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Dahlia Wakefield Ignites Her Boldest Chapter Yet With Anthemic New Single “Light of the Phoenix”

Eric Alper
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Dahlia Wakefield Ignites Her Boldest Chapter Yet With Anthemic New Single “Light of the Phoenix”

Dahlia Wakefield, one of Western Canada’s most dynamic and versatile singer-songwriters, releases her soaring new single “Light of the Phoenix” on all major streaming platforms worldwide. The track is the fourth and most anticipated single via Skyrocket Records from her forthcoming rock album ‘Phoenix Rising,’ scheduled for a full release in October 2026, and it arrives as a defining statement of resilience, self-reclamation, and creative momentum from an artist who has been building toward this moment for two decades.

From its first electrifying chord to its final sustained cry of freedom, “Light of the Phoenix” is a powerhouse rock anthem built for anyone who has ever chosen themselves over the weight of a toxic situation. Dahlia’s vocals ride the song’s surging dynamics with the precision of a seasoned performer and the raw authenticity of someone who has lived every word. The chorus lands with the force of a rallying cry: “By the light of the phoenix / I will find my way / I will rise above / And I will be okay.” And in a standout moment mid-song, she delivers one of the album’s most vivid lines with fearless conviction: “All the pain you caused just fueled the fire / You tried to ruin me but burning bright’s my best attire.” It is writing that radiates earned wisdom, and Wakefield delivers it with every ounce of her remarkable range.

The story behind “Light of the Phoenix” is as compelling as the song itself. Written in July 2023 in a single inspired burst of honesty between Wakefield and co-writer and musical partner Kevin Frey, the song grew out of a deeply personal conversation and a chord progression that instantly clicked. “Writing it was incredibly cathartic — it felt like shedding weight and stepping into clarity,” says Wakefield. “It was one of those rare writing experiences that felt like a huge release — raw, emotional and deeply healing. The song poured out of us.” Frey contributed the music while Wakefield penned the lyrics, a collaboration that also yielded “Still Waters,” which earned a 2024 Josie Award nomination from Nashville. That creative partnership is woven through nearly every track on ‘Phoenix Rising,’ making the album one of the most cohesive and personally resonant works of Wakefield’s career.

Produced, mixed, and mastered by Sandro Dominelli at Dominelli Studios in St. Albert, Alberta, “Light of the Phoenix” showcases a recording process as layered and intentional as the song’s message. The track features lead guitarist Alan Tymofichuk, a musical collaborator of Wakefield’s since 2000; rhythm guitarist Kevin Frey; bassist Jeff Godley; and drummer Dennis Boisvert, with Wakefield herself on keyboards in addition to lead and background vocals. The song went through a rich evolution from its initial phone-demo recording in July 2023, through a first studio session in Edmonton, to its final incarnation at Dominelli Studios, where Wakefield previously recorded her acclaimed singles “Still Waters” and “Dreams of Yesterday.” Wakefield is also quick to note with a laugh that the record was made entirely without the use of artificial intelligence, a testament to the irreplaceable value of genuine human artistry and real-room chemistry between musicians.

Beyond its musical impact, “Light of the Phoenix” carries a broader cultural significance that Wakefield is channelling into meaningful action. The song’s unflinching themes of reclaiming identity and walking away from narcissistic abuse have led her to partner with WIN House in Edmonton, a society dedicated to supporting survivors of domestic violence. “Like the phoenix, the song is about rising from the ashes of pain and confusion into finding strength, clarity and self-worth again — reclaiming your voice and choosing yourself,” Wakefield explains. “I hope it empowers anyone in a toxic situation to find the strength to walk away and take back their power.” In an era when music that speaks truthfully about emotional survival resonates deeply with audiences worldwide, “Light of the Phoenix” arrives as both a personal triumph and a communal anthem.

The single is accompanied by a music video shot in the striking desert landscape of Ashcroft, British Columbia in August 2025, with video footage captured by Robin Matkea. The visuals bring an expansive, sun-scorched grandeur to the song’s themes of emergence and transformation, pairing the soaring vocal performance with imagery that feels both intimate and cinematic. Photography for the release is by Amanda Clark, with cover artwork by Andrew Bacoto, completing a creative package that speaks to every dimension of Wakefield’s vision for this chapter of her artistry.

Dahlia Wakefield is one of Alberta’s most accomplished and multidimensional musical forces. A graduate with Distinction from Grant MacEwan University’s Music Program in Vocal Performance, she has performed professionally for over 20 years across stages of every scale, from intimate retirement home performances to New Year’s Eve sets for more than 10,000 people in Edmonton’s Churchill Square. A sought-after session and backup vocalist, she has sung alongside the band Toronto on multiple occasions and leads or participates in several active projects, including the Dahlia and Alan Duo, the hard rock band Kerosene, casino act Dahlia and The Villains, and country/rock band Dirt Road Angels, among others. Her previous single “Well Dressed Lies” has earned multiple ISSA nominations, including International Entertainer of the Year, Female Vocalist of the Year, and Female Single of the Year, with coverage appearing in Canadian Beats, Cashbox, Tinnitist, and Record World International, among others.

