Matías Roden is a Peruvian-Canadian singer-songwriter living in Vancouver, BC. Signed to Light Organ Records, his first single, “Snow Angel,” was released in November 2023 and followed by two more singles in 2024. Roden has performed at Music Waste and Khastahlano festivals since, as well as the upcoming Summerlight Festival, and his full-length debut album is set for release in early 2025.

Debut EP, The Plea, was recorded at Vancouver’s 604 Studios and serves as Roden’s formal introduction to this world; the official start of his journey as an artist. The Plea symbolizes a mixture of helplessness and resilience – it’s what happens when you’re young and you lose hope in the things that you thought mattered in your life. 

Focus track, “Glowing,” is the moment where things start to turn a bit more hopeful. After a devastating heartbreak, Roden starts to learn to trust someone else and open up a bit more. Produced by Louise Burns, the song combines two very different elements of British pop music from the 80s and 90s – jazzy sophisti-pop and breakbeat.

I think the classic ‘quarter life crisis’ for a lot of young people feels like you’re being put on trial by your own hopes and dreams and others’ expectations for your life. It can feel overwhelming to realize that maybe your life isn’t going in exactly the direction you wanted it to go. So The Plea is a play on words of a plea deal at a trial where you’re both at the mercy of forces beyond your control but also wanting to defiantly assert yourself. It’s like I’m saying ‘I will get my life back together, I will get over this heartbreak or over this failure to live out my hopes and dreams, I will make them happen.’ 

– Matías Roden

Since long before its conception, traditional music has been at the center of the priorities of the musicians who formed the group El Balcón in the summer of 2018. Josh (requinto and oud), Valeria (vocals and foot percussion), Charles (vocals and jarana), Alex (double bass) and Nicolas (cajón and other percussion) initially made up the ensemble. Shortly after, Nominoë joined on violin and vocals. Drawing on learnings from travels across several continents, El Balcón experiments by arranging songs from the Son Jarocho repertoire, a folk music from Veracruz, Mexico, with rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic concepts borrowed from Eastern European countries.

With the strength of their first two real productions of traditional covers and compositions released in 2020 and 2021, La Bruja and Contracorriente, the group is now preparing to present its first album consisting entirely of original compositions titled El Errante, which will be launched in the spring of 2025. 

New single, “Enredada,” is about being from different places at the same time and getting to know yourself through culture. In Spanish, “Enredada” means tangled up. The song is a very special blend of many styles of music that the group love: son jarocho, rumba flamenca, samba, balkan music, gnawa. It was written in Xalapa, Veracruz and recorded at Wild Studios in Lanaudière, Québec. 

Glammed-up & blissed-out in the sun, Montreal-based FLEECE is an eccentric, chosen family band doing it their way. As they tell stories about being queer & dancing through life’s troubles, they feel a dire need to bring play and fantasy to the forefront (or/ back into the world). “Where’s My Beach Hat” is the second single from the band’s forthcoming LP, kicking off their 2024-25 album cycle. A fresh, fun summer pop song, it follows 2023 hits “It’s The Life” and “Do You Wanna Party.”

Produced by Gus Van Go (The Beaches, Metric, Cowboy Fringants) in Toronto, “Where’s My Beach Hat” was written live in the band’s Montreal jam space and as the band describes it: “It’s a nostalgic, bittersweet one, about making the same mistakes over time – the mistake of overconsumption, the things that might be bad for you, working too hard, and trying to escape from reality. This song showcases our softer side, with a beachy, sweet, and soft vibe.”

Ben Cherry and Chris da Silva, the Toronto-based producer duo, blend their diverse musical tastes into a unique sound that’s both catchy and introspective. Childhood friends turned musical collaborators, their music bridges the gap between Ben’s affinity for bouncy melodies and Chris’ penchant for moody atmospherics.

Upbeat new single “Like It Does,” was originally written last year and changed unbeknownst to Ben by Chris recently while the former was in Australia and came home to a season change. The original production was dark and had been reworked into a brighter, more funky style. It made him feel a new connection to Toronto as the city entered summer, like hearing “unexpected sunshine.”

Toronto has always had this hustle-bustle/rat-race mentality kinda like New York and I think this song came as a sort of response to that. It’s this realization of the importance of stopping to smell the roses; a shift in perspective. – Ben Cherry 

Luke MacDonald is chasing luma. A multi-hyphenate project defined by introspection, chasing luma explores some of life’s most challenging yet fulfilling themes via beat-driven alternative pop. Balancing the energy of modern electronic music with the wistful nostalgia of contemporary indie music, chasing luma evokes emotion in equal parts through both story-telling and sonic excellence. At once deeply personal and universal to boot, chasing luma makes sincere music that prompts us to seek our own truth.

