Brayden Bell is an indie-folk producer/songwriter with ballroom gravitas and campfire-folk relatability. His considerate songwriting pulls truth in detail from the luminosity of everyday emotional directives, like dandelions growing through the sidewalk. The Calgarian’s soaring falsetto brings a sensitivity to a contemporary midwest-emo phrasebook, a Hozier filmstock captured through a Julien Baker lens.

Bell has written and produced dozens of songs for synchronization with his publishing project We Are Crickets in partnership with Bow Valley singer-songwriter Amelie Patterson. Bell’s songs have been used by companies like McDonald’s, Lazada, Thor Industries, Sherwood and more, being seen by millions on TV and YouTube. Now, he’s releasing his first EP under his own name.
Box Office Bomb is the result of the first time Bell carved out time for his solo music. His home studio became the crucible for these songs. Here, he stripped away production flourishes, prioritizing raw emotion and lyrical authenticity. With a solid system established, the future excites him for what’s to come next.

Nok Novum is an instrumental band that has developed a textured sound that cleverly fuses 70’s progressive rock, jazz-fusion, and heavy metal, creating a sound that is chaotic yet mesmerizing. All of the production choices were purely instinctual on Nok Novum’s new song, “Funky Shins.” The great thing about this band is that there are no rules. Each member has so many musical influences that they have a bottomless pit of inspiration to throw at the canvas, which is how this became the first Nok Novum song to use acoustic piano. 

“The song title comes from a Siri autocorrect during a group chat where we were describing a particular section as ‘Funky Shit’ but was corrected to ‘Funky Shins.’ Felt appropriate,” says guitarist Scott Giffin.

Formed in early 2008, Nok Novum is an instrumental band from Canada. The band was originally conceived as a two-piece, with guitarist Grant Cooper and drummer Brady Mason with the addition of Scott Giffin on guitar and Cam Dougall on bass in 2013. Since 2016 the band has taken a step back to focus on their individual careers, raise families, as well as taking time to patiently record their highly anticipated sophomore release – Nok Novum II. This new album has recently been completed and is set to be released within 2024.

If you listen to Dave Whitty’s music, it won’t take long to hear the pride he has for his home province, capturing Newfoundland’s joie de vivre and beauty. His song, “Ducks in a Row,” was written coming out of the pandemic. It’s about the struggle of an artist during those times, and also as a person ages and matures. The music industry and being an artist is hard, and as one gets older it becomes even more difficult to keep the fire burning, to stay relevant, to keep on top of everything. It’s a coming of age tale about perseverance and pushing through. 

“This song is fun and uplifting,” says Dave Whitty. “A perfect road trip song, when the sun is starting to set and you have the open road ahead of you. I think everyone can relate to the feeling of being a little lost in life and their career, and trying to push through to get to the other side.”

Dave Whitty is a singer/songwriter from St. John’s, NL. He has released three solo albums since 2012, with a fourth underway, and writes and sings about real-life experiences. His folky storytelling style tells tales woven through playful lyrics and infectious melodies about his relationships and his unique perspective. 

Nelson Sobral is a singer-songwriter guitarist hailing from Toronto, equally inspired by the vast, wide open spaces of the country he calls home and the labyrinthine maze of the city in which he resides. His music is as much Americana and blues as it is soul and rock ‘n’ roll, perfectly balanced with the energy and sound of each of his respective influences, uniting them all with one, singular mission: to move and energize audiences into an all-night frenzy and travel the world on the might of his song.

His gritty new single, “Hang On,” is delta blues shot up with electric rock and roll. This is the third taste of his upcoming full-length album, the follow up to 2022’s Second Arrow.

“Hang On” has soulful vocals and bluesy guitar riffs, delivering an anthem of liberation, urging listeners to break free from the past. “It’s a reflection of letting go of people and situations that no longer serve you,” Sobral remarks.

Though clearly inspired by the roots songwriting giants—the Hank Williams and the Gram Parsons of the world—Nelson Sobral’s work deserves a wider scope, a wider breadth, and a wider reach. Through the lens of soul, blues, and rock and roll, Sobral’s songwriting, paired with his incomparable voice and monster guitar playing, is fit for any stage, any night of the week, any audience, anywhere. 

Sim Bansal, the bandleader of 4-piece Action Forever, grew up in Brantford, Ontario. His obsession with music began at age 5 and, for the next two decades, his natural talents were fostered by a musical family upbringing and constant exposure to a unique and eclectic mix of influences ranging from ‘80s pop, to progressive rock, to jazz, and indie.

The music of Action Forever, while lively, electric, melodic and danceable, explores darker themes such as loneliness in a digital age, abusive relationships, loss of identity, and mental health. New single, “Stay With You,” loosely tells the story of the troubled relationship of two lovers from the point of view of the abused.

“Immediately, I feel a sense of tragedy when I hear this song. It’s meant to broadly acknowledge any kind of abusive relationship one might have – could be with a person, a thing, or, as I’m seeing more clearly these days, a society,” Sim explains. “I aimed to capture the spectrum of emotions one feels in this situation and have the listener experience the full weight of it – the naive delusional love, the frustration, the isolation and the denial.” 

Sim had studied business as well as applied music, while gigging as a lead singer and guitarist in many bands including a Police cover band (Blue Turtle) and a progressive-rock tribute act (Bypass Off). Sim won Hamilton’s Brian Lee Griffith Guitar contest for an original composition and a live performance.

With guitar and voice as his primary instruments, he learned drums and bass as well and now plays most of the instruments on his own original work. 

Folk singer-songwriter Dan Pallotta has a delicate and hopeful new single to share entitled “Kendra’s Pictures.” The Kendra in question was a neighbour of Pallotta’s who “took the most beautiful landscape and nature photographs that were filled with light.”

The song features a gently rolling melody which seeks to transmit a feeling of light and of beauty that transcends mortality. Pallotta took many approaches to the song’s production, experimenting with synthesizers, piano, and upright bass.

“It was when we asked Marc Muller to try a lap steel that it all came together. It gave the song an other-worldly feeling that the story was calling for. It was big without suffocating the negative space we needed for the lyrics to come through.” – Dan Pallotta

American philanthropist and musician Dan Pallotta has been writing songs for forty years, but took about a thirty-year break in the middle to create the AIDSRides, the Breast Cancer 3-Day walks, and the Out of the Darkness Suicide Prevention walks. 182,000 people took part in one of these epic, heroic journeys, which raised nearly $600 million in nine years—more money raised more quickly for those causes than any events in history, and were the subject of a Harvard Business School case study.
In September 2022, the Stephen Gyllenhaal directed documentary film adaption of Pallotta’s book, Uncharitable, was released, which advocates for liberating the nonprofit sector to its true potential. It features Edward Norton, and the heads of TED, the Ford Foundation, the Nature Conservancy, Charity:Water and many other organizations. 

Pallotta’s TED talk on charity is the 16th most commented TED talk of all time. He has written five books, served on two school boards, sang the national anthem at a Los Angeles Rams game, and did not forget the words! 

Pallotta’s music and his commitment to making a difference in the world are inseparable. He tries to write songs about the human condition, as experienced by all kinds of human beings across all manners of circumstance, and songs about the possibility of a world that could work for everyone.