the relationship. I am a very independent person and all of my relationships have been independent. This song was about the first time I felt someone acting co-dependent towards me and how difficult I found it.”

Greyhound is out early next year, on January 21, 2026 and you can check out the video for “Right Hand Man” below!

• Kirk

---

“Outsider” by Duke & Goldie

Vancouver duo Duke & Goldie have released their new EP Romance And Ramblin’ and announced a cross-country tour, including a show in Vancouver this Thursday November 20th at the Biltmore with Mallory Chipman, and Janky Bungag.

The pair recorded the new album in Vancouver with a bunch of regulars from the Vancouver country scene including Erik P.H. Nielsen who produced the album as well.

The latest single “Outsider” is about the struggle to belong while still being yourself - "I hope that 'Outsider' reminds listeners that being different is really what country music’s all about," says the band.

• Christine

---

“Daniel’s Theme” by Luca Fogale

Okay, right off the top I have a confession… I’ve finally started watching The Secret Lives Of Mormon Wives (and by watching, I mean it’s on my laptop while I am editing photos).
Why am I bringing this up here? Well, pretty early on in season one, my head snapped SO HARD toward the laptop because I heard a voice and one of my favourite songs - Luca Fogale’s “I Don’t Wanna Lose You”. Anyways, just wanted to say that was cool.

Luca’s just released a new single (“Daniel’s Theme”) from his upcoming album Challenger, which is due out in January.

“Daniel’s Theme” is a pongnant and quick track (clocking in at just over a minute and a half), and as Luca tells it: “Daniel is an archetype of a man that I have met many times throughout my life; one who has faced hurt and hardship and adversity, but who has carried on with deep strength and kindness. [He] endures through every challenge with quiet resolve and is everyone’s champion. It’s a reminder to myself that I don’t have to let the scars of life dictate how I show up in the world.”

I’m so excited for the new album, and even more excited for his show in Vancouver, right after the release, on January 31st at the Hollywood Theatre.

• Christine

---

“What I Don’t Need” by Neil Haverty

Neil Haverty (frontman of Bruce Peninsula) has spent the year releasing a slow drip of new music, and the latest comes with the frenetic new single “What I Don’t Need”

Haverty explains, “The title/refrain are intentionally cagey and avoidant. I’m resistant to being told what to do even if it’s born of love and care for me. When you struggle with decision paralysis, you don’t want to re-litigate the decisions you already managed to make. That said, there’s a lot about oneself that is hard to see personally, but that friends and loved ones can easily spot. This song is about trying to listen to those voices, trying to see yourself as you’re seen and the responsibility to act that sometimes comes with that.”

Have a listen below with the beautiful video from director/animator Luca Tarantini (aka AOK)

• Kirk

Songs of the Week: September 01 - 07, 2025

“Ballad Of The Hockey Enforcer” by The Donzerly Lights

Casey Laforet of Elliott BROOD has a new side project that involves both new music and a magazine!

Purgatouring Volume 1 is a 105-page collection of stories from touring with BROOD over the last 20 years, as well as old photos, “musical opinions”, comics and more. You can pre-order it online now and accompanying it (for free) is an album of the same name (Purgatouring).
The project is called The Donzerly Lights (love this!) and the album has 12 songs that for the majority of the album sees Casey performing and singing almost everything!

I asked Casey if the music or the magazine came first and he told me he had made the record already and they were all basically “road songs”- and that all the lyrics are mixed into the magazine. I’ve already ordered my copy of the mag and cannot wait for it’s arrival!

Now as for the album, I had a hard time choosing which one to feature here (so go listen to the whole thing) but as a huge hockey fan, I knew it had to be “Ballad Of The Hockey Enforcer”.
I’ve always had a soft spot for the tough guys of the past (I had a Tie Domi Leafs jersey) and Casey captures them perfectly in this song, which is also woven with clips of hockey commentary about fights and scrums. Check it out below!

• Christine

---

“3am” by Ashleigh Ball

The Hey Ocean! singer (and acclaimed voice actor!) Ashleigh Ball is back with a brand new solo album! Our Slowest Season was released last week, and sees Ball team with producers Jonathan Anderson and long-time friend/collaborator David Vertesi.

My early favourite off the album is “3am” (for no… particular reason), a dreamy tune which I heard a tease of earlier this year, when Ashleigh opened for Mae Martin at the Vogue!

Have a listen below, and make sure you’re at the album release show on September 29th at the Fox Cabaret!

• Kirk

---

“For” by Luca Fogale

Burnaby’s Luca Fogale has released his fourth single from his upcoming album (hopefully more details on that soon) and it’s aptly titled “For”.

Like much of Luca’s music, it’s beautiful and haunting, and I’ll let him tell you about the track:
“I wrote “For” throughout the course of a few seasons of my life, so while this is at once a song simply about trying to serve what is most important in this life, the narrator (a version of myself) is grappling with understanding the finiteness of time, while desperately wanting to preserve an imagined perfect future, compelled by all of the tenets in the refrain; those which he believes to be most valuable. ‘For honour. For family.’

