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Math-Rock Innovators MAEBE Have Signed to Ripcord Records and Released “Brain Paint”

Music

Eric Alper

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Apr 5, 2026

Math-Rock Innovators MAEBE Have Signed to Ripcord Records and Released “Brain Paint”

MAEBE have made a serious move. The Bristol math-rock quintet have signed to Ripcord Records, and their first release on the label, the new single “Brain Paint,” is out now.

The track marks the studio debut of MAEBE’s current five-piece lineup, and it’s a genuine statement. “Brain Paint” melds guitar virtuosity with addictive melodies and cinematic post-rock dynamics, delivering the kind of bombastic, layered instrumental rock that’s been winning over audiences at shows with Intervals, Alpha Male Tea Party, Poly-Math, and Standards. It hits hard and doesn’t let go.

Band leader and guitar journalist Mike Astley-Brown put it plainly: “‘Brain Paint’ is a bombastic riff fest. It’s a pretty bold statement of intent, but it’s fun and heartfelt, too. Everyone in the band listens to a lot of instrumental music, and I don’t think any of us have heard anything quite like this.”

MAEBE’s trajectory has been building steadily. Their second album, ‘Rebirth. Relive. Repeat.,’ earned praise from PROG Magazine, Guitarist, Classic Rock, Distorted Sound, and Noizze, and landed on both PROG and Total Guitar’s best-of-2023 lists. Lead single “Harsh Realm” reached MTV’s Metal Thrashing Madness playlist in the US, while “Tautology” pulled BBC Introducing South & West support.

“Brain Paint” is the first look at a forthcoming body of work due later this year on physical CD via Ripcord Records. A UK headline tour is coming this spring and summer, including an appearance at Radar Festival in Manchester in August.

2026 Tour Dates:

28 May, The Exchange, Bristol

29 May, The Rainbow, Birmingham

30 May, The Fickle Pickle, Southend

25 June, Wharf Chambers, Leeds

26 June, JT Soar, Nottingham

27 June, 33 Oldham Street, Manchester

2 August, Radar Festival, Manchester

Nate Bargatze Steps Into His First Leading Film Role in ‘The Breadwinner’

Music

Eric Alper

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Apr 5, 2026

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Nate Bargatze Steps Into His First Leading Film Role in ‘The Breadwinner’

Nate Bargatze has built one of the most devoted audiences in stand-up comedy, and now he’s taking his first shot at a leading film role. ‘The Breadwinner,’ directed by Eric Appel of ‘Weird: The Al Yankovic Story,’ opens May 29th via TriStar Pictures, and the trailer makes a strong case that Bargatze’s particular brand of self-deprecating, wide-eyed chaos translates perfectly to the big screen. Mandy Moore co-stars as his wife Katie, whose Shark Tank deal sends Bargatze’s lifelong breadwinner character into full stay-at-home dad meltdown mode, complete with exploding model volcanoes, clogged toilets, and a car accident that his own kids saw coming from the start. Bargatze co-wrote the script with Dan Lagana and produced alongside Jeremy Latcham through Wonder Project.

10 Songs to Play This Easter

Music

Eric Alper

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Apr 5, 2026

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10 Songs to Play This Easter By Eric Alper

Easter is one of the most sonically rich moments on the Christian calendar, and whether you grew up in a church pew or simply find yourself drawn to music that carries real weight, these ten songs deliver. From centuries-old hymns to modern worship anthems, each one tells a piece of the same story: death, grief, and then something that changes everything.

“Christ Is Risen” by Phil Wickham

Wickham wrote this one to feel like a declaration, and it does. A modern anthem built for large rooms and open hearts, it captures the shock and joy of Easter morning in a way that lands even if you are hearing it for the first time.

“In Christ Alone” by Newsboys / Keith and Kristyn Getty

Few songs written in the last 25 years have embedded themselves into worship culture the way this one has. Getty and Stuart Townend packed an entire theology into four verses, and every version, from the Newsboys to countless church choirs, carries the same gravity.

“The Old Rugged Cross” – Traditional

Written by George Bennard in 1912, this hymn has outlasted almost everything in popular music. Its focus on the crucifixion rather than the celebration gives it a solemnity that still stops people in their tracks more than a century later.

“Death Was Arrested” by North Point Worship

This one leans into the drama of what Easter actually means. North Point Worship wrote it with a cinematic sweep that makes the central idea, that death itself lost, feel as staggering as it should.

“Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)” by Chris Tomlin

John Newton wrote Amazing Grace in 1772. Chris Tomlin added a chorus in 2006 and introduced it to an entirely new generation. The original was already one of the most recorded songs in history. Tomlin’s version reminded everyone why.

“What a Beautiful Name” by Hillsong Worship

This won Song of the Year at the GMA Dove Awards in 2017 and it earned it. Brooke Ligertwood wrote it as a meditation on the power and humility wrapped up in who Jesus is, and the bridge alone has moved entire arenas to silence.

“Jesus Paid It All” – Traditional / Worship versions

Elvina Hall wrote the original lyrics in 1865, reportedly on the back of a hymnal during a sermon. Modern worship artists including Kristian Stanfill have brought it to new audiences, but the core message, grace that costs the recipient nothing, has never needed updating.

