Canadian music icon Anne Murray talks to CBC’s Ian Hanomansing about her career and the struggles she faced balancing family with superstardom.
CBC’s Rundown Of 2021: The Biggest Moments in Canadian Music
2021 was the year that felt like it lasted a decade, with plenty of highs and lows along the way.
From the return of live music, sort of, to the Canadian artists who continued to smash records and represent on the international stage, these are the year’s biggest moments in Canadian music.
Amanda Mae Wears Her Heart On Her Sleeve with Sultry “Shoulda Known”
Much like seemingly ‘perfect relationships,’ Canadian R&B artist Amanda Mae’s newest single “Shoulda Known” feels and looks beautiful on the outside but, in its core, is fueled by contempt and infidelity — resulting in a sultry yet ominous vibe throughout.
Available now, “Shoulda Known” is Amanda Mae in every sense possible… Providing a velvet listening experience for her growing fanbase, the song lays out a story of betrayal and contention in a relationship that started great — but ended flat on its face.
An all too familiar concept for those looking for love, Amanda Mae does an outstanding job of tapping into a sore subject with the ease and grace of a consoling friend late at night, sitting somewhere in a dive bar offering words of solace. “The story is relatable and common-place for many women,” she shares. “A passionate relationship that I believed would be the romantic pinnacle of my dating life resulted in betrayal and infidelity.”
With lyrics like “broken hearts don’t bleed forever” and “yeah I learned my lesson, now you’re only fuel…” seek to add flame to the overall theme of disloyalty and resurgence that are ingrained in the Toronto-based songstress’ newest single.
Blending soul, R&B, and pop elements to craft this new single, Amanda Mae sought the production capacity of Toronto based R&B hip-hop producer Rekkzone. Mae reflects on this long term partnership with admiration, revealing how he “describes a soulful but gritty dark vibe to the beat that compliments the volatility of the relationship. Rekkzone dutifully took the song requirements and created a custom beat for the project.”
Working with Ayaz Virani to fine tune the lyrics that resonate so deep with her adoring fanbase, Mae knew she had something special on her hands — something further confirmed in the stunning music video that accompanies the track.
Describing her sound and characteristics as a mix of R&B, pop, and soul, Mae appears to wear her heart on her sleeve. Basing her music off of personal experiences in life and love to inspire her song-writing, Amanda Mae is able to relate to her listeners on a personal level all while creating radio-ready singles. “I never shy away from an opportunity to branch out sonically to reach another vocal and impact level for my audience…” she shares.
A self-taught singer, Amanda Mae has decided to take the traditional approach to R&B music, much like her idols who have blazed the contemporary R&B trail. Following the success of her recent EP, No Distractions, Mae has released two singles in 2021 that have received critical acclaim for both the Canadian music scene as well as contributed to her tens of thousands of streams across platforms.
HuDost Explore Genuine, Authentic Love in “Home is Bigger Than Us”
Seeking to sit the world down for a bit of a breather, folk-rock duo HuDost serve up down-home comfort with the release of their breathtaking and enveloping new album, Anthems of Home.
The expansive and lush 11-song release — and its newest single and video, “Home is Bigger Than Us” — sets out to “ask important questions,” the award-winning band says.
Celebrating authentic love in its many forms, the song shares the story of how much more beautiful we are when our love is combined, co-fronts Moksha Sommer and Jemal Wade Hines explain.
“When the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts…” they muse.
With Moksha on vocals, harmonium, and piano, and Jemal on guitar, vocals, and production, “Home Is Bigger Than Us” also features Matt Nelson (kïngpinguïn, Jars of Clay) on cello, and Dan Walters on bass. It was mixed by Oz Fritz, mastered by Bernie Becker, and the video was filmed by Craig Hill, with direction by Moksha and editing by Jemal.
The result is everything warm and loving; featuring bright acoustic guitar progression and cozy, embracing bass progressions, HuDost creates on “Home is Bigger Than Us” — and the album beyond — a unique expression of emotion and solace for the listener, as if sitting by a crackling fireplace, mug in hand.
“This song is an expression of real love,” HuDost reveal. “Not false love, not ‘perfect’ love, but genuine intimacy.
“Families now exist in many formations:” they continue. “Small and large, related genetically and not genetically, strange and complex, wonderful and confusing, straight and LGBTQ… But always comprised of love.
“Home is the physical manifestation of that which holds families together, and what we always return to.”
The sentiment is near and dear for Moksha, who is from Montreal, and Jemal, who is from Kentucky; together, the two have toured the United States, Canada, and Europe constantly since 2006.
