Sika Valmé is a contemporary Creole-Canadian musician, performer and illustrator. Her music and graphic universe give rise to an immersive synergie of sonic and visual stories. She was born and raised in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and currently resides between Montréal, New York, and Mexico. As a reflection of Sika’s many migrations, her creations craft timeless narratives that find inspiration in geometry, the natural world, and in the human experience.

Her new EP and title track, “Erosion Eksperyans” is about a dark personal period in Sika’s life, a hard time with her health, consciousness about her story and how much she has to offer to the world. It follows a period of deep change in her life and lifestyle. Changes to improve her health took time, consistency, and patience. She drew parallels between this and erosion in the natural world. 

“Resilience creates capacity” – this lyric was Sika’s mantra during the writing process of this EP. It took time, patience, research, and lived experience, to come up with a concept and a new body of work around this record, which is finally ready 13 years after the first EP. Most important to her was that her music helps to tell a story from her community and other similar groups that experience displacement.

Listen to the full EP here: https://lnk.to/SikaEE

“I create for something bigger than myself,” says Sika. “My music considers other art forms for the future, my lyrics and songwriting tell a story, and support visual narratives such as film. I value exchange, conversation, connection, synch more than performing on a stage. I create with a social conscience so I think bigger rather than only focusing on my personal emotions or story.  I say less with words, let the music say more, but I pick my words.”

APACALDA is the name of singer/songwriter Cassandra Angheluta, a Montreal based artist. APACALDA, meaning “warm water” in her mother tongue, Romanian, is a reflection of Cassandra’s means of movement through her art and life – a reminder to reconnect to the warm water that can calm and ground you, despite the chaos and unpredictability of outside circumstances. 

From its inception, the song “Male Gaze” was fueled by a passionate resentment. As women, a great majority of our existence has been to accommodate or be appealing, appeasing, and submissive to men. APACALDA’s intention with this single is to evoke a deliberate introspection into our own accountability of how we propagate the current “gaze” imposed on femme/women and the emerging ramifications.

APACALDA is creating her own immersive world with a refreshed approach to indie rock, electronic pop meets dream wave sounds.  Her debut self-titled four track EP released on Oct 14.

The EP was written and inspired by true events in APACALDA’s life. It is meant to simulate an inner downward spiral, enchanting the listener to descend into a hauntingly beautiful immersive world that has been meticulously yet authentically curated.

Angela Saini is an Indian-Austrian Canadian and a crossover country-pop artist. The singer-songwriter has forged her identity through unflinching positivity and empowering ideals. While she has experienced some incredible success, being known for her positive and uplifting music through her debut album and two popular EPs, her success has come as a result of some of her darkest moments. Now, the Toronto-based country folk-pop artist is issuing a series of singles seeding a path to her sophomore album.

Angela wrote this song during a difficult period when she was questioning what she was doing with her life. There is a very personal metaphor describing an “old beat up car” that reflects how she was feeling as an artist and songwriter, with quite a bit of experience behind her. This year, she celebrated 10 years as an artist, with amazing career highs, triumphs, and also perceived defeats and discouragement. 

Despite all this, Angela posed the question: “Would I do anything differently?” Her answer is a resounding NO. 

“I’m in it for the long haul. I’m making music for life. I’m in It For The Ride!,” Angela explains. “When you look at life this way, you can never get it wrong and you will never get it done. Each peak leads you down a new path, a new opportunity to grow and expand yourself. That is what life is a

bout.”

Taylor Simpson is an indie folk-rock singer songwriter from Toronto. Unafraid to wear his heart on his sleeve, his unabashed and vulnerable lyrics create deep connections with listeners. His songs bristle with acoustic and electric guitar, steady drums and potent lyrics which leave audience members in a state of nostalgia whilst dancing, singing and clapping along.

The latest single speaks about depression and its accompanying dark emotions Simpson has battled these last couple of years. Reeling from the pandemic, job loss, a break-up, and alcohol addiction, “Holding On” captures feelings of emptiness and anger. But he turns that frustration on its head and comes out on top. “I’ll keep holding on” is the powerful main melody and hope-instilling message. 

His EP, New Sights in a Familiar Place, is set to come out November 18th; a continuation of the concept and storyline from his debut LP, Learning to Live with Precious Time.

Vibi is the alias of Canadian-born pop singer and dynamic vocalist, Valerie Borghesi, who has been making a statement through her intense energy performance, red hot aesthetic, and impressive vocal abilities. Championed by her hometown, VIBI took home awards in the “Best Female Vocalist” and “Adult Contemporary Artist” categories at the 2020 Niagara Music Awards. 

Her new single, “Nights Like This,” has already had a huge impact ahead of its official release. VIBI performed it in front of 60k people when she opened for Bryan Adams, it won in the Pop Category for the John Lennon Songwriting contest, and it got her accepted with a scholarship into the LAAMP (Los Angeles Academy for Artists and Music Production) program.

At the end of summer 2019, Vibi was commuting 2 hours to and from Toronto for various co-writing sessions. It had been a whirlwind summer, new friends, a new fling and very little sleep. On one particular night, the writing session she had booked was canceled due to the producer having a scheduling conflict. Not about to let that roadblock put out her fire, she opened up my laptop to test her production skills. 

From that session, she ended up writing “Nights Like This” in about 30 minutes and sent a bounce to her drummer, Daniel Nicoletti. When he sent back the groove with more drums and bass, they knew they had something special. It’s crazy to think that this song almost didn’t happen – sometimes good things come from canceled plans! 

“I want this song to feel like a good cry,” Vibi explains. “While you’re in it, it’s intense and you might even pity yourself a bit, but by the end of it you feel empowered in owning your feelings.”

Grimelda (fka The Faps) is the collaborative art-punk meets freak-rock project of Blair Colwell and Skyler Cafferata. This new name, taken from their 2018 album, symbolizes a shift into further exploration – from punishing noise-rock anthems to math-y future-punk ragers. Their loud-yet-catchy compositions and gregarious, interactive stage presence (often handing instruments to total strangers, for better or worse) has landed them alongside an array of notable acts like Single Mothers, TEKE:TEKE, Obnox, JOHN, The Dirty Nil, and Shannon & the Clams.

Their new single “George Thorogood,” named after the American musician, is for living in the moment and rocking out! Grimelda’s aim was to make their own fun version of a radio-friendly rock song that mixes modern, classic, and DIY aesthetics.

Check out the official video, for which they explain: “We’re all George Thorogood. It’s about embracing your inner George.”

Expect to be pleasantly annoyed and excited by a louder, weirder, and wilder duo that forever lurks in plain sight. “[Grimelda] follow in the footsteps of outsiders like The Cardiacs and Primus, not necessarily musically, but in the context of bands who always trod their own eccentric path, regardless of commercial appeal.” –ThePunkSite