Hailing from Toronto, Augusta is a seven-piece alternative rock band formed in 2022. The group is led by Joe Dent (former band leader of A Fellow Ship), August Jones (Toronto session musician and touring member of The Reklaws, the Pick Brothers band and more), and Zach Stuckey (Toronto session musician and touring member of Anna Sofia, Dani Doucette, and more).
Debut single, “Little Birds,” was written in its entirety during Ontario’s last lockdown. August and Joe took their recording gear and went to the former’s cottage to write music for the week. After spending five days writing songs that will never be shared, the pair finally struck gold in the final 24 hours. Born from an idea that Joe was ready to throw away, they stayed up all night writing from start to finish the song that perfectly sums up Augusta’s musical identity.
Inspired by strong female acts like CHVRCHES and Billie Eilish, Lyzzie is a Toronto-based indie-pop artist with a dark twist. Her songwriting uncovers varying experiences with mental health, and her growth into the person she is today. Music is a powerful tool for healing and her goal is to help as many people as she can feel not as alone in their thoughts.
On her journey to self-discovery and self-love, Lyzzie confronts her pain in “IJWYD” (I Just Want You Dead). “A grown man fell in love with me when I was in high school,” she discloses. “I’ve felt a lot of conflicting emotions surrounding this relationship. I’ve felt disgust and anger but also heartbreak and betrayal. The song is about what I wanted to say to him, but never did at the time. He should know what he did was wrong.”
“IJWYD” is part of her upcoming debut EP. From being on the verge of a mental breakdown and not wanting to tell anyone, to selfish boyfriends, and being taken advantage of, each lyric is authentically her and her story.
Mary Clements is a singer-songwriter based out of Hamilton, ON, who uses her music to explore the world around her. Rooted in piano and voice, her songs can sometimes sound like indie-folk, pop, classical or even country. Her sincere vocals combined with the textures of her production create an experience that is simple and authentic.
Clements wrote her soothing new song, “Bonne Nuit,” to encourage a gentle approach to sleep that’s free of judgment about the day. Featuring both French and English lyrics, “Avec mes peurs et défis, je fais des amis, come with me it’s okay, I’ll help you find your way,” translates to “With my fears and my challenges, I make friends” as an invitation to cultivate self-acceptance of the less comfortable aspects of ourselves and life.
The official music video for this song is filmed, edited and produced by Clements, featuring her singing over a green screen with different dreamy backgrounds, wishing the viewer a ‘bonne nuit’ alongside the range of images they might experience as they fall asleep.
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Clements’ radiant and rich vocals are showcased in her first studio album through sincere and poetic lyrics. This combined with the textures of her arrangements equals a unique and fresh musical experience that is curious and innovative, but approachable. Come With Me is slated for release in November 2022.
Toronto rock band, Goodnight Sunrise, was founded by Vanessa Vakharia (keytar, vocals) and David Kochberg (guitar, vocals) through a shared love of pop hooks and the raw power of classic rock. Since 2011, the band have taken their explosive live show to over 300 audiences across Canada, the US, and Europe, opening up for Bon Jovi, Big Wreck, and The Sheepdogs along the way.
“Footsteps in the Dark” is their most musically ambitious song to date – it’s a mix of real drums and heavily processed samples bouncing from side to side to give a feeling of disorientation over a pulsing bass synth, while guitars appear with an almost heavy metal tone before opening into an anthemic uplifting chorus.
Their dynamic third full-length album, Against All Odds,will be released on October 7, 2022. Produced by Brian Moncarz (Alice Cooper, Circa Survive), mastered by Brian Lucey (Green Day, Arctic Monkeys) and recorded with bassist Duncan Coutts and drummer Jason Pierce of Our Lady Peace.
Goodnight Sunrise started recording this album in February 2020, and continued over the course of 2020-2021. Two and a half years later, the album is finally seeing the light of day, which makes the album title Against All Odds a poignant mantra for the band and listeners – hard times come and go, but persistence and resilience can pay off when you believe in something deeply, including yourself.