Upcoming Tour Dates:

June 12-13 – Caffreys, Sherwood Park, AB – with Kerosene – 9:30 PM

June 19 – Blowers & Grafton – Duo with Kevin – 8:00 PM

July 4 – Ottewell No Frills – with Dahlia & Alan Duo

July 25 – Cornstock ’26 Main Stage, Taber, AB – with Brigade (Heart Tribute Band), opening for Nick Gilder, Headpins, Honeymoon Suite, and Colin James – Time TBA

August 29 – “Meet Us on the Way” Block Party, Rice Howard Way, Edmonton, AB – Duo with Alan – 4:00 PM

October 10 – Bailey Theatre, Camrose, AB – with Brigade Heart Tribute Band – 7:30 PM

October 16-17 – Caffreys, Sherwood Park, AB – with Kerosene – 9:30 PM

October 24 – Ryley Community Centre, Ryley, AB – with Dahlia & The Villains – 8:00 PM

Bruce Cockburn Announces Extensive 2026 North American Tour

Eric Alper
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Bruce Cockburn Announces Extensive 2026 North American Tour

Bruce Cockburn, one of Canada’s most celebrated and enduring singer-songwriters, today announces a sweeping North American tour spanning 2026, bringing his extraordinary catalogue of songs to stages from coast to coast across Canada and the United States. The run of dates represents one of the most anticipated live events of the concert season, uniting longtime devotees, and new listeners around a body of work that has shaped the very soul of Canadian music for more than five decades.

Bruce Cockburn upcoming new album, as-yet-untitled and to be released in Fall, 2026 – continues the legendary songwriter’s decades-long journey through folk, rock, jazz, and spiritual reflection with the wisdom and craftsmanship that have defined his career.

Ottawa-born and now based in San Francisco, Cockburn has spent more than 40 years documenting the full breadth of human experience across folk, rock, jazz, and worldbeat, travelling to Guatemala, Mali, Mozambique, Nepal, and beyond in the service of both his music and his activism. His guitar playing, both acoustic and electric, has placed him in the company of the world’s top instrumentalists, and his songs of romance, protest, and spiritual discovery are among the finest to have emerged from any country over the last half century. Music journalist Nicholas Jennings has written that Cockburn has deftly captured the joy, pain, fear, and faith of human experience in song, whether retreating to the country or going up against chaos, tackling imperialist lies or embracing ecclesiastical truths, always expressing what Cockburn himself has called a tough yet hopeful stance: to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight.

His remarkable journey has seen him embrace an extraordinary range of sounds and subject matter while working on behalf of organisations including Oxfam, Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, and Friends of the Earth, lending his voice to causes from native rights and land mines to the environment and Third World debt. For his many achievements, the artist has been honoured with 13 Juno Awards, induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, a Governor General’s Performing Arts Award, and has been made an Officer of the Order of Canada. His 38th album, ‘O Sun O Moon,’ continues one of the most remarkable bodies of work in the history of popular music.

Performing with Cockburn for a significant run of dates on the tour are Jeff Pevar and Inger Nova, the Oregon-based duo whose original music blends soul, rock, R&B, jazz, folk, and blues into a sound that feels both deeply rooted and distinctly their own. Jeff Pevar is a guitarist, bassist, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and composer whose career spans decades of collaborations with legendary artists. A founding member of CPR alongside David Crosby, he has toured extensively with Crosby Nash, Crosby Stills and Nash, and Crosby’s Sky Trails Band, and his expansive career includes work with Ray Charles, Joe Cocker, Phil Lesh, Marc Cohn, Rickie Lee Jones, Bette Midler, Jennifer Warnes, and Jefferson Starship, among many others. A New York Blues Hall of Fame inductee, Pevar brings multi-instrumental production depth and a lifetime of world-class musicianship to every stage he inhabits.

Inger Nova Jorgensen is a vocalist, songwriter, sculptor, and painter whose multidisciplinary career deeply informs her musical voice. Together, Pevar and Nova have spent more than two decades writing, recording, and performing original music throughout the United States and Europe, including multiple tours across Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark.

