Canadian musician Keegan Powell returns with “Long Way Through Doom,” a fierce and energetic indie anthem built on instinct, grit, and momentum. Blending massive guitars with shaman-like vocal hooks and a sweetened vocal edge, the track evokes a world driven less by logic and more by raw animal impulse. It surges forward with swagger and urgency, pulling listeners into a sonic current that feels impossible to escape.
At its core, “Long Way Through Doom” is both primal and poetic: a collision of chaos and melody where instinct takes over and meaning emerges in fragments rather than structure.
Written initially without any intention of vocals, the track began as a self-imposed creative experiment. “I purposely assigned myself to write a big dumb rock riff” Keegan explains. “Once I gave myself that M.O, the main riff just came out of my hands.”
With the instrumental complete, Keegan turned to older written material for lyrical inspiration. “I scoured through some old poetry and found a piece called ‘World Debut’,” he says. “It just fits. I started melodizing the words and it all clicked into place.”
The result feels like a moment of fate rather than construction. It’s a song that arrived fully formed through creative alignment rather than careful planning.
“Long Way Through Doom” sits within Keegan’s broader creative universe but marks a continuation of his refusal to remain stylistically fixed. It follows a career defined by constant reinvention, from lo-fi experimental beginnings to expansive rock explorations, now converging into a sound that feels both unhinged and precise.
emotionally charged alternative pop-rock single about confronting old habits, creative exhaustion, and the difficult process of becoming a better version of yourself. Driven by full-bodied production, soaring energy, and deeply personal lyricism, the track captures the moment where frustration turns into determination.
At its core, “DON’T DO THAT” reflects the emotional weight both artists experienced following the release of their debut album, 2024’s Just Try. “The song was inspired by the state of mind we both felt like we were in last year after releasing our first album,” they explain. “We struggled getting our creative flow back again. Although the song is upbeat, it may be one of the most personal songs to show how heavy music has felt for us over the last little while.”
Despite its introspective subject matter, the single pulses with momentum and optimism. Built around driving rhythms and an anthemic energy, “DON’T DO THAT” becomes less about defeat and more about resilience. It’s the soundtrack to pushing yourself through difficult moments instead of retreating into familiar patterns.
“DON’T DO THAT” also serves as the opening track to the duo’s upcoming sophomore album, Learn + Apply, helping establish both the emotional core and sonic direction of the project. “We like to start bigger projects with lyrics that feel the most connected to us presently,” they explain. “This song does exactly that.”
While the themes lean inward, the spirit of the song remains rooted in the optimism that has always defined YASSiN & Sean Terrio’s work. Hope, love, and perseverance continue to act as guiding principles throughout their music, giving even their heaviest moments a sense of uplift and forward motion.
Edmonton, AB-based indie duo Softklub (Keenan Gregory and Mark Wojcicki) share their debut EP Give Me More, released alongside its emotionally charged title track. Blending melancholic indie rock with cathartic release, layered instrumentation, and deeply introspective songwriting, the EP’s five songs capture the complicated emotional terrain of longing, self-reflection, insecurity, and memory.
“This selection of songs feels more tightly knit to each other than anything else we’ve written,” Keenan explains. “Not only do their themes bleed into one another, but multiple songs share a narrative from the same moment in my life.”
Recorded across hotel rooms, Airbnbs, home studios, rehearsal spaces, and professional studios over the course of several years, Give Me More reflects both emotional and artistic evolution. The duo collaborated with a range of musicians to expand the project’s sonic palette.
At the heart of the EP is its soaring and emotionally exposed title track “Give Me More,” rooted in yearning, appetency, and unresolved attachment. “A lifetime supply of yearning, mixed with some unrequited love and a fixated obsession of the past,” Keenan says of the song’s inspiration.
What began as an instrumental demo during the isolation of COVID unexpectedly became the foundation for Softklub itself. Mark originally created the track while considering rebooting an old band and sent it to Keenan with the intention of adding piano. Instead, Keenan surprised Mark with vocals.
“I had never heard him sing, but it was exactly the vibe I wanted,” Mark recalls. “We continued writing together with zero expectations or even thinking about releasing anything. All of a sudden we realized we had 30+ songs we really enjoyed.”
