Melina Coolen is a Canadian songwriter, producer and audio engineer and producer. Her retropop influence is undeniable in her carefully self-produced sound and sophisticated songwriting style. After years of formal classical training and receiving the RCM Silver Medal in piano, she pursued her love for pop and jazz songwriting in college and university.

Her song “Nothing At All” is a true blue retropop bubblegum tune. It features the voice of Linda Vilela, whom Melina thought was a perfect fit to complete the song when she discovered her on Airgigs. 

Athena Park is an award winning actress who has starred in multiple film and television productions in Canada and the United States. Currently studying at the University of Toronto, she is continuously working on new music and film projects. Following up on her debut single, “Tuatara,” Athena’s latest release is the bitterly honest “Heathen.” 

Inspired by the feelings of falling in love with someone who doesn’t truly value you, “Heathen” encapsulates when someone gives themselves up completely for somebody who doesn’t even care to notice.

The symbolic visuals for “Heathen” were shot by OfTheSaint Productions and are dear to Athena’s heart. Being behind bars represents feeling caged – like you can’t escape your feelings. 

Fans of independent Canadian music will likely recognize the name Shane Ghostkeeper from his namesake project GHOSTKEEPER, a band that has been responsible for some of the more thrilling music to emerge from Alberta during the last 15 years. But while his parent band trades in a highly unique, left-of-centre approach to indie rock, this new project is a deeply reverential tribute to the music he absorbed while growing up in the Northern Alberta Métis communities of Paddle Prairie, High Level, and Rocky Lane.

The vocal melodies on “V Chill” were inspired by the need to soothe and entertain Shane’s teething baby boy. After hours of bouncing him around the house, lyrics started to form as fatherly advice and blessings.

“‘V Chill’ was coined by my producer and big brother, Lorrie Matheson,” says Shane. “An appropriate play on my son’s name, Vittal Chillawee Ghostkeeper.”

The Femme Fatale of Folk known as Sarah Segal-Lazar currently splits her time between the busy streets of Montreal and the red shores of PEI. She shares her own special blend of folk and country, wherever the wind may take her. Her latest album, produced by Canadian folk luminary Matthew Barber, comes out later this year.

There’s a farmer in the small community where she’s from on PEI. This older fella lives alone in the home where his family has lived for generations. The locals have speculated whether or not he’s always been a bachelor, or was once married. One day, when Segal-Lazar was visiting, she noticed a room with women’s clothes still hanging in the closet. They looked like they’d been hanging there for years, maybe decades, untouched.

Segal-Lazar didn’t feel like she could intrude with a question, for fear of bringing up painful memories. Instead, she let her imagination take her on a journey, and wrote the song “This Old House” for him – and all the older folks whose stories we don’t always get to hear – incorporating personal details like his grandmother’s rug, faded family photos, and the embroidered tapestries. 

“I started writing this song because I was going to be leaving PEI for a while, and I wanted to write a song about my relationship with the island,” explains Segal-Lazar. “I wanted to write a love song or a breakup song or an ‘it’s complicated’ song about us. But as I started noodling around on the guitar, it turned out that I didn’t actually have much to say about myself – what came out was a song about someone else.”

Originally from London, UK, LTtheMonk had an eclectic musical upbringing that set him off on a journey to becoming a musician himself. Dance is also an intrinsic part of LT‘s toolkit, with bantamweight Gene Kelly-meets-James Brown footwork and immaculate sport socks both indelible signatures of his persona as an entertainer. Melding all of his influences, LT aims to fuse dance music with hip-hop and pop, to create his own unique sound.

LT was listening to a podcast series about the “Cola Wars” of the 70s and 80s between Coca Cola and Pepsi, and it made him think about being in a relationship where you’re considered a “power couple.” In a lot of situations, ego might destroy the relationship, if one person is being given more attention, or achieving more success than the other.

With all that in mind, LT wrote “Pepsi Challenge” with Coke and Pepsi being a cheeky metaphor for the power couple, and how you can compete with each other, or work together and be a way stronger partnership.

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

‘Pepsi Challenge’ was inspired by the Cola Wars of the 70s and 80s, when Pepsi & Coca-Cola were competing to be the number 1 soda in North America, and invented great advertising campaigns like the Pepsi Challenge to try and win. I loved all the vintage Pepsi & Coke commercials that I was watching while I was writing the song (and a lot of the lyrics are references to those commercials), and thought it would be a great song to shoot a video for, to take the Hollywood style of all of those ads and add my own colours and styles to them. And of course, inventing my own Monk Pop and Uptonic sodas for our own Pepsi Challenge!

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

I wanted to take the inspiration of classic Pepsi & Coca-Cola advertising, but bring it into my own new Monk style. So in the video’s storyline, my challenger Kiara Taylor (who also provided background vocals on the song) and I are having contestants take the Pepsi Challenge, but with our own Monk Pop & Uptonic sodas instead of Pepsi and Coke. We compete with the sodas, mix them into alcoholic cocktails, all different challenges to see which soda is number 1.

3.What was the process of making this video?

This video was so fun to make! My director Matt Azzarello and I had our treatment ready, and we brought in Kiara as my ‘challenger’, and a few friends to take the Challenge with us. We went to Urban Queens Beauty Bar in Toronto to shoot the video, which was a perfect backdrop while we spent the day drinking a lot of Monk Pop, Uptonic, Coke & Pepsi, and enjoying the laughter and competition amongst friends!

‘I Am The Sea’ emerges from deeply personal and poignant life experiences, beautifully intertwining the narratives of both Marc Darcange (a.k.a. Cedric) and Tryzdin. It is a musical testament to vulnerability, resilience, and the complex dynamics of human emotion. 

As a young boy of 12, Cedric found himself grappling with severe school phobia and the harsh realities of bullying. The expansive beauty of the beach and the mysterious depths of the sea served as potent symbols of the enticing oblivion he contemplated. 

This profound connection to the sea became a central metaphor in ‘I Am The Sea’, its tumultuous waves and serene depths capturing the dualistic nature of his experiences. Tryzdin’s contribution to the song is equally substantial and deeply rooted in his personal encounters with bullying. His potent vocal performance, recorded in his home studio in Columbus, conveys the raw emotional core of the track, his experiences lending an authentic, resonating depth to the narrative. 

The back-story of ‘I Am The Sea’ was further reinforced by a profoundly impactful TV documentary about a 13-year-old schoolboy who tragically lost his life due to bullying. The heartbreaking story hit close to home, striking a chord with Cedric and Tryzdin’s own experiences and lending an even greater urgency to the song’s message. 

In ‘I Am The Sea’, the intimate personal narratives of Cedric and Tryzdin intertwine with the larger discourse on bullying, resulting in a compelling and emotive musical piece. The song captures the profound despair that bullying can evoke, while also highlighting the resilience of the human spirit. It serves as a beacon of empathy and understanding for those who have faced or are facing similar struggles.