Finding home in each other, the two have grown as artists, as a couple, and as a family; with the birth of their son in 2013, they’ve found even more passion to drive their growing music careers. Working closely with Dan Haseltine and Jars Of Clay, the duo crafted “Rise Together” in 2018; the song focused on rising together through a shared vision and action, and resonated with Spotify, where it was added to official playlists.
From there, HuDost found their most recent album, Of Water + Mercy, reaching #24 on the Billboard Sales Charts for Folk/Americana, and winning an Independent Music Award for Social Action Song. The duo has also had the pleasure of working alongside some well-decorated producers such as Vance Powell and Malcom Burn.
Throughout their careers, the two have done plenty of spiritual growth as well. Working diligently as engaged activists, the life pair have found themselves working closely with the Kentucky Congressional District Representatives for ONE, a non-profit organization that works to end extreme poverty and, specifically, the sexism of poverty. It’s through the spiritual journey as empathetic human beings that they have made some of their most profound steps forward in their musical adventure.
All the passion that drives HuDost, combined with their overt graciousness and appreciation of the artists who they have created memories and advocated with, soars to new heights with this — the creation of their newest album. Well-known for weaving their traditional folk-world sound through lyrics drawn from real-life experiences and their genuine concern for the world, the release unveils a comforting and warm welcome mat into HuDost’s musical dwelling that is Anthems of Home.
Erika Kulnys Takes a Stand for Bodily Autonomy with “My Choice”
With reproductive rights increasingly at risk, Lower Cornwall, Nova Scotia-based singer/songwriter Erika Kulnys takes a stand in song for bodily autonomy and the right to choose with this, her searing new single and video, “My Choice” — available now.
No matter how geographically far from Texas one may be, the abortion ban in that state has created seismic reverberations and sounded countless alarms from onlookers worldwide and, from her Canadian perspective, Kulnys is no different.
Landing ahead of her forthcoming album, Stand Together — set to arrive in Spring 2022 — “My Choice” supports women and child-bearing folks in their rights to assert reproductive freedom, Kulnys explains, as well as benefiting Whole Woman’s Health — a major abortion provider and catalyst for legal and cultural change in the US.
With soaring, full-range vocals over piano, the chorus that is ’It’s my body/My voice/My future/My choice moves to the collective ‘Our bodies/our choice’ — highlighting movement-building momentum, and the universality of the issue.
“We have to come together, as recent protests in the U.S. have demonstrated, to say no to authorities who wish to control our bodies because of antiquated, religion-based dogma,” Kulnys says.
‘Whose rights?
Can we honour all life?
We won’t be slaves to the state
Stand for freedom
It’s not too late’
Kulnys sings of an old church that has burned down, which serves as an apt metaphor for her message: ‘Hearin’ wails, I can see the tipping of the scales/That old church burned down and brought our bodies home/My body’s something you can’t own.’
Kulnys wasn’t just choosing a clever homonym; the Canadian-American-British-Hungarian artist was in Wales when she began writing the song. “I started ‘My Choice’ at Atlantic United World College on tour in Wales, when the Trump administration was allowed by a federal court of appeals to restrict taxpayer dollars given to family-planning facilities under Title X,” Kulnys shares. “I finished it at home in Nova Scotia with pro-life friends, trying to find common ground. With the abortion ban in Texas, I felt like now was the right time to publish it.”
“My Choice” is the latest in Erika Kulnys’ deeply held connection to audiences with her powerful voice, authenticity, innovative piano work, and infectious joy. Described as “possessing the ingenious activist zeal of Ani DiFranco combined with the poetic skepticism of Leonard Cohen,” she opens hearts with her passionate songs and commitment to social change.
Kulnys has played concerts across the globe, from the mainstages of festivals like Copenhagen Pride, the World Social Forum in Caracas, and more. Her last album, Rise Up, was Top Ten on Canadian and US charts, and won awards from Ireland to Florida.
Erika Kulnys’ honours include a $25,000 Watson Fellowship to study social justice music in seven countries, and Music Nova Scotia’s Inspirational Recording of the Year for the song, “Angel on the Road.”
Her upcoming album, Stand Together — recorded at Signature Sounds in Connecticut and Ojala and Egrem in Habana, Cuba — is set to feature songs in both English and Spanish, and is an album about love, standing together across borders and ideological differences, and transforming suffering into joy.
Stand Together is available Spring 2022. “My Choice” is available now.
The “Stars Align” for Ottawa’s Electro-Pop Duo GOLD BONDS
The “Stars Align” for Canadian electro-pop duo Gold Bonds as they launch their new single and video — available now.
The song serves as a preview to their forthcoming album, Growing Pains — due out Spring 2022.
‘”Stars Align’ is a reflection on waking from lost time and lost ground in a rapidly changing world,” Gold Bond’s Matt Gilmour and David Gervais say. “The song refers to stars aligning as an affirmation of our lucidity, and our ability to make dreams come true.”