Sonically, “Give Me More” embraces experimentation while remaining emotionally cohesive. Inspired by seeing The National perform with multiple drummers and expansive arrangements, Mark built the song around layered percussion, stacked guitars, synth textures, and immersive production choices designed to reward repeated listens.
With “Vector“, Mario Mattia continues his exploration of real time solo piano improvisation, working within an evolving framework he describes through three overlapping worlds: meditative, abstract, and freeform. Each improvisation emerges without pre-composition or predetermined structure, unfolding in the moment and revealing its identity only in retrospect.
We are particularly delighted to have Mario return for another Video Voyageur, as his work continues to evolve and deepen across both musical and visual dimensions.
“Vector” sits firmly within the abstract strand of this practice. Brief, angular and intensely focused, it traces a compressed musical trajectory shaped by tension, velocity and fragmentation. Rather than illustrating a narrative or external idea, the work exists as a direct expression of motion and energy, translated into sound as it happens.
The accompanying visual language extends this approach. It offers a non-literal environment that mirrors the piece’s instability and intensity. Together, music and image form a unified space of abstraction – one that prioritises force, texture and perception over story or explanation.
Tell us the story of this piece. Why did you choose to visualize it specifically in this way?
“Vector” belongs to the abstract area of my work. My improvisations fall into three genres: meditative, abstract and freeform.
The meditative pieces tend to be spacious, tonal, inward, and contemplative. The abstract pieces are more angular, atonal, compressed, and exploratory, often emphasizing gesture, texture, rhythm, and intensity over conventional lyricism. The freeform pieces move between worlds. They may begin in a tonal or meditative space, pass through abstraction or dissonance, and return transformed, allowing the music to determine its own structure in real time.
Although I use these three categories to help listeners orient themselves, the improvisations are never planned in advance. Each one emerges spontaneously, and the genre becomes clear only afterwards. The improvisation emerged very clearly from the abstract genre. As with all of my piano improvisations, there was no prior plan, structure, or conception. I did not sit down intending to create an atonal piece, nor did I set out to make something intense or angular. It simply emerged that way in the moment. Looking back, I suspect it reflected the particular intensity of my inner state at the time – not in a literal or programmatic sense, but as a kind of emotional pressure translated directly into sound.
Because the music moves by tension, velocity, interruption and abstraction, I wanted the visual world to reflect that same character. Rather than using imagery that would soften or explain the piece, I chose visuals that would support its non-representational quality – something closer to motion, geometry, instability, and concentrated energy.
The goal was to illustrate a story, but to create a visual counterpart to the music’s abstract force.
What was the inspiration behind this new video (visuals, storyline, etc.)?
There is no storyline in the video, and I did not want to impose one on the music. “Vector” is an abstract, atonal improvisation, so the visual approach needed to remain non-literal. The inspiration was really the character of the piece itself: compressed, intense, angular, and unstable. I wanted the imagery to reflect those qualities without explaining them.
The visuals are meant to create an atmosphere
The video was assembled and edited in DaVinci Resolve. I began by searching for visual material that seemed to share something with the character of the piece itself: compressed, intense, angular, and unstable. I wanted the imagery to reflect those qualities without explaining them. The visuals are meant to create an atmosphere of abstraction and movement – something geometric, unsettled, and concentrated – rather than a narrative sequence. For me, the video functions as a visual environment for the music, not a story about it.
What was the process of making the video?
The video was assembled and edited in DaVinci Resolve. I began by searching for visual material that seemed to share something with the character of the improvisation – not literal images, but imagery that suggested abstraction, motion, tension and instability.
From there, the process became one of correlation. I tried to shape the visual flow so that it moved with the music: more active and fragmented through much of the piece, with a small amount of color to give it energy and contrast, and then somewhat calmer as the improvisation itself begins to release near the end.
I also included a brief image of myself at the piano, not as a focal point, but as context – a reminder that this is still a human, physical performance, even when the musical language is highly abstract.
The title “Vector” came afterward, as my titles always do. It seemed to reflect the underlying character of the improvisation: direction, force, motion, and a kind of concentrated trajectory.
