Outside Music HHV Records 29 Items

"Let's just keep fighting the end of the World. We will hold hands and we will make plans - for life."

Twenty years ago, Montreal indie darlings The Dears' sophomore album "No Cities Left" left off with those words followed by an instrumental marriage of heavenly chorus and symphonic cacophony - symbolic of the journey down a darkened path that finally brought The Dears to promise. Twenty years on, those words still ring true for fans of the band from around the world.

On October 11, 2024, The Dears are re-releasing the album as "No Cities Left: The Definitive 20th Anniversary Edition" - a double LP pressed on white vinyl alongside a digital download card with 6 previously unreleased acoustic tracks. The acoustic versions showcase Murray Lightburn's moving vocals and offer a look behind the curtain of The Dears' signature synth-laden and cinematic arrangements, revealing their powerful and heartfelt songwriting.

"The Dears, a six-piece orchestral rock treat from Montreal, Canada, led by the enigmatic Murray Lightburn and sounding like Marvin Gaye fronting The Smiths while the London Philharmonic Orchestra has a stab at the Burt Bacharach songbook, are probably the best new band in the world right now." - NME

"There isn't a tune on "No Cities Left", the Dears' gorgeous second album, that's not pitched at a minor state of emergency." - SPIN

"Sad music has never sounded so uplifting" - Tiny Mix Tapes

"An astoundingly complex, deeply evocative pop record" - Filter

“The greatest and grandest work from a band for whom ‘epic’ seems too cheap a descriptor [...] a seminal album that refines the band’s notorious unhinged onstage catharsis with their lushly-arranged studio sophistication." - Stuart Berman, 2004

Look for The Dears on tour this fall in Canada and the UK.

On her forthcoming record, "Conditions of Love - Vol. 1", Rose Cousins holds our hands as she guides us on a journey through the "conditions of love." Ever the emotional explorer, the acclaimed, Nova-Scotia-based folk artist seeks truth, in all its imperfection, in the depths of our most complicated of emotions: love.

Co-produced with trusted friend and longtime bandmate Joshua Van Tassel, this new collection of songs sees Rose return to her first love, the piano. “Piano is where I feel the most connected. It’s the best partner in expressing the emotion I’m mining,” she shares.

Rose’s work as garnered her two JUNO Awards (2013’s We Have Made a Spark & 2021’s Bravado), two Canadian Folk Music Awards, eleven East Coast Music Awards and one Grammy nomination (2018’s Natural Conclusion), along with praise from the likes of the CBC, No Depression, LA Times, Billboard, Folk Alley, and NPR, who raved “Cousins’ disarmingly fluid vocal tone has the ability to convey the most internalized feelings without an ounce of fuss.” Over the years, she has shared stages with Patty Griffin, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Jann Arden, Bruce Cockburn, Josh Ritter, Kathleen Edwards, Joe Henry, Aoife O’Donovan and Anais Mitchell, and her music has fittingly underscored scenes from notable TV shows including Grey’s Anatomy, Fire Country, Station 19, and Batwoman, along with several independent films.

"Justin Rutledge could easily rest on his reputation. Eleven albums in, he’s accumulated a daunting body of work upon which one could easily coast. Instead, on ""Something Easy"", Justin Rutledge did the opposite. He made things exceedingly difficult for himself and decided to write, record and produce the album by himself at home. With one, then later two, bouncing baby boys underfoot, to boot.

The results speak for themselves. ""Something Easy"" is a serene, stately thing of beauty, a gently paced record that really rewards the patient listener with meticulous detail and unexpected instrumental happenings. It’s anything but Rutledge settling into a rut. It will surprise you.

That Rutledge can still catch us off guard should not come as a surprise. The man is very good at what he does. Accolades have piled up since he released his first album, ""No Never Alone"", via Six Shooter Records and Slowdive/Mojave 3 main man Neil Halstead’s Shady Lane Records in 2004. He’s won a Juno Award for Roots Album of the Year in 2014 for the album ""Valleyheart"" – which also landed him a Canadian Folk Music Award – and has since been nominated for three more Junos. He’s been longlisted twice for the critic-voted Polaris Music Prize.