Cockburn has always insisted on continuing to grow, citing his models for graceful aging as John Lee Hooker and Mississippi John Hurt, musicians who never stopped working or deepening their craft. That spirit of perpetual creative renewal has carried him from the Riverboat in Toronto in 1969 through to the present day, and this tour is a vivid reminder of just how rare and precious the relationship between an artist and his listeners truly is. The tour includes a particularly meaningful Canadian homecoming, with Cockburn visiting some of the country’s most storied rooms, among them the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Massey Hall in Toronto, Centre in the Square in Kitchener, and Gesù Salle in Montréal. A highlight of the broader run was his appearance at Legacy: A Celebration of David Suzuki at 90 in Vancouver on May 22, an event that sits squarely at the intersection of art, activism, and the natural world that has always animated Cockburn’s finest work. Several dates also feature performances alongside the legendary Judy Collins on her “Sweet Judy Blue Eyes” Farewell Tour, and Cockburn appeared at Jefferson Airplane’s Jorma Kaukonen’s 85th Birthday celebration. Livingston Taylor will join Cockburn for dates beginning October 20 through November 8.

Tickets and full details are available at brucecockburn.com.

TOUR DATES

Jul 10 — Saskatoon, SK — SaskJazz Festival, Victoria Park

Jul 22 — Denver, CO — Botanical Gardens **

Aug 7 — Los Angeles, CA — Ford Theatre **

Aug 26 — Iowa City, IA — Englert Theatre **

Aug 27 — Des Moines, IA — Hoyt Sherman Place **

Sep 8 — Omaha, NE — Astro Theater **

Sep 9 — Lawrence, KS — Liberty Hall **

Oct 3 — Eugene, OR — McDonald Theatre **

Oct 15 — Kitchener, ON — Centre in the Square

Oct 16 — Ottawa, ON — National Arts Centre

Oct 17 — Toronto, ON — Massey Hall

Oct 18 — Montréal, QC — Gesù Salle

Oct 20 — Plymouth, NH — Flying Monkey&

Oct 21 — Portland, ME — State Theatre&

Oct 23 — Boston, MA — Chevalier Theatre&

Oct 24 — New York, NY — Town Hall&

Oct 25 — Philadelphia, PA — Keswick Theatre&

Oct 27 — Washington, DC — Warner Theatre&

Oct 29 — Durham, NC — Fletcher Hall&

Oct 30 — Charlotte, NC — Carolina Theatre&

Nov 1 — Nashville, TN — CMA Theatre&

Nov 2 — Knoxville, TN — Bijou Theatre&

Nov 4 — Atlanta, GA — Variety Playhouse&

Nov 6 — Ponte Vedra, FL — Ponte Vedra Concert Hall&

Nov 7 — Fort Lauderdale, FL — Amaturo Theatre&

Nov 8 — Key West, FL — Key West Theatre&

** With Judy Collins

& With Livingston Taylor

François Bourassa Quartet annonce une tournée estivale majeure à travers le Canada pour célébrer son 30e anniversaire.

Eric Alper
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François Bourassa Quartet annonce une tournée estivale majeure à travers le Canada pour célébrer son 30e anniversaire.

Le François Bourassa Quartet annonce une vaste tournée estivale 2026 à travers le Canada pour célébrer le 30e anniversaire du groupe, passant par certains des festivals de jazz les plus prestigieux du pays, de Medicine Hat à Montréal. Le pianiste, compositeur et lauréat d’un prix Juno François Bourassa dirige le quartet aux côtés de ses collaborateurs de longue date André Leroux (saxophones, flûte), Guy Boisvert (contrebasse) et Guillaume Pilote (batterie). Cette tournée marque trois décennies de l’un des partenariats les plus durables et évolutifs du jazz canadien. Une nouvelle œuvre musicale sera publiée en lien avec cette tournée.

Avec onze albums de musique originale à son actif et une réputation internationale bâtie sur quatre décennies de performances, Bourassa est devenu l’un des principaux ambassadeurs du jazz canadien. Né à Montréal, il s’est d’abord fait remarquer à l’échelle nationale en remportant le prix du « New Talent » du Festival international de jazz de Montréal en 1985. Depuis, il a effectué de nombreuses tournées en Europe, en Asie et en Amérique du Nord, se produisant aux côtés de légendes telles que Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Wayne Shorter et Dave Brubeck. En 2007, il a reçu le prix Oscar Peterson lors du Festival international de jazz de Montréal, en reconnaissance de sa contribution au développement du jazz canadien. L’album live de son quartet, enregistré en 2001 au Top O’ The Senator de Toronto, a remporté un prix Juno.

Le Quartet, pilier de la scène artistique montréalaise depuis sa création, a sorti son album le plus récent, Swirl, en 2023. Enregistré en direct au Studio Piccolo à Montréal, l’album a été salué à l’international pour sa capacité à capturer la spontanéité et la complicité musicale qui définissent les performances du groupe sur scène. Le Jazz Magazine de Paris décrit leur connexion comme celle “d’un groupe, au sens le plus profond du terme ”  tandis que Marc Chenard, de Jazz Podium, a qualifié l’album ” d’aussi virtuose dans son exécution qu’imaginatif dans son propos “. La tournée du 30e anniversaire apporte cette même énergie vivante et organique sur les scènes de tout le pays.