Composed, recorded, and produced by Gold Bonds during the COVID-19 pandemic, “Stars Align” serves as a breakaway from the overwhelming isolation many artists, musicians and songwriters felt while forced to stay home, and unable to share the stage.
The song represents finding togetherness after being apart, the band says, adding that they composed the song using their love and adoration for a variety of vintage and virtual instruments and production techniques.
For fans of whimsical, magical instrumentations, Gold Bonds reveal they incorporated Wurlitzers and Rhodes electric pianos played in real time and reverse, paired with echoing synths. Electric guitars and percussion churn beneath Gilmour’s inviting vocals. The result is a delicate mashup of modern popular music as we know it, scored like an 80s banger.
The song’s subsequent music video floats like a dream: Two asteroids strike an unassuming industrial town and inspire unearthly entities to possess two inhabitants. Ultimately, the pair are sent off to find one another, consequences unknown.
“The concept for the music video was written, filmed, and directed by Stefan MacDonald Labelle of Terminal Burrower Films in Hamilton, Ontario,” Gold Bonds explains. “Stefan created an eerie science-fiction visual imagining of the song that is also a metaphor for the historic COVID-19 pandemic, and its grave implications for connecting with others amidst the impending decay of society as we know it.”
Landing ahead of their upcoming release, Growing Pains, the newly released song falls neatly between Empire of the Sun and the Arcade Fire; an indie bop hanging on the fringe of lo-fi electronica, it carves out a place in its own category of sound.
Beyond breaking genre barriers, for Gilmour and Gervais, the song also exudes their two decades in the industry, and serves as a testament to their shared investment in songwriting, as well as their cherished friendship.
As longtime friends and pop collaborators, the two’s earliest recordings go back to 2013. From the beginning, the pair have spent the better part of their music tenure experimenting with sounds, synths, lyrics, and songwriting. Both multi-instrumentalists, their shared intuitive talents beckon you to the dancefloor, coerce you to groove, and slide into your earbuds and nest there till you press play all over again.
The stars have aligned for Gold Bonds, and their shared journey of music becomes ours to discover.
Best Selling Songs of Every Decade From the 2010s Through 14,000 BC
Comedians Archie Henderson and Adrian Gray have researched the best selling single of every decade, stretching back to 14,000BC, including Ed Sheeran, James Blunt, Cher, Beethoven, and more. Wait for the more.
Decadent Hues Drape Creatively Expansive Duo mLau’s New Single, “Blue Boy – Babylon Girl”
Draped in evocatively erotic and decadent hues, creatively expansive and sonically immersive duo and Rome, Italy’s mLau lifts the veil on their new single and video “Blue Boy – Babylon Girl”.
Fresh from the long-time friends’ breakthrough debut EP, Locked In, the song reveals the story of a tormented, convulsive love destined to touch the purity of feelings only when the sacrifice of innocence marks truth and beauty’s poetic intertwining.
The voice, lyrics, and melodies of co-fronts Maria Laura Ronzoni teamed with Massimo Marraccini’s rhythmic and harmonic textures summon a creative response to the profound sense of restlessness, frustration, and claustrophobic isolation, they say.
“It’s a way out of the tangle of an existential condition that sees us human beings as fragile and astonished witnesses of a surreal reality in which we find ourselves alone, but inexorably linked to each other and locked up…
“Or, more precisely — locked in.”
Citing direct reference to their five-track offering released earlier this year, Locked In arrived after the publication of their premiere singles, “No One Around” and “A Queen With No Head.” It also features “Pinstripe Suit” and, as the only non-original song on the release, an elegant, minimal, and highly personal electro-folk interpretation of one of Bob Dylan’s poetic masterpieces in “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues.”
SPOONS Release Two Greatest Hits Albums — with a Twist!
Available now, legendary 80s-electro new-wave Canadian outfit Spoons are back with two new epic releases: their coveted greatest hits album spanning 1980-2020 in Repeatable, and Echoes — a love letter of Spoons music recreated by artists the world over.
Spanning four decades of their beloved classics remastered, Repeatable cross-examines Spoons’ earliest successes and tracklists them alongside later works to create the ultimate testament to one of the country’s most beloved synth-pop groups.
In an initial run of CDs — also set to be accompanied by a double vinyl release — Spoons have carefully curated an incomparable walk down memory lane: From their big-haired licks like “Nova Hair,” “Romantic Traffic,” and “Old Emotions,” to their 2000s offerings in “You Light Up,” and “Escape With You,” Repeatable is a history lesson in the power and prowess of a few kids from a small city hamlet turned into remarkable staples of an entire generation of music fans.