Luke has always been really into the 2000’s era of pop – born in 1998, his earliest musical memories come from that time. As he was finishing up his new single, “nervous,” he realized how much of the song’s DNA felt like the music from that time, but brought into the modern era of sonics – “Teenage Dirtbag” by Wheatus came to mind when thinking of references.

1. Tell us the story of this song, why did you choose to visualize this song specifically?

I sat down to write this song in early April, and the initial idea came together super quickly. I chose to make a music video for this song because I had such a fun time doing the music video for my previous single “tidal wave” with my close friend Andrew Morgan who has shot both of these videos! He’s so talented and is someone I’ve known for more than half of my life and it feels so comfortable to work with him and to be able to brainstorm new ideas on the spot. My philosophy for making art is to just make the best possible thing you can with the resources you have available to you, because you can do a lot even with an iPhone camera and a good idea. Furthermore, one things I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is that people see photo/video on social media before they even hear the song, so I’ve been trying my best to put time and care into how things look!

2. What was the inspiration behind this video (visuals, storyline, etc.)?

Initially the idea for the video was a lot different actually, but I love how it came together. I originally had the idea to do a whole party scene happening around me, but it didn’t end up making sense and we scrapped that idea. But I wanted to try and display things that induce anxiety in this video due to the contents of the song. Things like clocks, footage that looks like it was taken by a surveillance camera, talking to myself in the mirror, tapping the steeling wheel of a car, etc. I tried to include as much of that imagery as I could find alongside just footage of myself performing the song – there’s not really a narrative thread, but more of just a visualizer that matches the energy of the song.

3. What was the process of making this video?

We started by going downtown in Halifax, Nova Scotia and scouting locations and just shooting a few takes in some locations I had in mind. My personal favourite shot, and the one that took the most time to edit and get right, was the shot with all of the TV’s above me that I manually mapped to I could overlay other video over top (they were playing a basketball game on the TV’s at the time!) I took home the footage from the first day of the shoot and started editing and getting those takes synced up with the song and that gave me a better idea of what we needed to finish the video, so we got together 2 weeks later and went to another few locations – then I edited it from there! I’m a pretty beginner editor in the grand scheme of things but I embrace the DIY energy and when I don’t know the answer to something, I ask friends who are more experienced or quickly enroll myself in “YouTube University” to solve a problem in the process.

Erik Lankin is a composer and producer of New Classical music. His work combines classical orchestration with contemporary sound design. Erik channels the full spectrum of emotion into instrumental soundscapes which are compellingly narrative and evocative.

From 2020 to 2023, he assembled a team of some of Canada’s most accomplished classical soloists and neoclassical producers to realize his vision for his highly anticipated debut release. Erik‘s dual ambitions on the levels of musical theory and emotional vulnerability were able to secure him multiple funding requests from the Canada Council for the Arts despite being an artist who seemingly came out of nowhere.

1. Tell us the story of this song, why did you choose to visualize this song specifically?

This song is the latest single from my project The Icarus Album. It is a neoclassical reinterpretation of the myth of Daedalus, reimagined so that Daedalus falls to his death and his son Icarus must fly onward. Interpreted this way the myth becomes a metaphor for losing my own father to suicide. In the music leading up to this track Icarus has overcome his grief and learned new ways to fly on the broken wings his father left him. Now he pauses to reflect on the life of Daedalus, complete with all its faults, and with a grand orchestral swell, invites his father’s spirit to take its place among the honored ancestors.


2. What was the inspiration behind this video (visuals, storyline, etc.)?

For this video I worked with creator Franklin López who edited and directed the project. I mostly gave Frank free reign as I trust his creative vision. He unknowingly chose footage of a young man who perfectly resembles a mashup of me and my father at that age. Similarly the video of the child flying a model rocket could have easily come from my own childhood. This context means I can only watch this particular video when I’m ready to feel very sad.

 
3. What was the process of making this video?

I sent Frank the music and he worked from scratch. We passed drafts back and forth a few times but most of the feedback I had was on the level of post-production nitpicking like which cut goes where and which color filter to use. I had anticipated the most difficult part would be dealing with the intense subject matter but I felt like all of Frank’s choices were both tasteful while still fitting with the difficult emotions.