Les compositions de Bourassa sont largement saluées pour leur diversité et leur caractère imprévisible, s’inspirant à la fois du jazz, de la musique classique contemporaine et de l’improvisation à égale mesure, tout en restant ancrées dans la mélodie et une expression émotionnelle directe. Ian Mann, du Jazzmann, décrit son travail comme ” des pièces riches, épisodiques, en constante évolution et aux multiples facettes, qui associent des mélodies fortes et accessibles à des harmonies inhabituelles et imaginatives “. Jazztrail a qualifié Number 9 de ” l’un des albums les plus audacieux et les plus gratifiants de l’année”, tandis que le Ottawa Citizen l’a classé parmi les meilleurs albums de jazz canadien de 2017. La capacité du quartet à transposer cette complexité compositionnelle en une expérience véritablement vivante et immédiate sur scène fait de cette tournée anniversaire un événement incontournable.

La tournée débute le 19 juin au Medicine Hat Jazz Festival et se poursuit en Saskatchewan, à Victoria, Calgary et Edmonton, avant d’arriver à Montréal pour le Festival international de jazz au début de juillet. Bourassa se produira au Dièse Onze le 3 juillet et en formation trio à la Messe Jazz au Gésu le 5 juillet. Il participera également au Christine Jensen Sextet dans le cadre de la célébration Modes of Coltrane au FIJM le 1er juillet, marquant le centenaire de la naissance de John Coltrane. La tournée se termine le 9 août au North Hatley Jazz Festival au Québec, avec des dates prévues en France en novembre.

La tournée est soutenue par le Conseil des arts du Canada. Pour un quartet qui, depuis 30 ans, refuse de se répéter, cet été est à la fois une célébration et une continuité : de nouvelles musiques, de nouvelles scènes, et toujours les mêmes quatre musiciens qui ont, comme le dit Bourassa lui-même, appris à se faire confiance, à bien se connaître et à anticiper les mouvements de chacun.

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2026 DATES TOURNÉE:

Juin 19: Medicine Hat Jazz Festival, Medicine Hat, Alberta

Juin 21: Regina Jazz Festival, Saskatchewan

Juin 23: The Bassment Jazz Club, Saskatchewan

Juin 25 : Victoria International Jazz Festival, Victoria, Colombie Britannique

Juin 26: Calgary Jazz Festival, Calgary, Alberta

Juin 27: Edmonton International Jazz Festival, Edmonton, Alberta

Juillet 1: FIJM Modes of Coltrane (with the Christine Jensen Sextet), Club Montreal, Montreal, Quebec

Juillet 3: Dièse Onze, Montreal International Jazz Festival, Montreal, Quebec

Juillet 5 : Messe Jazz, Gésu, Montreal, Quebec (formation trio)

Août 9: North Hatley Jazz Festival, North Hatley, Quebec (formation trio)

Wet’suwet’en Tsimshian Singer-Songwriter Mercedes Brown Announces Debut Single “Playing With Fire”

Eric Alper
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Wet’suwet’en Tsimshian Singer-Songwriter Mercedes Brown Announces Debut Single “Playing With Fire”

Mercedes Brown, the Wet’suwet’en Tsimshian singer-songwriter whose sound reaches back to a time when rock music was built on grit and truth, releases her debut single “Playing With Fire” out now on all major platforms. The track arrives ahead of her debut album ‘Light The Fire,’ due June 19, 2026, on Ukee Sound Records, and it announces an artist of rare instinct and intention: a young writer who arrived at this song not through calculation, but through the kind of unguarded honesty that makes rock music matter.

“Playing With Fire” is the kind of debut that leaves no ambiguity about who Mercedes Brown is or what she is here to say. Built on a churning alt-rock foundation and driven by a vocal performance that is at once restrained and explosive, the song traces the edge between control and collapse with unsettling clarity. Brown wrote it as a poem first, free verse by design, a form with no rules, and that spirit carries into the song itself. The result is something that feels both structurally tight and emotionally boundless. When she sings “I walk down the line / Stare death right in the eye / They push me right down / I’m holding on by just a thread,” there is nothing performative about it. And in the chorus, the image crystallises with the precision of the best rock writing: “The flame is taking and it’s breaking all I have / The flame is taking and it’s breaking all I am.”

The song’s origin is as genuine as its execution. Brown was playing with matches and a lighter with her cousins when she made an offhand joke that it would make a “lit” song. The idea sat with her for months. When a school poetry assignment turned into an exercise in writing about wanting control over her own life and a way through depression, the two threads came together. “I wrote a poem at school and thought it needed to be more me,” she says. “Music has always been a way of self-expression to me.” What began in her bedroom as a rough recording became, with the guidance of her uncle and producer Brent Halfyard, a fully realised studio track that holds every bit of the raw energy it started with. The song is, in her words, about freedom, testing limits, and pushing boundaries while battling depression. It carries that weight without ever becoming heavy-handed, which is the mark of a songwriter who trusts the material.