For Derrick Ross, Rob Preuss, Gord Deppe, and Sandy Horne — the remarkable four-piece who spent the 80s trading hometown stages in Burlington, Ontario for big-league opening gigs with the likes of the Police and Simple Minds — showcasing 40 years of recordings is like listening back on a legacy they’ve cultivated alongside fans who have been there since Spoons’ inception.
With that many hits, and that many drops, a variety of players have joined the group in fleshing out the music to the sounds recognizable the globe over. “Players who performed on each album change, depending on which original album they were on,” they explain. Featured on Repeatable includes Gordon Deppe, Sandy Horne, Rob Preuss, Derrick Ross, Scott Macdonald, Steve Kendry, Jeff Carter, Chris McNeil & Casey MQ.
Echoes brings an entirely different light and life to Spoons music wherein the tracks are exclusively reimagined by a host of musicians across the world. From the United States, to England and even Australia, the release is a special and unique project benefiting the Unison Fund in support of the afflicted music industry that was struck down in devastation by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The album features artists such as Britain’s Clive Farrington (When In Rome) interpreting “Romantic Traffic” by injecting the cut with horns, rushing percussion, and layered harmonies. Gowan scores “Arias & Symphonies” with swooping piano melodies, and his signature vocals, stripping back the song from its 80s synth to 80s rock love balladry — in only the way Gowan can command. Felix and the Foreshadow of California add their Darkwave touch to “Old Emotions,” bringing a haunting emotive swing to the track that completely reinvents it from its original recording.
Both Repeatable and Echoes are a mesmerizing attestation to the indelible mark Spoons has left on generations of music collectors, and lovers.
As Repeatable seeks to reunite fans with a singular offering of their most precious and ever-lasting signature songs, Echoes offers a wider glimpse into the legacy of Spoons on the music community as a whole.
Each redesigned and performed track exemplifies how Spoons music took a four pack of kids from Burlington and turned them into experts in their field, leaving behind something to be inspired by for the other songwriters who stumble onto their synth-soaked, electro pop perfection.
ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT Release “Vibe” Ahead of Forthcoming Album, For the FKN Love
When it comes to boombap and classic rap, there isn’t anyone who does it like the trailblazers, name-makers, and ground-shakers like Arrested Development, and their newest single, “Vibe”.
The 2x GRAMMY Award-winning hip hops group credited with a culture-shaping 30 years of experience, Arrested Development was the first hip hop group to ever receive the GRAMMY for Best New Artist while also receiving one for Best Rap Single; the song of honour was their anthemic, prayer-like track, “Tennessee” — which has gone on to be named by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as one of the Top 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll.
Speaking of honours, this timeless group of performers and collaborators were recognized at the Black Music Honors Awards in September of 2019, and have continued to perform in sold-out venues in every part of the world for the past three decades.
Featuring Big Daddy Kane, Cleveland P Jones, and Tasha LaRae, the new single “Vibe” lands ahead of the forthcoming album, For the FKN Love — which was primarily produced by British production and boombap specialist, Configa.
Stellar collaborations in their own right, the features “Vibe” also preview what’s to come for the new release, set to spotlight other timeless names of the industry, such as The Sugarhill Gang, Masta Ace, Freddie Foxxx, Monie Love, Kxng Crooked, G Love (G. Love & Special Sauce), Tony Momrelle (Incognito), and Dee-1 plus Fatman Scoop.
“Legends of this caliber rarely do features, and yet have graced this album…” the band says.
But first, “Vibe,” which is something spectacular all its own. The sonic landscape created by Configa fits perfectly with the classic yet eternal sound Arrested Development has created for themselves.
In fact, Arrested Development credits Configa and his production skills to the group’s recent success, having stepped back into the limelight with their previous album, 2020’s 16-track Don’t Fight Your Demons, calling it “a future classic.” Given the group’s track record, this is far from a stretch, and more of a declaration of fact.
Arrested Development’s classic tone of positivity and afrocentric music fits right into the counterculture of todays music, especially — as always — the group looks to provide more choices beyond the gangsta rap that dominates air waves.
Speech is still a prominent member of Arrested Development, and is the driving force behind this winter’s For the FKN Love. For its part, “Vibe” carries the boombox aura with it’s fat kicks and snare drum snaps, all while instilling plenty of modern influences into this eventual timeless production. Features like Big Daddy Kane, Cleveland P Jones, and Tasha LaRae pair nicely with the positivity and humility Speech has always brought to Arrested Development productions.
“Trying not to let depression press me into deep regression. Trying not to see a trial that’s truly a Blessing. Trying not to speak in negatives. Trying to see beyond what’s in my eyes lens.”