“It sounds dramatic and cliche, but we feel like this album is our ‘actualizing potential’ moment,” says David. “When we started this band, we had never really written music before, or actually played our instruments that much, so it took a good decade of experimenting and bumbling our way along trying to get our skill to catch up to our ambition. We’ve had the fortune of learning from all the musicians and producers we’ve worked with along the way, and on this new album Against All Odds we feel we’ve combined our strongest work in songwriting with the most solid production team yet, and can confidently say this is the best record we have ever made.”
Over the past 15 years, Graeme Cornies has contributed to more than 1000 episodes of television, scored documentary features on BBC and National Geographic, contributed to Triple AAA games, and more. Graeme’s latest musical project, Cabin Fever Orchestra is where a lifelong television composer is reversing the usual process.
Visually, this project is a means of exploring the forefront of AI/Human collaboration with generative art. Musically, it has been a means of exploring new musical palette ideas, expanding on orchestration ideas Graeme found while working on other visual media, and has served to expand his network of talented instrumental collaborators.
His new song, “Ever Presence” was another team-up between three very capable composer/producers and includes performances from players from all around the world. Graeme kicked off this piece by writing a basic outline, after which he passed the musical chain-letter on to Joshua Van Tassel (Great Lake Swimmers, Jill Barber, Donovan Woods) to characterize his own new section, based on warping Graeme’s initial parts with a variety of playable machines. After that the musical chain-letter was sent on to Drew Jurecka (Ron Sexsmith, Dua Lipa, Royal Wood), to add the kind of otherworldly string textures and lead lines that add interest and focus to the piece.
When the musical chain-letter returned to Graeme, there was an abundance of great material. Once he re-organized parts and incorporated everything into a final form, Graeme wrote additional parts for a string quartet, flute and French horn, which were recorded live with players from Prague, the US, the UK, and Brazil in a slew of individual sessions with each player recording in their studio from their own location. After the live performances had been captured, Graeme incorporated their parts into the mix and began the quest to visually characterize this international collaboration.
“I searched the latent space of several AI for months to find the right visual landscapes to create this video,” says Graeme. “In the end, the video evolved from a series of my visual art pieces entitled ‘The Ocean’s Dream of the Sea,’ then fed into various AI tools. The result is a tour of a fictional place, the beautiful dream of a neural network, briefly brought into existence via code, text prompts and parameters.”
Janice Jo Lee is a dynamic artist, born in Toronto to a Korean immigrant family. By the time she graduated from Wilfrid Laurier University with a degree in English Literature, she was a songwriter performing locally with The Radical Choir.
It’s been almost seven years since Janice’s last album, Sing Hey. In that time she’s been through total and utter burnout and spiritual destruction, through rest and healing, to where she is now – feeling well and whole and full of love.
The last album was made with the dregs of her energy and no resources. In contrast, the upcoming album, Ancestor Song (2023), is Janice’s musical vision completely realized, fully supported on the engineering and producing end by fellow Kitchener-Waterloo musician, JoJo Worthington.
“Here I Am” is the first single from Ancestor Song. It’s a declaration song that she envisions as an opener to her live show. It was actually written the night before the album release for Sing Hey. She wanted to start the show by clapping and getting everyone’s attention and bringing everyone together through rhythm.
“When I came up as a singer-songwriter in Kitchener-Waterloo, there were a handful of other women and femme musicians of colour in my community,” says Janice. “It was my dream to have them all back me up on this track like a girl gang. To bring us all together and say: move over, we are here. So I’m thrilled that we have Alysha Brilla, Elsa Jayne, Joni NehRita, Camila Diaz-Varela and Charlena Russell on this tune. These are individuals who have each inspired me and have witnessed my journey as a human being, so it’s a very big deal for me to have all our voices on this song together.”
Modern Mystery 