Recorded at Ukee Sound in Ucluelet, BC, “Playing With Fire” is produced by Halfyard, who also plays bass and guitars on the track alongside guitarists Peter Esquivel and Jon Roper, with Timmy Proznick on drums. Mixing and mastering were handled by Chris Potter. The production is deliberate and assured, leaning into the analogue warmth and textural grit that Brown’s songwriting demands, and giving her vocals the space to move between vulnerability and defiance without losing either. It is a sound that references the alt-rock era Brown grew up loving without being beholden to it: music that means something, made by people who understand that distinction.

Mercedes Brown is Tsayu (beaver clan), from the Wet’suwet’en and Tsimshian Nation, and her identity as an Indigenous artist from Red Deer, Alberta, informs not just who she is but how she writes. Her father’s family is from Witset, and her family connection to Wet’suwet’en language and culture runs through her music as both a grounding and a source of creative energy. She counts the Smashing Pumpkins among her deepest influences; a band her father introduced her to and whose commitment to grit and thoughtful lyricism she carries forward in her own voice. The “Mercedes Brown Sound,” as she describes it, is a throwback to a time when music mattered more than image. On the evidence of “Playing With Fire,” that description lands with complete accuracy.

With ‘Light The Fire’ arriving June 19, 2026, “Playing With Fire” is the opening declaration of an artist ready to be heard. Mercedes Brown performs as a solo artist, in duo configurations, and with her full band featuring Ezra Beaton on guitar and vocals, Brent Halfyard on bass and vocals, and Jim Ljungh on drums.

Feura Unleashes “Lose Your Head,” a Bold Debut from a Queer BIPOC Rock Artist Done Asking Permission

Eric Alper
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Feura Unleashes “Lose Your Head,” a Bold Debut from a Queer BIPOC Rock Artist Done Asking Permission

Feura takes a stand. The Toronto-based queer, BIPOC, East Asian rock artist releases her debut single “Lose Your Head” today, a sharp, unrelenting rock anthem that calls out every system, every person, and every institution that has ever had a problem with her existing. Funded by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Toronto Arts Council, written by Korol Pikulik, Alexandra Jelilyan, and Marc Koecher, and produced by Illegal Audio (Marc Koecher and Lexie Jay), “Lose Your Head” is the opening statement of an album that has been a lifetime in the making.

Feura grew up as one of the only people of colour in a small rural Ontario town, excluded early and excluded often. For years she tried to shrink herself to fit in, and it was never enough. At some point, she stopped trying. “Lose Your Head” is what came out of that decision: not a grievance, but a verdict.

“‘Lose Your Head’ came from this feeling that no matter what I do, people will find a reason to react to me just existing,” Feura says. “I’m queer, BIPOC, East Asian, and a type 1 diabetic, and whether I want to define myself by those labels or not, they’ve always shaped how people treat me. So, at a certain point it became: Screw it. If people are going to lose their minds over me anyway, I’m going to be fully myself. This record comes from that switch.”

The song is funny, furious, and precise. “You get mad that I got tattoos, chipped nail polish, studded shoulders” lands in the first verse with the kind of specificity that makes satire sting. The chorus, “You can’t help but lose your head every time I take a breath,” is not a complaint. It is a diagnosis. And the bridge delivers the thesis without apology: “All you want is my freedom.” Three words that say everything about power, control, and why certain people cannot stand watching someone refuse to be diminished.

Feura is clear-eyed about what she represents and what she is up against. “Even existing as a queer East Asian artist in rock music feels radical, and it shouldn’t,” she says. “There’s so much pressure now to assimilate, to be digestible, and this record pushes back against that. At its core, it’s for anyone who’s ever felt like they had to ‘edit’ themselves to be accepted. It’s about being unapologetically yourself, even if it makes people uncomfortable, because that discomfort usually says more about them than it does about you.” That is not a press release talking point. That is someone who has lived it.

Produced by Illegal Audio and mastered by Kristian Montano, “Lose Your Head” hits with the full weight of a rock record that knows exactly what it wants to say and refuses to turn it down. The production gives Feura’s voice room to be both biting and anthemic, and the result is a song built for arenas and for anyone who has ever needed to hear someone say the quiet part loud.

Feura’s summer run includes London Pride, Kempenfest at the OLG Main Stage in Barrie, a featured performance at Honey Jam at TD Music Hall in Toronto, and more dates through September. Every show is all ages. “Lose Your Head” is available now on all major platforms. The album follows.