“All of these songs are about youth, and I hadn’t realized that,” he says. “And it’s interesting because I feel that, as a new dad, there’s this transition that’s happening where suddenly I’m realizing I’m in my 40s. And what’s happening is that our wild-and-free years are suddenly over there, and our ‘middle-aged’ years are now right here. I feel like I’m at this apex where I’m thinking a lot about my youth, But I’m not lamenting anything. I’m not old, I’m just shocked at how suddenly this new phase of life has begun.”"

Since the release of his self-titled debut 15 years ago, Doug Paisley has earned accolades for unflinchingly self-reflective songs delivered with simplicity and beauty. The critical response to his sophomore release, Constant Companion, underlined this quality. MOJO, naming the album one of the top ten of 2010, found in its “rare kind of purity” evidence that “an anti-star is born”. While Rolling Stone deemed it to be a “nearly perfect singer-songwriter record”, UNCUT described it as “sure-footed and ageless…uncluttered, sad and unerringly lovely.” The “quiet and contemplative” nature of his last record, Starter Home, continued this trend, earning it a place in the New Yorker’s top ten albums of 2018.

Doug’s new record, Say What You Like, underscores his prowess as a songwriter, while exploring new sonic terrain with producer Afie Jurvanen (aka Bahamas). Distilled from more than 250 songs penned by Paisley over the last decade, the 11 tracks selected by Jurvanen combine folk, country and pop sensibilities to showcase his rich sense of melody and remarkable way with words. This is Doug at his best – honest, exposed, searching – comforting in his ability to communicate the universal in the struggles of the individual. In meditations on the disappointments and shortcomings of love, Paisley looks hard at middle age, and facing the time “when looking young is getting old.” “We’re always somewhere in-between forever and walking away / we’ll spend a lifetime, you and me, day by day.” One cannot help but get the sense from these songs that Paisley simply must write – it's about emotional survival and the process of working through. “As a songwriter these days,” Paisley reflected earlier this year, “there’s very little to gain and very little to lose so I am working only from the heart, there’s no other motive.” It shows.

Jill Barber returns to her folk roots with her new album, "Homemaker", delivering ten quietly profound songs about the complexities of motherhood, marriage, and the struggle to feel at home in one’s own identity.

Having spent the last 20 years playing nearly every folk and jazz festival in Canada and captivating audiences across the globe, touring Japan, Europe, Australia, Mexico, South America, the USA and the Middle East, It was over the past few years that Jill began to feel an increasing disparity between her public image and the reality of her domestic life as an exhausted wife and mother. Whereas her most recent albums have been bathed in lush string arrangements, "Homemaker" sees emotions laid bare, with a stripped-down production style reminiscent of her acclaimed debut Oh Heart and double Juno Award nominated follow-up For All Time.

Written and recorded in her adopted hometown of Vancouver where she lives with her husband and two children, Homemaker is the first record that sees Jill in the role of a producer, co-producing with Erik Neilsen, and features some of Vancouver’s top session players.

“"Homemaker" is an intentional push-back against the worn-out notion of what it means to be ‘just a homemaker’. It is a statement about the humility and strength that it takes to do the meaningful work of creating a home for others, while still holding space for your own dreams."

From being cradled as a baby in the arms of Roy Orbison, to performing a duet with Willie Nelson, you would think that Tami Neilson lived a country music fantasy life. However, in between these monumental occurrences, The Neilson Family Band were having to busk in the streets to put food on the table, performing gospel concerts to prisoners, and roaring down the road in an exploding RV to open for Johnny Cash, which Tami managed to do, at 18, in her pajamas. And then Tami left to start her own family on the other side of the world in New Zealand, where she now resides. Her busking chops took her to the streets of Auckland looking for her big break. From open mic nights to clubs, to headlining theaters and major festivals, Tami has now won almost every NZ music award possible. 2022 now brings Tami’s 5th album, "Kingmaker". Recorded at Neil Finn’s Roundhead Studios, Kingmaker was born of the pandemic. A moment when women were struggling. Disproportionately affected by furlough: a “she-cession,” analysts termed it. Women put their dreams and careers on hold to care for their families. The songs of "Kingmaker" question gender roles and expectations of women in society. She shines a line on the misogyny that pervades the music industry. She sings of the underestimation of women, of their strength, power, and resilience in the face of structural and cultural barriers to their full participation in society. Tami’s story is at the center of this feminist tapestry: from singing with Kitty Wells at the age of 10, slipping demo tapes into the laundry bags of stars to now singing with Willie Nelson on "Kingmaker" -- from humble beginnings to success, on her own terms. Tami Neilson is a game changer, a cage shaker, a Kingmaker.

