Jacob Weil (pronounced Wheel) is a road-worn singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist based out of Vancouver, B.C. Floating purposefully between the genres of folk, Americana and alternative music, Jacob’s songs often leave the listener reminiscing of a not so distant past, like a lost memory obscured by the trials of the present moment.
Fresh off his first solo tour across the USA, Jacob releases a love song yearning for life on the road. “The Next Show” looks back on the early days of performing in nostalgia of the beautiful moments in each small show.
A choir boy gone rogue, Fox Revett is a Toronto singer-songwriter and producer. Fox has a background in classical voice and composition, but chases the highs of bubble gum basslines, syrupy sweet melodies, and brutally honest storytelling.
In an economy of song where singers never really take the fall or the blame, Fox looks inwards to the parts that feel villainous, yet vulnerable.“Someone New” finds the artist falling out of love and expecting their partner to change, soon realizing they were just projecting out of insecurity.
With roots in a musical household in Halifax, Nova Scotia, SHEAL picked up piano, guitar, and violin as a child, before finding her call to songwriting at age seventeen.
She started committing more to her craft throughout her twenties, writing alongside friends and musicians on the East Coast. Following a move to Toronto in 2016, she released her debut EP and is now set to release her sophomore album, Courage Again, in January 2022.
The album’s first single, a stripped back piano and guitar led piece of introspection, is “Dark.” SHEAL wrote the track when she was feeling a lot of resentment towards someone and was beginning to realize that all the negative energy she had towards them was actually harming her more than anyone else.
Zoocrates was created in 2014 by the Argentinian songwriter Daiana Bolini, now based in Montreal. Zoocrates recently released her first album ‘Bug In The System’, on October 22nd.
Zoocrates music is a combination of alternative rock-pop, indie pop, dreampop, electrorock and acoustic music. Bug in the system is a journey through different aspects of the mind. It leads us to disruptive realities as a search for self-acceptance and connection with our emotions.
Sometimes we feel trapped or stuck in daily life, feeling conditioned about the future and how hard it is to break out of the mold. Last year those sensations intensified, as if all of this was unreal.
“Bug In The System,” the first single from my new album released October 22nd, reflects all those feelings – the system is life and it’s unfair aspects that we sense all the time.
Check out the official video for “Bug In The System” on YouTube
My sound has undergone a radical change and now finds inspiration through a mix of electro pop and progressive rock. From this exploration of sounds and emotions, I encourage you to find your own connections to this song.
The album, Bug In The System, is a journey through different aspects of the mind. It leads us to disruptive realities as a search for self-acceptance and connection with our emotions, giving ourselves the time and space to go through problems and heal at our own pace.
Goose Bolton is a mysterious figure, who we are told came from outer space and crash landed here on earth in early AD 2021 after an intergalactic heist went awry. He has been releasing experimental music for a while, and his latest single/video “Lunatic” is one of them.
We spoke with Goose about this strange, yet powerful video:
Tell us the story of this song, why did you choose to visualize this song specifically?
The song originated as a sonic accompaniment to a story about someone who starts hallucinating that inanimate objects can speak to them. When conceiving of a music video, I chose to visualize this song because it’s one of my favorites on my upcoming record and because, thematically, it felt like the most appropriate starting point to accompany the strange images and narratives that swirl around in my head. I didn’t feel locked into any single specific narrative with this song, and so the Tiger Ji (the director) and I could really let our minds run free during the brainstorming process.
What was the inspiration behind this video(visuals, storyline, etc.)?
The initial inspiration for this video began a dream that Tiger had, which contained the specific image of men in business suits wriggling down a city street while wrapped in plastic. This was the springboard for us deciding that the video should be about a person who is seeing something crazy in the city (that only they can see) and their response to that. Initially, we were going to have the video’s main character be chased by fish people, but then we decided that lizard people would be more relevant to contemporary conspiracy theory as well as more thematically interesting, as it lets our main character wrestle with her own reptilian identity by the end of the film. We were aiming for a very specific mood that mingled elements of the absurd, science-fiction, horror, and comedy. I decided it made sense for the main character to be wearing a hospital gown after having escaped an asylum because the word “Lunatic” to me always seems like it’s a title assigned by society to an individual, rather than a subjective state that the individual feels (“crazy” for instance feels more like it can be either an assigned title or a subjective identity), so the hospital gown was the most efficient way to convey that this person is The Lunatic. The version of lunacy we wanted to explore in this music video is not mental illness. Rather, it is a label thrust upon a person by others in response to that person’s reaction to outside factors or new knowledge. This is important because the main character is not insane—she’s just the only person who can see the lizard people.
What was the process of making this video?
We filmed the video over 2 days across different areas of New York City in both Manhattan and Brooklyn. The final climactic scene with (spoilers) all of the dancing lizard people is the rooftop of a parking garage on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, most of the street pursuit scenes were shot in Bushwick, and we filmed the subway scene at the 2nd Ave subway stop in Manhattan as well. The shoot was incredibly smooth with zero hiccups. Tiger is the kind of director that has every single shot meticulously planned and storyboarded weeks ahead of the shoot, which led to a fun and efficient filming experience where we could focus primarily on the emotions and physicality of the actors in each scene.
Rising lo-fi and bedroom pop artist, &seb, shares his newest single, “I’m Okay.” From age 11, &seb has been singing, playing piano, and calling himself a musician. Later on, he taught himself guitar and started tapping his computer keys (seemingly randomly at first) to make electronic music. After graduating from NYU, he decided to take his music to the public and released his first single, “New Blood.” With immediate gratification from digital numbers going up, he decided to pursue this creative, yet unknown, line of work further, hoping to bring the same good vibes to his listeners that his favorite artists brought to him.
“I’m Okay” was written about a dark time in &seb’s life, when his trust was betrayed. Though the song is mostly electronic, the melody is a catchy base and his deep and low vocals creates the depth of the song. The music itself is similar to that of Billie Eilish with a touch of Timbland and a hint of 80’s pop. You can hear his personal connection to the song; it’s about how he once repeated ‘I’m Okay’ to try and convince himself he was.
“‘I’m Okay’ stems from a breach of trust,” shares &seb. “I was pushed out of a project I was very passionate about, one that I pitched and started years ago. Once the ball got rolling, I was taken off the team without my knowing. It was pretty upsetting, so I ranted to one of my closest friends about the whole situation and about the specific person who pushed me out. Little did I know, that same person was listening in on my phone call. I had no idea and said some not-so-great things out of anger. They told everyone else, and almost ruined my relationship with some good friends.”
You can listen to “I’m Okay” here:
“I’m Okay” is bound to be a hit. This lo-fi and bedroom pop beat is rife with personal meaning for not only &seb, but will definitely resonate with others. We have all been in a similar situation and this relatable song gives us all a sense of relief, that we are not alone. “I’m Okay” is out now. Be sure to give it a listen.
Modern Mystery 
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