Ghost Caravan is a group of collaborators led by Shaina Silver-Baird. Her anthemic pop/electronica sound is cinematic and invigorating. For their contribution to the multi-artist covers album, Ghost Caravan has created a poppy, ‘80s-leaning version of Elvis Costello’s song, Girls Talk, that comes with a side of empowering cheekiness. 

https://smarturl.it/ghostgirlstalk

This song brings up memories of being a teenager. Silver-Baird pictures the nostalgic image of a bunch of girls huddled together giggling, talking and gossiping. She loves the thought of those young girls knowing that there’s power in what they say, no matter what they choose to use their voice for – whether it’s trivial or powerful.
Growing up, Silver-Baird had only heard the cover version by Linda Rondstadt and never knew that Elvis Costello was the original singer. When she hears a male voice singing this song, to her it really feels like he’s on the outside looking in on the female experience – seeing and hearing the rush and the power of girls talking and gossiping from the outside. But when she hears a woman sing it, it feels like the whole story of the song is flipped. It’s now being sung from the inside of the experience. Silver-Baird’s saying: “I know you wanna know what I’m saying… and I know what I choose to say has power. Whether it’s to help or hurt… it has power.”

Emerging Toronto-based Filipinx singer-songwriter Jenn Nucum’s EP, Get Better, is an exploration of diverse soundscapes ranging from lush, orchestral pop to soaring, cinematic post-rock.

This collection of songs was drawn from inner reflections, re-evaluating oneself, analyzing society at large, and sitting with discomfort to dig deep into the injustices and inequities surfaced by a global pandemic.

The EP’s title track, a stripped back ballad which hums with intensity, captures a yearning and desire to ‘get better’ as people––to exercise self-compassion and take care of each other collectively.

Collective healing is the core theme of Get Better, which can only occur through looking at the societal wounds inflicted by broken systems, institutions, and obsolete authority created by capitalism, colonization, and white supremacy. 

We are all struggling but the initial step to a solution is found in the recognition of who and what the culprits look like in our day-to-day lives.

Down the rabbit hole of psych synth layers, sub bass drones and hypnotic hip hop drums, you’ll find the new Victory Chimes record, When The Fog Rolls In, from Montreal rocker Jeff Louch. 

Produced by Louch, Alex Formosa and Jace Lacek (The Besnard Lakes), “New Mode” represents the overall vibe of the full-length album. Written around the circular bassline, its wavelike feel inspired some of the water imagery. Linking a series of images, the pulsing track touches on issues of identity, facing demons, death, rising to potential and new beginnings.  

When The Fog Rolls In was inspired by the welcomed solitude of the Rocky Mountains at the Banff Centre before being thrown directly into the forced solitude of pandemic lockdown. Lyrical colouring spans from the macabre to blissful fantasy, and styles stretch from narrative to stream of consciousness to absurdity. 

Ink Sticks & Stones is the moniker for Toronto-based composer-musician, Ai Rei Dooh-Tousignant. Being of mixed descent, she is constantly searching for different ways to express her many cultures, and openly advocates for a more inclusive Canadian music scene. 

Her upcoming EP, Après la tombée du ciel is an audiovisual voyage based in neoclassical music, and the sister album to her previous EP, Vaste (2021). 

In an album that goes from somber and chaotic to minimal and hopeful, “Les derniers vestiges” is the moment where things are finally starting to get better after a traumatic event. It represents the point in Dooh-Tousignant’s recovery from a brain injury, where she could start to see small progress and a potential return to a normal life. There was still a long way to go, but she was thankful for the healing that she had already done, and for the small victories that were to come.

Dooh-Tousignant is still currently recovering from her brain injury from 2019, so the composing and recording of the song was part of her personal physical rehab program. To this day, she is still unable to play a full song on any instrument, so the song was composed and recorded on the piano piece by piece in my living room. After the initial composition, she invited Samuel Bisson (who she previously worked with on her album Vaste) to improvise a cello part based on the piano melody. 

With the fear of climate catastrophe hanging over everyone’s heads, Dooh-Tousignant decided to use the planet as a metaphor for her personal experience recovering from a brain injury. She creates a soundscape where after a series of global climate catastrophes, life no longer exists on the Earth. However, as dark and dead as it all might seem, this is when She takes time to heal, before ushering a new dawn and the possibility of a return to life.

Montreal based psych-pop band, Elephant Stone, have released “Hollow,” a six-part animated film directed by Laurine Jousserand and scored to an orchestral re-interpretation of side A of their most recent 2020 album of the same name.

“Hollow” is a majestic and dynamic exploration of dystopian themes married to a story about humanity’s search for a new home following an apocalyptic event that makes earth uninhabitable. 

It is a tale of loss and grief, existential crisis and rebirth, and a world withering away, all set to elegant and intense, droning music. Light is found through deft orchestration and the addition of a children’s choir.

​​Since their inception, Colour Tongues have taken hits and weathered storms, both literally and figuratively, to bring you dreamy and high-energy nostalgic rock.

Their latest record, Midnight Island, reflects on the different stages of relationships that all of us experience – the blissful naivety of first love, the trials and tribulations of trying to make it work, the ultimate heartbreak, self-rediscovery, and the final realization that true love needs to start from within. 

The album’s title track is a nostalgic and pulsating pop rock track which reflects on young love and early romance, reminding the listener that anything remains possible and the energy of one’s youth is infinite.