Mickey Cake’s Jonny Drucker (guitar/vocals) and Graham Corrigan (bass/keys) met when they were 11 years old and played music together throughout high school and college. The band eventually morphed: Jonny and lead guitarist Brian Robertson began playing duets around Philadelphia, eventually convincing the latter’s brother Brett to join on drums. Graham brought his bass down from New York to join in, and a live set began to take shape. 

The name Mickey Cake is a nod to Jonny’s early days as a beatmaker. Their debut album, So That You Know, was made up of live takes recorded over the course of one weekend. Sadly, Brett passed away just a month after those sessions. Jonny moved to New Zealand, Graham to Los Angeles. But the music continued: their second album, The Mickey Tape, has been coalescing, slowly but surely, over the last three years. 

Mickey Cake have just released a self-titled compilation of tracks 2020’s So That You Know under Analog Machine Records. It features the energetic “Parakeet,” whose title spurs from the idea that being somebody’s pet is a cute idea, but a bit of a trap.

This album is a love story, a crescendo of adoration for an audience of one. Part plea, part sales pitch, all romance. – Graham Corrigan

Little Misty is a progressive folk band founded in Montreal, Quebec and led by Kathryn Samman (vocals) and François Jalbert (guitar). Although firmly grounded in folk music, their repertoire mixes indie and progressive rock with broader compositions. From cinematic landscapes to wailing guitar solos, the group explores a full range of musical possibilities, always searching for innovative ways to serve their story telling.

Little Misty are releasing a few songs that they recorded and filmed at their favourite studio in Montreal, Studio Mixart, including their new single, a cover of “Scarlet Town” originally performed by Gillian Welch and produced by David Rawlings. 

“This is a completely live performance by Little Misty,” states Jalbert. “We basically took a picture of what the band could deliver, without any post production. No edits, no tuning, no overdubs. What you hear was all played together as if it were a show.”

Ivytide is an indie pop band from Montreal, Canada. The story of Ivytide began as Nathan Gagné (vocals/guitar) developed a passion for making music in his teenage years, singing in his room with the door closed. Gagné was joined by Kyle Ruggiero (bass) and Jamie Snytte (guitar) to officially form the band, combining their unique influences to produce bedroom pop songs with intricate, but catchy melodies, which float on top of well-thought-out instrumentation. 

The focus track from their new debut album, portable darkroom, leaves nothing at the door. “vacant” delves into feelings of patience and self-reflection. Learning to carry personal luggage takes both time and introspection, yet the song’s uplifting feel hints at the protagonist’s moment of self-realization, choosing to leave his baggage outside where “rain will catch it.” The juxtaposition between the song’s rapped verses and falsetto choruses portrays the thoughtful disarray the protagonist finds himself in.

We do not recollect our memories in a pure way. Rather, when we reconstruct them in our minds, our portable darkroom, they are filled with artifacts, blemishes and impurities, like a photograph from a film camera gaining its color. portable darkroom provides an aperture into the band’s emotions, experiences and memories, as you hear the songs developing throughout. 

Dany Horovitz is a Canadian singer-songwriter known for delighting audiences with his memorable melodies and beautiful storytelling through vivid lyrics of love, loss, and life, drawing inspiration from ancient poets, modern philosophers, and personal experiences. Born to a middle-class Jewish family in Montreal and raised outside Toronto, Dany’s music is infused with modern takes on familiar sounds: melodic guitar and piano chords, popping bass licks, and toe-tapping percussion. 

“Roads and Roses” is about more than a break-up, it’s about making peace with breaking promises. The new single features an all-star cast of collaborators: The Strumbellas’ Izzy Ritchie on fiddle, The OBGMs’ Colanthony Humphrey on drums, Shade’s Sean Royle on bass, guitar, and keys.

Buried deep in Montreal’s lingering winters, a trio of musicians sat in a room together. Used to the crazy pace of working in the city’s hyperactive music industry, they might have been unconsciously looking to do something slower, calmer, and free from commercial constraints. Looking at the snow battering the wide windows by the train tracks, they spent the afternoon playing around with what was in the room: a slide whistle, a Juno, and some guitar pedals. The table was set for what would become Caméra. They eventually spent more time together, finding sounds, exploring bizarre ideas, but always seeking beauty. 

The song “Carrousel” from new album, Caméra, was composed in one snowy afternoon; it’s a picture of a moment that the trio spent together. It was actually the first song written together as Caméra. The band sat in a room not really expecting anything to happen. After a fun afternoon of playing around with bits and pieces of melody, this song came to life. It felt like they were digging up something that has always been there. 

The three musicians had collaborated before in different contexts, but they wanted to try and see what would happen if they pooled their visions together. The Caméra LP was the result of meeting sporadically over the course of three years, when time allowed, and simply playing around with some ideas. Everything was self-recorded and happened on the spot when the idea arrived. It makes this work “imperfect,” but the band felt that there was no other way to capture the vibe.

FKB is a high-energy, four-piece, indie pop band based in Nashville, influenced by the mystique, glamour, and excess of the 1960s-1980s entertainment business. Formed in Bonnyville, Alberta, the band is fronted by JUNO Award-nominated songwriter (2019) Drew Shalka and features Travis Topylki (lead guitar), Derek Chalut (drums), and Alex Fedorouk (rhythm guitar). 

FKB’s nostalgic, reflective single, “Mirror on the Ceiling” is co-written and produced by Shaun Frank (The Chainsmokers, Dua Lipa, Liam Payne). “‘Mirror on the Ceiling’ is about the innocence of youth and wanting to live in those moments forever,” says Shalka. “Sonically, we wanted to express a feeling of longing by combining a variety of influences from different eras like Prince, The Killers, and Bruce Springsteen.” 

“Mirror on the Ceiling” tells the story of a summertime road trip and a relationship that is intense but short-lived. The song reflects on being able to go back to relive that moment in time with the mirror being the object that brings back those memories. The song title came from old nostalgic motels and the feelings of adventure and longing they bring up. There is something about seeing something seemingly frozen in time like those old roadside motels that makes you relive memories and think about your life and where it has come from.

“The song was written and recorded in 15 hours over two days at Noble Street Studios during Canadian Music Week in June 2023,” explains Shalka. “We had just won the Jim Beam National Talent Search and the winner would be writing and recording a song the next day as part of the week’s itinerary. So the way it played out was that we performed our Jim Beam show at 9pm, found out we won at 11pm, then had another show down the street at 1am so we immediately got into an Uber to get there. Then the next morning at 10am we met Shaun and wrote and recorded the whole song from scratch.”