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SINGLE CREDITS:

Written by: Korol Pikulik / Alexandra Jelilyan / Marc Koecher (all SOCAN)

Produced by: Illegal Audio (Marc Koecher and Lexie Jay)

Mastered by: Kristian Montano

Funded by: Canada Council for the Arts / Toronto Arts Council

UPCOMING DATES (ALL AGES):

June 13, 2026: Rainbow Bistro, Ottawa ON (The Space Between Album Release Show)

July 17/18/19, 2026: Main Stage, London ON (London Pride – date TBC)

August 1, 2026: OLG Main Stage, Barrie ON (Kempenfest)

August 20, 2026: TD Music Hall, Toronto ON (Honey Jam featured performance)

August 23, 2026: Georgian Bay Steam Show Grounds, Cookstown ON (Gussapolooza)

September 25, 2026: Zion Memorial Church, Ottawa Valley ON (Stage Piot Productions)

Danny Marks Returns With ‘Back to the Blues,’ a Landmark Album From One of Canada’s Most Beloved Blues Masters

Eric Alper
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Danny Marks Returns With ‘Back to the Blues,’ a Landmark Album From One of Canada’s Most Beloved Blues Masters

Danny Marks, one of Canada’s most enduring and deeply revered figures in blues and roots music, releases his new album ‘Back to the Blues’ on all major platforms. Spanning 13 tracks and drawing on more than five decades of living, listening, and playing, the record is both a homecoming and a declaration: a master musician at the height of his craft, returning to the music that has always told the truest story. In Marks’ own words, “The inspiration for ‘Back to the Blues’ is both a homecoming and a way forward, set to music. This is for you. My heart is on the line.”

‘Back to the Blues’ is an album that breathes with the full weight of a life spent honouring the form. From the jubilant, stomping invitation of “Blues Party Tonight” to the aching reverence of “Blues for Lonnie Johnson,” Marks moves through the tradition with the ease and authority of someone who didn’t just study it but lived inside it. The title track sets the tone with the kind of plainspoken poetry the blues does best: “I’ve travelled around this dusty old town / I’ve worn out deep holes in my shoes / I’ve been here and there, just about everywhere / But something keeps calling me back to the blues.” It is a sentiment that could only come from an artist whose relationship with the music runs bone-deep, and whose voice carries it with complete conviction.

The album’s emotional core is unmistakable. “Please Mister Conductor,” one of the record’s most quietly devastating songs, finds Marks drawing on deeply personal experience to craft a blues narrative of perseverance and grace: “I’ll gladly pay my ticket, when we reach the other side.” Elsewhere, “Beltline Blues” conjures the Toronto of Marks’ youth with cinematic clarity, tracing the railway tracks and the mother’s tears and the front door left behind at seventeen. And “Uncle John” pays tender tribute to the blues lineage itself, honouring the legacy of John Hurt with a song that is equal parts elegy and celebration. Throughout ‘Back to the Blues,’ Marks holds to the truth he has carried since his first notes as a musician: “Blues is truth and truth rings out authentically for each of us in our own way.”

Produced by Alec Fraser Jr. and Marks himself, ‘Back to the Blues’ is a record made by musicians who know one another completely. Fraser serves double duty on bass and background vocals, anchoring the record with warmth and authority, while the drum chair rotates among four of Toronto’s most seasoned players: Al Cross, Bucky Berger, Chuck Keeping, and Barry Keane. The keyboards of Jonathan Goldsmith and the piano of Julian Fauth add colour and depth across the record, while harmonica masters David Rotundo and Chris Whiteley bring heat and texture to key tracks. Robert Piltch contributes second guitar, saxophonists Wayne Mills and Gene Hardy add brass firepower, and the vocal harmonies of Sherrie Marshall and Wendy Irvine round out a record whose ensemble feel is the sound of a community gathered around something they all believe in. The album was recorded across multiple storied Toronto studios and remastered by L Stu Young at Loud Mouse.

For those newly arriving at the name Danny Marks, the biography demands a moment. Co-founder of Edward Bear, the celebrated Canadian band whose hits filled radio across the country in the early 1970s, Marks went on to work as a sideman alongside Rick James, Bo Diddley, and Ronnie Hawkins, and shared stages with Paul Butterfield, Led Zeppelin, and Humble Pie. He brought the blues to generations of Toronto listeners as host of BLUZ FM on JAZZ FM91 and through his television series Cities in Blue on HIFI TV. In 2006, he received the Blues with a Feeling Lifetime Achievement Award, a recognition that speaks not only to the breadth of his contribution but to the singular depth of his commitment. With ‘Back to the Blues,’ that commitment finds its fullest and most personal expression to date.