About Mario Mattia
Mario Mattia is an improvisational pianist and graduate of the New England Conservatory whose work is rooted in spontaneity, deep listening and emotional presence. Drawing on influences ranging from Johann Sebastian Bach to Keith Jarrett and Brian Eno, his music bridges classical, jazz, progressive and ambient traditions.
Each performance is created entirely in the moment, without predetermined themes or structures. While his primary work centers on solo piano improvisation, Mattia also maintains an electronic studio practice that serves as a parallel and occasional extension of his explorations in sound.
Working from his rural studio, Mattia captures every nuance of sound, inviting listeners into immersive, contemplative spaces where music unfolds as lived experience.
Keep up with everything Mario Mattia on his Website
Continuing upon this year’s previous releases, “Lay Your Mind” and “Ground Falls Away,” Strange Plants share “Time Killing,” a contemplative and expansive psych-rock single that blends atmospheric textures with a sense of quiet, underlying tension. Wistful and immersive, the track leans into themes of existential reflection and the slow passage of time, capturing the feeling of moving through life’s routines while something deeper simmers beneath the surface.
The song’s origin traces back to a period of heavy literary influence. “At the risk of sounding absurdly pretentious, I was reading a lot of Charles Bukowski at the time,” explains songwriter Matt Brannon. “So it created a sort of temporary supercharged nihilism.” That perspective shaped the song’s core idea; a meditation on time, purpose, and the subtle weight of existence.
Built around a rich, retro-psychedelic sound palette, “Time Killing” unfolds with layered instrumentation and tonal contrast. Trippy string arrangements intertwine with shimmering lap steel, creating a unique sonic blend that sets the track apart within the band’s catalogue. The result is a sound that feels both expansive and grounded; classic in influence yet exploratory in execution.
The recording process brought together a striking group of collaborators. Loel Campbell (Wintersleep, Billy Talent) contributed drums, while Christine Bougie (Bahamas) added lap steel and Drew Jurecka (Dua Lipa) arranged the song’s sweeping strings. The track was mixed by Chris Shaw and co-produced alongside JUNO Award–winning producer Michael Phillip Wojewoda, further elevating its textured, cinematic feel.
One of the defining moments in the song came through experimentation with its vocal delivery. Originally intended for songwriter Travis Flint, the final vocal emerged from a demo sketch that ultimately became the take heard on the recording. “We spent a lot of time trying to figure out the delivery on the top line,” Matt notes, highlighting the band’s openness to instinct and evolution in the studio.
Lyrically, “Time Killing” captures a universal sense of stagnation and quiet longing. Its lines reflect the monotony of daily life, while hinting at a deeper awareness of time slipping by; a tension that gives the song its emotional weight.
Following the release of her emotional single, “Won’t Let Go,” Satya returns with “Love2Hate,” an energetic and empowering pop anthem that celebrates self-reinvention, confidence, and the freedom that comes from letting go of doubt. Inspired by a year of personal transformation and creative renewal, the track marks a bold step forward in both sound and identity, reflecting an artist fully stepping into her own power.
“This song is something I’m so proud of,” Satya shares. “After being told I couldn’t write songs, I did. A lot changed this year. I transformed myself, started collaborating with new people, and found a new sound.”
Rooted in themes of independence and self-belief, “Love2Hate” plays like a personal victory anthem: a celebration of new beginnings and emotional release. With influences drawn from the soulful power of Mary J. Blige and the early-2000s edge of Blu Cantrell, Satya channels a nostalgic yet forward-facing energy that feels both timeless and fresh.
“I hope people feel delivered and free,” she says. “It’s like an anthem of building yourself up and making new beginnings. Cheers everybody, love you all.”
The single’s artwork reflects that same sense of ease and liberation. “I wanted a visual that makes me look free,” Satya explains. “I’m just chilling on a couch in a 70s vibe, happy, relaxed, and joyful. I’m letting go of things, moving forward, not bothered, and confident in myself.”
Balancing girl power energy with determination and uplift, “Love2Hate” stands as a statement of resilience and self-acceptance, capturing the moment where struggle transforms into strength.
Modern Mystery 
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