A youth hostel in London, a dim lit bar in Toronto, the back of the van rolling through the prairies. These are the places that Justin Rutledge penned many of his songs, isolated, him and a guitar. Over the years, those songs have graced records that have won awards, soundtracked weddings, TV shows and film, and gained fans in Gordon Lightfoot, Ron Sexsmith and Dolly Parton. On Islands, Justin revisits those songs, in the manner which they were conceived, sparse accompaniment, just JR and his guitar. Islands runs the gamut of his catalogue, from breakthrough album No Never Alone to the Juno Award winning and CFMA album of the year Valleyheart and his most recent, his fourth Juno nominated album, Passages. The Tragically Hip “Nautical Disaster” and the live staple “Jellybean” appear for the first time on record rounding out this compelling collection of songs from one of Canada’s most gifted songwriters.

Juno Award winning artist, Justin Rutledge returns with his new album, Passages. Justin’s band on Passages includes guitarist Rob Baker from the Tragically Hip, and the album was co-produced by Justin and Chris Stringer (Timbre Timbre, Elliot Brood, The Wooden Sky). The NOW Magazine Toronto Songwriter of the Year, CMFA Album of The Year winner and multi Polaris nominee recorded Passages in-between getting married to HGTV Canada star Sarah Keenleyside and his acclaimed performance in the Montreal run of the Tony Award winning musical, Once.

Justin Rutledge has fans in Gordon Lightfoot and Man Booker Prize winner Michael Ondaatje (who co-wrote “Boats” on Passages) and has been hailed by The Line of Best Fit as “as strong as Neil Young in his prime” along with The Toronto Star proclaiming “Rutledge can spin a yarn just as well as Bruce Springsteen”. Similar artists include Jason Isabell, Ryan Adams, Wilco, Lord Huron.

This is a priority release for Outside Music that will be supported by a full marketing campaign, with English Canadian press handled by Stephanie Hardman, Canvas Media for radio, Six Media for French Canada, Silver PR for the UK and Starkult for Germany. Touring in support of Passages will begin with a duo tour with Rob Baker throughout Ontario in March 2019, and will continue with extensive headline touring across Canada and in international markets.

From one of the most accomplished singer songwriters in Canada, Royal Wood's highly anticipated new album Ever After The Farewell is available internationally April 6, 2018, on Outside Music. Life has a way of knocking on our door on the days we least expect it. For singer songwriter Royal Wood, life knocked pretty damn hard. For in the same year that he lost his father to illness, he also fell in love and got married. Life showed me first hand that I had never felt true grief before, nor did I understand love either until now. It's been a year of true paradigm shifts.
As an artist, Royal channeled these polar opposite emotions into his new album Ever After The Farewell. Recorded in London, UK, with Jamie Scott (known for his work with renowned artists like Rag'n Bone Man, Michael Kiwanuka, Niall Horan and Ed Sheeran), Royal's album is not only deeply inspired by both loss and love, but is an ode to the classic styles of both Tin Pan Alley and Laurel Canyon.
If Scott's track record is any indication, Royal Wood should brace himself for superstardom considering Scott's eclectic discography as a songwriter is filled to the brim with career-defining or trajectory-changing hits. - BILLBOARD MAGAZINE

JUNO award winner Rose Cousins is interested in the juxtaposition of things. Her new album, BRAVADO, peers behind the kinds of doors we tend to leave closed, [for better or worse, or both]. It is the sound of a heart trying to open. It is a bold swagger, a vulnerable facade. “BRAVADO is an exploration of self-worth and an investigation into the nuances of our tough exteriors - why we act brave while feeling afraid, how we appear impressive while privately questioning our worthiness, how confidence shares space with shame.” Cousins' last project, Natural Conclusion, received much acclaim, including a Grammy nomination, a JUNO nomination for Songwriter of the Year, and 3 wins at the East Coast Music Awards. Rose’s songs have appeared on Grey's Anatomy, Supergirl, Reign, Nashville, and others. She has shared stages with heroic songwriters such as Patty Griffin, Shawn Colvin, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Jann Arden & Ron Sexsmith. BRAVADO will be released worldwide 02.21 on Outside Music.

