Your weekly dose of indie goodness! Dive into these epic tracks below!

Toronto-based band Original Pairs fuse folk, country, pop and psychedelia into their own inimitable brand of rock’n’roll. Lead singer and songwriter Andrew Frontini grew up in Kingston, ON where he played in bands with future rock luminaries Gord Downie (Tragically Hip), Hugh Dillon (The Headstones) and Finton Mcconnel (The Mahones). Alongside drummer Lisa Logan, the duo formed Original Pairs and draw on the talents of Berklee trained multi-instrumentalist Chris Bartos, saxophonist Richard Underhill, keyboardist Jon Loewen and New York based bassist/guitarist Lynda Krarr to create a rich sonic palette for Frontini’s compositions.

Ever have a time when people just start showing up out of the woodwork? The phone starts ringing with calls from friends you haven’t heard from in years or friends who you didn’t even know you had? That’s when you know you’ve made it! Or at least people think you have and all of  a sudden, they want to get close. New single, “Money on a Tree,” takes a common saying and amps it up into a rock’n’roll diss track, making fun of the moochers one verse at a time and capping it with a tongue-in-cheek chorus.

Cooper Bloom, a singer-songwriter and performer from just outside Toronto, Ontario, who proudly identifies as part of the LGTBQ community. His goal is to create a community through his music where people are inspired to be true to themselves and follow their dreams. 

The inspiration behind his positive new song, “Be Alright,” came from a moment when Cooper and his boyfriend were holding hands in public, and were met with hateful homophobic slurs from strangers passing by. Instead of feeling defeated, it only made him more determined to celebrate their love and to show that they won’t be silenced or ashamed. 

“While the song was inspired by my own experience, its message of finding strength in love and persevering through challenges is universal,” says Cooper. “I think many people can relate to feeling judged or discriminated against for simply being themselves, and ‘Be Alright’ is a reminder that no matter what obstacles we may face, we can choose to stay strong and lead with love.”

Vancouver four piece band Slightest Clue is like the secret after-school project of four kids who would have passed each other without a glance in the hallway at school – but once they’re plugged in and ready to play their distinct blend of post-punk, alternative rock, and dark pop, all 

bets are off.

With their vigorous new release, “Zipper,” the band had a rough idea of what the song might end up becoming, since a big inspiration to get it finished was the idea of playing it live. There’s an electric current that gets all four of them hyped up whenever they play it live together, and they knew that this crazy energy had to be translated into the final recorded track.

The lyrics came from frustrations with one’s own mental state, and feeling trapped when you can remember a happy feeling but your brain won’t deliver it when you need it most. The song title comes directly from the initial demo Sean Ries sent, titled “so many zippers” which references the tone of his guitar.

Leanne Hoffman performs a tightrope walk between the sensual immediacy of pop music and poetry’s revelatory nuance on her upcoming album, The Text Collector. Using the swirling melodies and glitzed-up production of Top 40, The Nova Scotia-based multidisciplinary artist builds tension between soundscapes primed for pure pleasure and lyrics that address the interconnected relationship between desire and despair.

“Pity Party” is one of many songs on the album that was born from 365 poems that Hoffman wrote over the course of the year, from her poetry collection also called The Text Collector. Because of the gap in time from when the lyrics started out as poetry, Hoffman realized that she had a new perspective by the time they became songs. 

Though Hoffman usually writes a lot of emotionally complicated lyrics and sad songs, this one is just a frivolous way of poking fun at the party poopers in your life. 

“Everyone knows someone that seems to always be bringing the good vibes down,” says Hoffman. “No matter what, they just aren’t happy, especially if everyone else is. I think it can be really tiring to deal with someone like that, but I wanted to write something fun and unbothered, something to say, ‘You’re not going to ruin this for me.’”

Blair Colwell and Skyler Cafferata’s latest project, Grimelda, has spent the last 10 years dragging itself across the country, blasting chaotically joyful punk rock into the precious ears of any soul within arms reach. Their unhinged rock songs take art-punk to weird levels of amazing awesomeness and the brand new EP, It’s So Feeling When You Rock, is a collection of tracks that embellishes rock ‘n roll tropes as much as it tears them apart with its bare hands.

“Dirty li’l Dirtbike” grew from the stereotype of a “cool dude” in the form of a motocross bro and having a non-judgemental perspective on that. It can be really easy to judge things/people you don’t know much about and it’s something that everyone is guilty of whether it’s directed towards artists, hipsters, rednecks, athletes or whoever. As Bob Dylan once stated, “we all like motorcycles to some degree.”