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.”

Lo-Fi Hero is the brainchild of Erik Alcock and John “P*nut” Harrison in their studio in Berlin. The duo make music that is old and new, loop-based and performed. Previously, Harrison has worked as a producer for Amy Winehouse and Alcock has written many songs for Eminem. 

The whole project of Lo-Fi Hero is based on taking live performances then turning them into samples and resampling the parts in inventive ways. They want to show new ways of using modern technology in conjunction with old technology to create a new sonic landscape – in essence, making modern music on analog gear. 

“No Appetite” sees the duo channelling longing and foreboding heartache in their first release. 

The video was shot by Jakob Stolz, with a Berlin based performance artist. Lo-Fi Hero wanted the video to convey a narrative to the music in an abstract way. 

Toronto-based singer-songwriter and magical girl Sia Shells is back again with fellow Toronto multi-genre artist, Ekelle for another dream pop collaboration! 

After the successful release of their first group collaboration “Magic Girl,” Ekelle and Sia wanted to create a part 2 that worked as an inclusive dancing mantra for girls everywhere. You can blast this whenever you’re feeling down or alone and get an instant serotonin boost with a sprinkle of divine female energy.

The video is a compilation of Sia and Ekelle’s IRL girl gang adventures this past summer, and it’s a perfect way to keep the momentum and high vibrations going through the colder and long year ahead. It’s filmed by the different women in their lives, and captures authentic moments from their girl gang adventures.

Watch the upbeat and positive video here:

Grant Boyer is embarking on his career as a solo artist, giving voice to edgy alt-rock with a dash of humour. After years of success as a founding member of Canadian rock group Golden Gate Graves, Grant took time to enjoy the downtime and to also start his family – though he never stopped writing music. 

Agreeing to disagree doesn’t seem to cut it anymore. The online arguments go nowhere. Boyer searches for a solution to social media discourse and phone addiction in “De-Evolution,” his twangy new single. He’s not not trying to change the world, but if he can inspire a pause to think, maybe that’s okay.

His previous release, “Alarm Bells (Never Drinking Again),” climbed to #37 on Canada’s Active Rock radio charts.