LP RELEASE AVAILABLE FOR MAY 5TH RELEASE DATE. Measha Brueggergosman is an award-winning soprano who is recognized around the world for her spectacular voice, innate musicianship, magnificent performance style and vibrant personality. She has shared the stage with the likes of Bill Gates and former U.S. President Bill Clinton and given performances for Nelson Mandela, Kofi Annan and Queen Elizabeth II. At the 2010 Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, 3.2 billion television viewers from across the globe witnessed her singing during the Opening Ceremonies. Her musical range encompasses everything from gospel hymns and jazz standards to classical music. Measha Brueggergosman embodies the term ‘diva’ in the best sense. Who else could boast of both singing opera on the world’s most prestigious stages and acting as a judge on Project Runway? The dynamic and multifaceted Juno award winner embarks on an emotional and spiritual journey in creating her critically acclaimed gospel album, Songs of Freedom. Measha Brueggergosman’s exploration of African-American spirituals was not only a departure from her usual classical genre, it was deeply personal for her: “I wanted to explore this repertoire because it’s dear to my heart. They are a very important part of my family’s history. It is the music of my people. My ancestors were stolen from Africa and sold into slavery in the United States before finding freedom in Nova Scotia. The spirituals were born out of a time when my people were oppressed and needed to find a way not only to communicate with each other, but also to express themselves.” In 2007, Brueggergosman discovered her family's deep history in Canada and the United States. Her great-grandparents, African Americans who each escaped slavery in New England colonies during the American Revolution by going to British lines, and their five-month-old daughter Fanny, born free in British lines, had passage in 1783 on one of the last ships to leave New York f

Phase Of The Moon is the new offering from Toronto singer-songwriter Matthew Barber on the Outside Music label. Following his Gary Louris-produced Big Romance (2014) and Juno-nominated collaboration with sister Jill on The Family Album (2016), Phase Of The Moon marks Barbers confident return to producing himself, with veteran Ken Friesen (The Tragically Hip, Carly Rae Jepsen, Gordon Lightfoot) handling the engineering duties.

The songs on Phase Of The Moon were mostly written in a tiny studio apartment in Paris where Matthew and his wife spent a month in early 2017. It came with a small upright piano and had thin walls, which could explain why piano songs sung in deeper, hushed tones feature prominently on the record. The winter sojourn in Europe provided a welcome respite from the all-consuming media madness back home, and coupled with a steady diet of existentialist reading material, served to foster a mood of almost contented melancholy that seeped into the songs and runs throughout the record.

- 2 time JUNO nominee
- 100,000 albums sold worldwide / over 10 million streams
- Matthew Barber is one of Canadas most prolific singer-songwriters, releasing nine acclaimed albums and composing original scores for two award winning theatre productions
- Has licensed his music in various film/TV productions including Hockey Night In Canada, Heartland, Continuum, Lost Girl, and more.
- Albums have been featured/earned glowing reviews in the Wall Street Journal, RollingStone, No Depression, Acoustic Guitar Magazine, CBC
- 4 time Canadian Folk Music Award winner
- Music video asset for lead single off Phase Of The Moon, Back to You by award winning video director Chris Mills (Leonard Cohen, Metric, Blue Rodeo)
- Most recent release, The Family Album, debuted at #39 on the Top 200 chart, received
heavy rotation from CBC Radio 2, CBC First Play Live Videos
- March 2018 tour with White Buffalo

"Just listen". Toronto songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Abigail Lapell offers this prompt at the end of synesthetic piano tune “I See Music”, but the invitation could apply to her entire third album, "Stolen Time". Produced by Howard Bilerman (Arcade Fire) at Hotel2Tango Studio in Montreal, "Stolen Time" is elemental and powerfully evocative, channeling natural imagery and the revolving seasons to take a longer look over decades and generations, ultimately delivering up the present moment the way only the best music can.