What makes ‘Back to the Blues’ remarkable is not simply that it is a fine blues record, though it unquestionably is. It is that it arrives as the statement of an artist who has earned every note. “Blues of the Future” pushes the music forward with a clear-eyed look at the human condition, while “Land Where Blues Began” anchors the album in a sense of place and origin that only a true student of the form can conjure. “Blues Came to Chicago” honours the electric transformation that changed music forever, name-checking the giants who made it happen. Taken together, these 13 songs do what the greatest blues albums have always done: they make you feel less alone in the world and remind you that the music was built for exactly that purpose. “Since my first beginnings as a musician until today, good things have happened when I honoured the music, the people, and the stories of our lives,” Marks reflects. “Creating art from adversity is a universal act.”

JUNO Award-Winning Francois Bourassa Quartet Announces Landmark 30th Anniversary Summer Tour Across Canada

Eric Alper
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JUNO Award-Winning Francois Bourassa Quartet Announces Landmark 30th Anniversary Summer Tour Across Canada

The Francois Bourassa Quartet announces a sweeping summer 2026 tour across Canada in celebration of the group’s 30th anniversary, taking in some of the country’s most prestigious jazz festivals from Medicine Hat to Montreal. Pianist, composer, and Juno Award winner Francois Bourassa leads the quartet alongside longtime collaborators Andre Leroux (saxophones, flute), Guy Boisvert (upright bass), and Guillaume Pilote (drums) on a tour that marks three decades of one of Canadian jazz’s most enduring and evolving partnerships. A new piece of music will be released in conjunction with the tour.

With eleven albums of original music to his name and an international reputation built over four decades of performance, Bourassa has become one of Canada’s foremost jazz ambassadors. Born in Montreal, he first came to national attention winning the Montreal International Jazz Festival’s New Talent prize in 1985, and has since toured extensively throughout Europe, Asia, and North America, performing alongside legends including Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Wayne Shorter, and Dave Brubeck. In 2007 he received the Oscar Peterson Award at the Montreal International Jazz Festival in recognition of his contribution to the development of Canadian jazz. His quartet’s 2001 live album, recorded at Toronto’s Top O’ The Senator, received a JUNO Award.

The Quartet, which has been a cornerstone of Montreal’s artistic landscape since its inception, released its most recent album Swirl in 2023, recorded live at Studio Piccolo in Montreal and praised internationally for capturing the spontaneity and musical camaraderie that defines the group’s live performances. Jazz Magazine in Paris described their connection as something that makes them “a group, in the deepest sense of the term,” while Marc Chenard of Jazz Podium called the album “as virtuose in execution as it is imaginative in its subject matter.” The 30th anniversary tour brings that same living, breathing ensemble energy to stages across the country.

Bourassa’s compositions are widely celebrated for their range and unpredictability, drawing on jazz, contemporary classical, and improvised music in equal measure while remaining rooted in melody and emotional directness. Ian Mann of The Jazzmann described his work as “rich, episodic, constantly evolving, multi-faceted pieces that feature strong, accessible melodies allied to unusual and imaginative harmonies.” Jazztrail called Number 9 “one of the boldest and most gratifying records of the year,” while the Ottawa Citizen placed it among the best Canadian jazz albums of 2017. The quartet’s ability to translate that compositional complexity into something genuinely alive and immediate in a live setting is what makes this anniversary tour an event worth attending.

The tour opens June 19 at the Medicine Hat Jazz Festival and moves through Saskatchewan, Victoria, Calgary, and Edmonton before arriving in Montreal for the International Jazz Festival in early July. Bourassa will appear at Dièse Onze on July 3 and in a trio setting at Messe Jazz at the Gésu on July 5 and will also be featured as part of the Christine Jensen Sextet at the FIJM Modes of Coltrane celebration on July 1, marking the centenary of John Coltrane’s birth. The tour concludes August 9 at the North Hatley Jazz Festival in Quebec with dates to follow in France in November.

The tour is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts. For a quartet that has spent 30 years refusing to repeat itself, this summer is both a celebration and a continuation: new music, new stages, and the same four musicians who have, as Bourassa himself has said, learned to trust each other, know each other well, and anticipate each other’s next move.

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2026 TOUR DATES:

June 19: Medicine Hat Jazz Festival, Medicine Hat, Alberta

June 21: Regina Jazz Festival, Saskatchewan

June 23: The Bassment Jazz Club, Saskatchewan

June 25: Victoria International Jazz Festival, Victoria, British Columbia

June 26: Calgary Jazz Festival, Calgary, Alberta

June 27: Edmonton International Jazz Festival, Edmonton, Alberta

July 1: FIJM Modes of Coltrane (with the Christine Jensen Sextet), Club Montreal, Montreal, Quebec

July 3: Dièse Onze, Montreal International Jazz Festival, Montreal, Quebec

July 5: Messe Jazz, Gésu, Montreal, Quebec (trio setting)

August 9: North Hatley Jazz Festival, North Hatley, Quebec (trio setting)

Cumbrian Alt-Metal Bruisers Tallboy Drag You Into a Collapsing World With “The One Below All”

Eric Alper
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Cumbrian Alt-Metal Bruisers Tallboy Drag You Into a Collapsing World With “The One Below All”

Tallboy don’t waste time, and “The One Below All” makes that abundantly clear. The Cumbrian alt-metal quintet’s blistering new single and video are out now, arriving on the back of a debut EP, ‘House of Glass’, that earned national radio airplay and strong support from across the heavy scene, and they’ve come back with something darker and more uncompromising than anything they’ve released before.