This version of myself tries to be tireless, resolute, unbreakable, unknowing that he will fail, as he is only human. I recognize inside myself the desire to strive, to achieve, to provide, and in turn I notice how hard I fall when I lose touch with humility and self-acceptance. The narrator is in a race against time and against vulnerability.”

I can’t wait to hear more new music, and if you’re free tomorrow night, Luca is opening for Hollow Coves at Malkin Bowl!

• Christine

---

“Some Days” by Neil Haverty

Last week, Neil Haverty (who you may know as the frontman of Bruce Peninsula) dropped his third new solo single of the year with “Some Days”.

The new track is a synthy, soulful jam about the quiet pressures of daily life, as Haverty elaborates: “I wanted to acknowledge the patterns and discrepancies in how a person can approach each day. Some days are just off. Other days are full of promise and brimming with energy. I’m always interested in the spectrum of variables underneath a topic, and mood is an especially broad playing field for that.”

Have a listen below, and keep an ear out for more new music from Haverty in the near future!

• Kirk

---

“Never Stay Down” by Johnny 99

More new music from Johnny 99 this week!
“Never Stay Down” is the fourth single from an upcoming new album (no word on a album title or release date yet) and while it’s upbeat and I can totally picture people line dancing in my head, it has some deeper meaning.

Johnny says the song: “is about finding yourself at the tail end of a rough patch and realizing the fun part of being self destructive has taken a dark turn. Sometimes when you find yourself at such a crossroads, the light you may have lost sight of now seems to be shining ever brighter. Upon this illumination, picking yourself up and making a course correction no longer seems like such a momentous task. After all, one can always lean on friends and a little bit of fun on the long road back up from the bottom."

Hopefully we get some album release info soon but it the meantime, check out the new song below!

• Christine

---

“16/25” by Softcult

The Ontario-based sibling duo Softcult has just announced their debut full length album, When A Flower Doesn’t Grow, and along with that comes the latest single, “16/25”

The new track has a driving intensity that matches the themes, as its about the predatory behaviour of older men who groom younger women. Mercedes Arn-Horn says “It points out the double-standards and impossible expectations the patriarchy places on young women in our society, and the cognitive dissonance that older men who prey on young female targets perpetuate while trying to possess and control them,”

Check out the video below, and you can pick up the new album, When A Flower Doesn’t Grow, early next year when it releases on January 30th, 2026. You can also catch Softcult on your now, with their current leg wrapping up with a show at The Pearl here in Vancouver on October 16.

• Kirk

Songs of the Week: July 21 - 27, 2025

“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.”

midnight magic by Alexandra Levy

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: October 04 - 10, 2021

“Recklessly” by JEEN

The new album from Toronto’s JEEN comes out in just a couple weeks, and we’re getting one last sneak peek with the latest single “Recklessly”.

It’s a gritty and driving song, with JEEN saying that “After a while, it can be hard to know whether you control your destiny or if your destiny is controlling you. ‘Recklessly’ is for when you can’t tell if you’re moving forward, or falling behind, and when it’s impossible to know where you’ll end up.”

Dog Bite was co-produced by JEEN and legendary Canadian musician Ian Blurton, and drops October 22!

• Kirk

---

“I Give My All” by TITUS BANK

Another new track from TITUS BANK came out this week, and it was co-written with Toronto indie-pop group Valley.
”I Give My All” is about “lovers dealing with distance and embracing the mundane when together”.
In the video, Titus plays the guitar while a projection of home movies is displayed over top of him and on the wall behind him, and it even includes a proposal!
Give it a listen

• Christine

---

“Nothing is Lost” by Luca Fogale

Luca Fogale has released an album of acoustic versions of songs from both is debut and sophomore albums, aptly named Other Ways.
The album also includes a cover of Joni Mitchell’s track “A Case of You”, but the song we have for you today is a wonderful piano ballad version of Luca’s “Nothing is Lost”.
The whole album is definitely worth a listen too - click here to stream it.

• Christine

---

“Jungle Heart” by Adnama

Vancouver musician Adnama released a brand new single last week, “Jungle Heart”.

The tune has a simmering energy with driving bass, and vocals that seem to stalk you like the panther in the artwork.

Have a listen below, and hopefully it’s a sign of more to come soon!

• Kirk

Song of the Day: April 1, 2019 - "Half-Saved" by Luca Fogale

I couldn’t think of a good song to choose for April Fools, so instead you’re going to get a beautiful track by one of my favourite voices (AND a gorgeous video to boot).

Luca Fogale just released a new single “Half-Saved” from his upcoming record, which you can hear below, and will be in town this week on the 3rd and 4th supporting Dermot Kennedy at the Commodore Ballroom.

He’s also scheduled to perform at the Constellation Festival in July in Squamish, so you can listen to the new track and pretending you’re in the summer sunshine listening beneath the Chief.

Song of the Day: November 16, 2017 - "I Don't Want To Lose You" by Luca Fogale

Luca Fogale has one of my favourite voices, and we recently got a new single from him titled "I Don't Want To Lose You" - and last week a video was released as well... you can check it out below.

Luca says the song is "about love, doubt, and the things that fall in between", which I'm sure many people can relate to. Enjoy!