A theme of recovery runs through Stolen Time, with lyrics about becoming sober or coping with a partner’s sudden illness, exploring the cycle of relapse and rehabilitation. The album’s title comes from the musical term tempo rubato, which Lapell picked up while teaching herself piano. Referring to the expressive push and pull of tempo in musical phrasing, it’s also a fitting metaphor for the fragile rhythm of uncertain times, darkness hand in hand with escapism.

By turns poetic and painterly, Stolen Time brings a live-off-the-floor, 70s folk-rock vibe and structural experimentation to songs that feel expansive in their scope—unhurried, psychedelic and other-worldly in the vein of Gillian Welch or Karen Dalton. It also marks the meeting of two important music communities for Lapell, who spent formative years living in Montreal’s Mile End before moving back to her hometown. Toronto players include Dan Fortin (bass), Dani Nash (drums, vocals) and Christine Bougie (lap steel, guitars); and from Montreal, Katie Moore (vocals), Pietro Amato (French horn) and Ellwood Epps (trumpet).

For fans of: Gillian Welch, Karen Dalton, Andy Shauf, Sandy Denny

"I wrote the album in a tiny apartment, at a time when everything felt big and overwhelming," says poet and songwriter Jenny Berkel about her new album, "These Are the Sounds Left From Leaving". She was living in a brownstone walk-up full of radiant light and the ever-present soundscape of a leaky bath faucet. It was a sudden move at the time - a spontaneous departure from touring, bustling city life, being many things to many people—that landed Jenny in a space of self-imposed stillness. "The songs themselves are a study of proximity, bringing big fears into small spaces," says Jenny, reflecting on the album. "They're intimate examinations of a world that often overwhelms." The album features contributions from critically acclaimed folk duo Kacy & Clayton, and string arrangements by Colin Nealis (Andy Shauf) - the record was co-produced by Jenny alongside Dan Edmonds and Ryan Boldt (The Deep Dark Woods). Warm and dark, soft with stabs of madness, "These Are the Sounds Left From Leaving" is a cohesive collection of spare songs that bloom lushly with detail. Whether you're reading Jenny's poetry or listening to her songs, you'll experience her drawing layers of far-reaching concern into particular moments, like concentric waves rippling inward toward a lone cast stone. "These Are the Sounds Left From Leaving" showcases the perspective of a unique storytelling artist, with an evocative practice that hinges powerful narratives on the intricacies of a multifaceted musicality. A songwriter immersed in poetry, a poet immersed in music—her work in all its forms is an invitation into a world of relatable introspection, in which even absences can be sculpted into vividly memorable verse.

Evening Hymns is the ever-evolving musical project of Jonas Bonnetta, a musician/artist/potter who lives in rural Eastern Ontario.  Heavy Nights is the 4th long-playing record he has released and represents a dynamic shift in songwriting and arrangement, with wandering sax, sweeping strings, and a deep late-night feel all anchored around the Rhodes piano. His songs continue to explore grief, love, and introspection through the pop form.

On her new record Entre nous, Jill Barber reaches a new level of intimacy with the French language. An unabashed francophile, it all began at the Montreal Jazz Festival over a decade ago: she surprised her audience with a French translation of one of her songs, and the room exploded into applause and a chorus of bravos. Québec was charmed. In response, Jill was inspired to record her debut French album, interpretations of classics from Piaf to Gainsbourg on 2011's Chansons. Soon millions of listeners worldwide were discovering Jill's music through her french material, and she continues to earn spots on top french playlists with songs from Chansons across streaming platforms. In a bold move for an Anglophone, Barber now releases Entre Nous (2020), her first collection of original French songs, written with Francophone collaborator Maia Davies and produced by Montreal born, NYC based, Gus Van Go. Inspired by french pop music of the 1960's, Entre nous invites the listener on an musical rendezvous through champagne-soaked love songs like the title- track, cheeky yéyé-inspired songs like "Chat domestique", the psychedelic "Commes les fleurs" reminiscent of the Velvet Underground, the hooky pop song "Le monde est beau", a haunting interpretation of Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne", and a steamy duet with Québec chanteur Yann Perreau on "Les étés de Montréal". Much like her predecessors, anglophones Jane Birkin and Gillian Hills, the more Barber sings in French, the more she is embraced for her unique and pleasing accent. Singing in a second language lends a quality to her voice that is more vulnerable, tender, playful and passionate: it's simply charming. As a songwriter, Jill Barber is beloved in Canada and abroad for her talent and impressive body of work in English; in French she is irresistible and her star is only just beginning to rise.

