Apryll Aileen is a classically trained pianist turned dynamic pop artist, captivating global audiences for over a decade. She was a finalist in the Juno Wavemakers Tour and recently showcased her talent at the VIVA Sounds Music Festival in Sweden, representing Women in Music Canada.

Get ready to dance with “Take Me,” a high-energy pop disco anthem that fuses the introspective essence of Madonna’s Ray of Light era with Dua Lipa’s modern flair and features powerful vocals, profound lyrics, and innovative production. Pulsing with electrifying beats, the brand new single delivers a message of playful confidence with lyrics like “gonna make you love me in the dark.” It describes finding passion in the shadows of the dance floor and was written between Apryll, Lazermortis (Monika Ouellet) and Assteroidz (Philip Clark). 

I wrote this song to inspire others to open up and express themselves, especially in romantic partnerships. Ever meet someone and feel like they were holding back their true feelings and acting reserved? This song is meant to embolden the listener to take charge in their love life and open up to new possibilities of what the future can offer. – Apryll Aileen

Emerging from the bright, wide skies of Canada’s west coast, Sam Weber has spent the last decade variously honing his craft as a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer. Now based in Los Angeles, he is set to release a new collection of solo work with Clear and Plain, a group of simple and beautiful folk and jazz inflected songs which lean into sensory experiences and underscore Weber’s values.

Clear and Plain features the focus track, “Tamarindo Sunsets,” what Weber calls a “social media song.” “Tamarindo Sunsets” couples Weber’s gentle vocals with warm upright bass, searching piano, and understated acoustic guitar playing. “If I stay at home, can I still get free? If there’s something new, can you text it to me? ‘Cause I’m going offline, I’m going offline, I’m going offline until the end of time,” he asserts.

[It’s] about staring into the digital abyss and being confronted with greener and greener grass. Reckoning with what it means to find that beauty, peace, satisfaction in your heart.
– Sam Weber

Havelin, also known as Alex Zaichkowski, is an acclaimed (unofficially) singer-songwriter (allegedly) whose passion for music began at a young age and will continue until his untimely demise (which will likely come at the hands of some great warrior or foul beast…or, more likely, slipping on a banana peel). 

Five to six years of getting kicked around by life’s ups and downs culminated in Havelin almost hanging up his hat as a songwriter, until a fortuitous spark of creativity struck him while driving by a rodeo grounds in his home province of Alberta. 

That moment birthed “Rodeo Clown,” a forlorn and melodic reflection on toxic relationships in all their forms: business, platonic, and romantic. Its plaintive organ, guitar, and piano provide the backdrop to an earnest song that speaks of Havelin’s inner turmoil when feeling the need to perform a role within these unhealthy dynamics.

This song’s definitely cathartic for me. It brings up a lot of the emotional baggage and exhaustion that I’ve felt trying to get my music out there over the last decade… but at the same time, it also gets me really excited. It represents the start of something new. Something more honest, more sincere – a record that really feels like me. – Havelin

Piano pop songwriter Mike Evin is sharing an earnest and hopeful new album by the name of Something Stirs When You Sing, featuring a collection of songs whose characters long to find joy and feel alive. Working with producer Chris Stringer (Rose Cousins, Abigail Lapell), Evin and Stringer prioritized emotion and vibe over precision and perfection, handpicking from a batch of about 120 songs, mostly written during the early pandemic years.

The album’s focus track, “Outside With A Guitar,” was inspired by the community of musicians that Evin was a part of led by Ken Whiteley who performed on Toronto’s Roxton Road during that time. Every night for almost two years, they made music outside. The jovial song took root one night after seeing the abandon with which one of the street’s couples sang a song. It alludes to difficult times but is ultimately about the catharsis of making music.

This song is noteworthy also because the album title comes from one of the lyrics, “something stirs when you sing.” It encapsulates my raison d’etre for making music, and it ties in with a theme that is in a lot of my work – the search for joy and connection through music. This was the first song we recorded for the album, and it’s fitting that it’s also the opening track on the album. I feel it sets the tone nicely – joyous, yet also hinting at dark times (“now that seems like a dream”) and the need to uplift ourselves to a more lively state of being. – Mike Evin

4x JUNO nominee Julian Taylor has teamed up with Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter, Allison Russell, for a stately new ballad entitled “Pathways,” taken from Taylor’s upcoming record of the same name out on September 27th.

“Pathways” was written by Taylor with Toronto songwriters Robert Priest and Rosanne Baker Thornley, created to be a duet with Russell. Its understated Americana production provides the bedrock for Russell and Taylor’s rich vocal harmonies.

The journey of life puts us all on our own respective pathways to find out who we are and how we can strive to overcome any of the inner doubts and struggles we all experience. This song is meant to be a letter from a person who has gone through many trivial experiences and who is trying to be there for someone younger like their child and protect them and guide them through the hard points in life. When we wrote the song, each writer felt as if they were speaking to their children. – Julian Taylor

Alternative folk singer-songwriter Rory Taillon is sharing his fourth full-length album Now It’s Quiet on Tuesday August 20th, 2024. The album features the two previously released singles, “Hatchet” and “Wish You Would Stay.” The record’s main theme centres on loss, “whether it is the loss of someone you love, the loss of a friendship, loss of an ideal, or the loss of contempt towards something that hurt you,” explains Taillon. He will be touring Canada in support of the record through the end of the summer and the fall.  

This song is about trying to make sense of one’s own grief while watching others grieve the same person in their own ways. I lost a really close friend of mine who I had been friends with since childhood. At his wake there were a number of people that I hadn’t seen since high school. Another friend of mine made a joke saying, “This is the worst reunion I’ve ever been to,” and I thought that was really dark and profound and decided to run with that thought. – Rory Taillon