The band frames the track’s world without ambiguity: “‘The One Below All’ drags the listener into a collapsing world where power rots and consequences surface. The seven-headed figure isn’t myth, it’s inevitability. Built on repetition and pressure, the track moves like something already decided. There’s no victory arc, only acceptance as everything gives way.”

That sense of inevitability is built into the architecture of the song itself, forceful vocals from Brad Crook, pounding dynamics from drummer Callum Warren, and the dual guitar work of Jordan Gelling and Adam Twinney creating a track that doesn’t build toward a climax so much as it grinds forward with the weight of something that cannot be stopped. Arron Ward-Twinney’s bass anchors the whole thing in the low end where alt-metal lives best.

Tallboy refuse to be boxed into rigid genre lines, fusing alternative metal with a sharp contemporary edge that keeps the sound urgent and alive. With more material on the horizon, they’re staking a serious claim as one of the UK’s most important new heavy bands.

Edinburgh Power Pop Project The Kettle Zone Keep the Singles Coming With “Iff and Only If”

Eric Alper
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Edinburgh Power Pop Project The Kettle Zone Keep the Singles Coming With “Iff and Only If”

The Kettle Zone are moving quickly and deliberately, and “Iff and Only If” is their third single in under a year. The Edinburgh-based project, built around the songwriting of vocalist, guitarist, and keyboard player Allan Knox, continues to carve out a distinct space in the power pop landscape with another hooky, up-tempo track featuring Richie Werner on drums, who also mixed and mastered the recording.

The singles have each brought slightly different collaborators into the fold. Debut “Every Other Summer’s Day” featured Werner at Edinburgh’s B & B Studios. Follow-up “Little by Little” brought in Derek Smith on bass, Andrew Scott on drums, and additional guitars from Jack Davenport, recorded at The Owl Shed Studios. “Iff and Only If” returns to Werner as the central collaborator, keeping the project fluid and the sound consistent.

The influences anchoring The Kettle Zone are XTC, Squeeze, and Jellyfish, a lineage that says everything you need to know about where Knox’s songwriting instincts come from. More singles are planned for 2026, and for anyone who still believes guitar-driven power pop is one of the great undervalued genres, The Kettle Zone are worth watching closely.

LA Indie Rockers Common People Get Honest About Anxiety on New Single “Dear Worry”

Eric Alper
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LA Indie Rockers Common People Get Honest About Anxiety on New Single “Dear Worry”

Common People have been building momentum fast, and “Dear Worry” is their most emotionally direct statement yet. The Los Angeles indie rockers’ new single is out now via Parallel Vision/Big Loud Rock, a hopeful, introspective track produced by Cage The Elephant’s Brad Shultz that arrives alongside a visualizer and the band’s debut EP ‘Games’.

Written by Nicky Winegardner and Konrad Ulich, the song captures the intense self-critical internal monologue that most people carry quietly through their days. Ulich frames it with deliberate honesty: “Dear Worry is a love letter to that voice in your head. An honest reflection on worry that is less so about overcoming negative emotions as it is learning to live with them.”

That approach, meeting anxiety with compassion rather than dismissal, gives the track a distinct emotional texture. It’s a reminder to extend yourself the same grace you’d give someone else, delivered over a sonic landscape that feels warm and searching rather than heavy.

Common People announced themselves in 2025 with breakout debut “Thank You,” which drew attention from Rolling Stone, Atwood Magazine, and Flaunt Magazine. Follow-up singles “Propaganda” and “Ready or Not” earned praise from Alternative Press and New Noise Magazine, while the band closed out the year supporting Cage The Elephant and The Criticals on select tour dates.

‘Games’ is out now on all digital platforms, with vinyl available for pre-order on the band’s website. A festival appearance at the Minnesota Yacht Club Festival on July 19 is still ahead.

Upcoming Tour Date:

July 19 – Minnesota Yacht Club Festival

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That Eric Alper

Eric Alper is a 6-time nominee for Publicist of the Year during Canadian Music Week and has overseen the publicity campaigns for over 183 JUNO Award-nominated albums (and 16 in 2025), 45 Grammy-nominated albums, including 47 JUNO Award, 58 Canadian Folk Music Award, 126 Maple Blues Award-winning albums and is also truly honoured to work with some of the biggest and most important artists of our time.

Contact me: eric@thatericalper.com

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