Toronto keyboardist R. Grunwald has played on sessions for hundreds of musicians, and has served as bandleader for jazz/pop chanteuse Jill Barber and country/folk songwriter Donovan Woods for the better part of a decade. Now he's ready to step onto the public stage with his own music'alone. Oma is an evocative and deeply personal solo piano record, inspired in part by the life story of his 96-year-old grandmother, a Holocaust survivor and pianist. Drawing from Erik Satie, Nils Frahm and others, Grunwald refers to his intensely melodic compositions as 'extended minimalism.'

'After quitting piano, it was my Oma who inspired me to get back into it. She survived the 2nd world war moving from town to town, hiding from the Nazis, and the Russians in Poland. Music was the one thing that tied her young life together. This music is a tribute to her.'

Enjoy in a quiet environment.

Walrus are here to play for the sake of the song. The Halifax based band's signature sound is a fuzzed-out electric blanket of soul with a few unrepentant strands of authentic heaviosity. Extensive studio experimentation can be heard throughout their sonically unique music, from varispeed warble to Spacemen-3 style saucer drone-attacks. Live, their low-key manner belies a depth and dedication to the craft. This band could be thrown on a bill betwixt Love and Sabbath and not embarrass the present.

Acclaim for Walrus:

'Long, languid stretches of spacey meanderings eventually wind themselves up into tight knots that beg to be undone, to be free again' Walrus bring about a magnificent explosion of noise and heat.' // CONSEQUENCE OF SOUND

''thumping, synthing wonder' mixes the best influences of the genre with the band's own studio experimentation' (4/5) // STEREOGUM

'The band somehow mix gentle, Brian Wilson vocal melodies and orchestrations with out-of-the- blue punk thrash parts that keep listeners guessing. The high, winsome vocals and chiming 12- string Rickenbacker certainly conjured late '60s cloudy folk-pop, but the rest of the band infused the songs with sharp edges. Some of it recalled the Sadies, and the musicians in Walrus are certainly in the same league.' // EXCLAIM!

'Best bet for an acid flashback' // NOW

'Pristine, fuzzed-up jams' // CLRVYNT

Outside Music will support the release with a full marketing and PR campaign. Big Hassle on board for US PR; Starkult for German PR.

Toronto ON - On Friday June 22nd Jill Barber will unleash her new album, Metaphora, on the Outside Music label. A bold entre into the world of contemporary pop music, resulting in a Jill Barber we've never heard before. Metaphora showcases her power and vulnerability as both an artist and a woman. Evolving over the course of many albums from folk to jazz, R & B and pop, Jill's success is defined not by genre, but by her undeniable songwriting chops and distinctive voice. Metaphora is a continuation of Barber's musical story that confidently tackles everything from issues of empowerment, sexual politics, the complications of love, and depression. It's introspective and personal. It's also a dance party. Mutual friendships and living on the same street led Jill to sit down with Ryan Guldemond, the enigmatic lead singer of Mother Mother, for inspiration and creativity. Ryan's commitment to Jill and unwavering enthusiasm garnered co-writing credits on four of the nine songs on Metaphora, including the instantly catchy lead single, Girl's Gotta Do, a hook-filled and very timely call to arms that aims to "challenge the patriarchal status quo, as we usher in a new era of equality" says Barber. "Writing with Ryan was a big departure for me, and very exciting. He's extremely creative and not afraid to push my creative boundaries" recalls Barber. "The sessions became part songwriting and part therapy because I was writing about things that felt pretty raw; politics, sexism, being a mother. I started to realize that this was going to be a very different kind of album for me. I had more that I needed to say and Ryan helped bring that out with his uncanny knack for melody and song structure." Metaphora's opening track, "The Woman" with its pounding bass drum generates a sense of anticipation, an urgent heartbeat for what is next to come from the fearless multi-Juno nominated performer. "It's a song about how a woman is

"It's the most personal album I've ever written, and it is very daunting to put such a raw, exposed, vulnerable part of yourself out there," remarks Tami Neilson of her new album Don't Be Afraid. Don't Be Afraid was nearly left unfinished. With two songs completed and six weeks left to write Tami Neilson unexpectedly lost her father, the patriarch of The Neilson Family band who Tami had toured across Canada with as a young girl opening for the likes of Johnny Cash. It was with her mother and brother's encouragement that she finished the record as a way of honouring her dad. "I actually inadvertently wrote the title track (without realizing it would be for the album) the week Dad died. 'Don't Be Afraid' was the last song Dad wrote, while in the hospital. He had written the melody, lyrics and everything, but he was on oxygen and could barely breathe to speak. He told me that it was driving him crazy that he had this new song stuck in his head, but had no way of offloading it. It's an awful feeling, I know, so I said I would bring him in his guitar so he could play it and I'd record it on my phone. He did a verse, so I got the melody, but then his levels dropped dramatically (that's the hidden track on the album, Dad's Demo'), but we didn't get the chorus, or the melody for the chorus." Don't Be Afraid finds the soul taking precedence over the country as Tami found herself listening to a lot of gospel around the time of her father's death and finding a kinship with the legendary singer Mavis Staples: "I've always been a massive Staples fan. I had ordered the new Pops album, it was released days before Dad died, and I ordered it in Canada so I could take it into the hospital for him to listen to. It arrived the day after he died, and of course I sobbed about that, but I will always be so grateful for that album helping me get through that grieving process." Recorded in Ben Edwards' New Zealand Sitting Room studio, the songs were again recorded live, the musicians all in the room playing together. The album features Delaney Davidson and all the boys that were on Dynamite! including harmonies from Marlon Williams on the soon-to-be classic 'Lonely'. The album features a Tina Turner throwback, 'Holy Moses', the swinging country of 'Only Tears', a bluesy swagger in `So Far Away' and the southern soul of 'Burn My Body'. The album is bookended by the title track, including the haunting hidden demo track sung by Tami's father. "There are a lot of reasons I chose Don't Be Afraid as the title, and one of them is that, musically, as an artist it's a departure for me. There are definite moments where I have had to go, 'Don't be afraid of this, this is who you are,- Neilson says. "This album is the guts of me. I guess 'departure' is the wrong word because it's all the same palette and same family, but whereas Dynamite! was a lot of light, bright colours, Don't Be Afraid is deeper, richer colours - still in that same family but a different level." Tami moved to New Zealand from Canada 8 years ago and has become one of the country's biggest acts. Tami is the most highly awarded artist of any genre in New Zealand, having just picked up NZ's highest songwriting honour, the APRA Silver Scroll, for 'Walk (Back To Your Arms)' off 2014's Dynamite!, which also won her (yet another) Best Country Album Tui in May this year. Don't Be Afraid marks Tami as a new soul staple. It's a raw, deep and hopeful album that finds Tami singing out her grief. "Last year was an insane year, I had the highest of the highs and the lowest of the lows all in one year," she recalls. "And I guess that is what the album is, it reflects that constant cycle of life."

Logan Richard is one of music’s rarest creatures—a compelling and diverse songwriter who also shreds.

The P.E.I.-born-and-based artist has been sharpening both skills since he first picked up the guitar as a pre-teen, building a reputation as a deft, genre-fluid songsmith and peerless hired gun for some of Canada’s most exciting musicians. But his new full-length, Character Traits, collects the undeniable evidence of his talents under his own name as he navigates slick pop, spacey R&B, and soulful folk. As the thesis song and title track attests, he’s a 21st-century renaissance man in both skill and style.

Influenced by his axe-slinging brother, artists like Stevie Ray Vaughan and John Mayer, his dad’s record collection, and his Acadian mom’s fiddle-playing family, Logan hit the stage at just 12 years old, cutting his teeth playing gigs around the island he still calls home. He’s built his career as both a solo artist and in-demand live and session player, racking up experience over more than a decade and playing everywhere from dim blues dives to historical soft-seaters.

“‘Character Traits’ was the very last song that I wrote for the record. It came together in one sitting, which doesn't happen to me very often,” Logan says. “That song tied everything together—I don’t think there are any two songs on the album that sound super similar to each other. Each song touches on a different genre and lyrical theme. They all represent separate little character traits. They all reveal different aspects of who I am.”

Character Traits is the inevitable result of commitment to craft. It is a collection of considered and close-to-the-heart songs that provide a detailed picture of a songwriter hitting his stride.

Vinyl is Close to VG+. With insert.

A cafe in Paris, a cocktail lounge in Palm Springs, a beachside bar in Rio De Janeiro, a lokanta in Istanbul. Jill Barber’s French repertoire is played around the world and has earned her a following that transcends language barriers. Her music has become the soundtrack to an experience.

It is a surprising achievement for an anglophone artist who only began her affair with the French language in her late twenties, following a moment during the Montreal Jazz Festival, where she sang a few notes of French to an enraptured crowd. Inspired by their reaction, Jill enrolled herself in an immersive French school in the South of France, eventually emerging with her own recordings of the songs and poets that inspired her most: Piaf, Gainsbourg, Aznavour. The album "Chansons" was released in 2013 and has since become Jill's most globally successful record to date, having been streamed over 120 million times - with more than 35 million listens in the past year alone.

A full decade later, Jill has reunited with Grammy Award-nominated producer Drew Jurecka and the musicians that accompanied her on "Chansons" to produce "ENCORE!", its long-awaited sequel.

"ENCORE!" is a delightfully arranged and lushly orchestrated album, featuring all new interpretations of classic songs by Edith Piaf, Charles Trenet, Blossom Dearie, Django Reinhardt, Robert Charlebois, Josephine Baker, and Barbara.

“For me, singing in French is an embodied, sensual experience… it’s a new language in which to explore and express myself artistically- and be vulnerable.”

The French have a saying for a particularly pleasurable sensation that is so unique, it’s difficult to put into words- when Jill Barber sings in French, there is a pleasing quality, a “Je ne sais quoi” that is hard to describe, but easy to enjoy. And now she’s done it again - ENCORE!

Award-winning Toronto songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Abigail Lapell returns with "Anniversary", an evocative collection of original love songs. Produced with Great Lake Swimmers’ Tony Dekker, the album was recorded at 200-year-old St Mark’s Church in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. Dekker helped shape the sessions’ spooky, resonant sound and also lent his voice to a couple of spellbinding duets.

Lapell’s deft lyrics jostle with love song tropes, grappling with love’s finitude and the irony of how codependency and longing are revered in popular music. A ghost story is woven through the album: waltzing in the dusty barroom country of “Blue Blaze,” buried in the superstitious lyrical streak of “Rattlesnake” and audible in a wheezing organ as it shuts down at the end of “Footsteps.” Still, "Anniversary" emerges as an earnest celebration of commitment. Earworms like “Anniversary Song” and “Someone Like You” showcase intricately layered harmonies, while closer “Stars” affirms that there’s no place the speaker would rather be than with the one she loves.

Dekker and Lapell assembled a stellar cast of musicians to support Lapell’s powerhouse vocals, piano, harmonica and signature fingerstyle guitar. The core band includes Dan Fortin on bass, Jake Oelrichs on drums, and Tania Gill on the church’s piano, harpsichord and organ. Rounding out the ensemble’s sensitive orchestral arrangements are Rebecca Hennessy (trumpet), Rachael Cardiello (viola), Michael Davidson (marimba and vibraphone) and Joe Lapinsky (pedal steel), who also engineered and mixed the record.

CD comes in a soft case, instead of the original crystal case. All booklets included.