“In God’s Country” by U2

From The Joshua Tree, this one carries a longing that fits the Easter weekend mood without ever naming it directly. Bono wrote it as a meditation on faith, land, and redemption, and the way The Edge’s guitar opens the track feels like something being lifted. It has never been a worship song, but on the right morning, it sounds like one.

“Forever” by Kari Jobe

Recorded live, which matters here because this song breathes differently in a room full of people. Jobe builds it slowly and then opens it up, and by the time the declaration comes that the grave is overcome, you feel the momentum of it.

“Were You There” – Traditional Spiritual

The oldest song on this list and in some ways the most arresting. It does not celebrate or declare. It simply asks a question and lets the weight of it settle. Every Easter playlist needs at least one moment of stillness, and this is it.

How to Turn Casual Listeners Into Core Fans

Eric Alper

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Apr 5, 2026

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How to Turn Casual Listeners Into Core Fans

The difference between a casual listener and a core fan comes down to one thing: connection. Spotify can put your song in front of a million ears, but it won’t make a single one of those people set an alarm for your album drop, drive four hours to a show, or defend you in a comment section. That leap from passive streaming to genuine loyalty is the whole game, and the artists who crack it are the most intentional about how they build relationships with their audience.

Give people something exclusive to hold onto. Taylor Swift built her army of Swifties by writing secret messages in album liner notes, responding to fan theories, and showing up in their comment sections, making her most devoted listeners feel like co-conspirators. The result? Fans who buy multiple vinyl variants, camp outside arenas, and treat the Eras Tour like a personal life event. That kind of devotion gets engineered, one meaningful touchpoint at a time.

Consistency and vulnerability accelerate the process faster than any algorithm. Billie Eilish grew her core fanbase largely through raw, unfiltered moments on social media before she was a household name, talking directly to teenagers who felt unseen. When fans feel like they know the real you, they invest emotionally in your success. That emotional investment is what turns a stream into a ticket purchase, and a ticket purchase into a lifelong follower.

Community is the multiplier. When fans feel connected to each other and not just to the artist, retention skyrockets. Phish built one of the most fiercely loyal fanbases in music history by cultivating a culture around their shows, setlist speculation, tape trading, and a shared language only insiders understood. No two shows were the same, which gave fans a reason to keep coming back and something to talk about long after the lights went down.

The final piece is making fans feel like they were there first. Artists who reward early supporters with early access, shoutouts, or behind-the-scenes content create a sense of ownership in the journey. When Chance the Rapper released Coloring Book for free in 2016, his fans felt like partners in something, and that goodwill translated into sold-out tours and a Grammy without a single traditional album sale. The lesson is simple: treat your earliest listeners like they matter most, because they do.

5 Surprising Facts About Joni Mitchell’s ‘Hejira’

Eric Alper

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Apr 4, 2026

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5 Surprising Facts About Joni Mitchell’s ‘Hejira’

She drove across America in a red wig and sunglasses, told strangers her name was Charlene Latimer or Joan Black, traveled without a driver’s licence, and stayed behind truckers so she’d know when the police were ahead. She was coming off a broken tour, a broken relationship, and a cocaine habit she’d picked up on Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue. What came out of all of it was ‘Hejira’ — released in November 1976, ranked number 133 on Rolling Stone’s 2020 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, and given a perfect 10 by Pitchfork nearly fifty years after it was made. Björk, St. Vincent, and Weyes Blood have all named it as a favourite. Here are five things you probably didn’t know about it.

Mitchell Found the Album’s Title in a Dictionary — and Chose It for Its Hanging Letter

The word “hejira” is an unusual transliteration of the Arabic term more commonly rendered as Hijrah, referring to the Prophet Muhammad’s migration from Mecca to Medina in 622. Mitchell wasn’t looking for religious resonance — she was looking for a word that meant “running away with honour.” She found it while reading the dictionary and was drawn to it partly for a typographical reason: she loved the dangling j, the same quality she’d admired in the word “Aja.” As she put it herself: “it’s leaving the dream, no blame.”

The Bassist Had Never Played on a Major Album Before Mitchell Called Him

When Mitchell met Jaco Pastorius while recording the basic tracks for ‘Hejira’, he was largely unknown outside of jazz circles. She was immediately taken by his fretless bass playing — she had grown frustrated with what she called the “dead, distant bass sound” of the previous decade, and had started to question why bass always had to play the root of a chord. Pastorius overdubbed his parts on four of the album’s tracks. Within a year he would join Weather Report and become one of the most celebrated and influential bassists in jazz history. Mitchell heard him first.

“Coyote” Was Written About Sam Shepard — and Performed at Gordon Lightfoot’s House With Bob Dylan in the Room

The opening track on ‘Hejira’, widely considered one of Mitchell’s greatest songs, was inspired by a flirtation she had with playwright and actor Sam Shepard during Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue in late 1975. One critic described it as “either the most flirtatious song about fucking or the most graphic song about flirting ever written.” Before Mitchell recorded it for the album, she performed it at Gordon Lightfoot’s house with Dylan and Roger McGuinn accompanying her on acoustic guitar. McGuinn introduced the performance by saying she “wrote this song about this tour and on this tour and for this tour.” Dylan later played the studio version on his Theme Time Radio Hour, introducing Mitchell as “a strong-willed woman, and I mean that in the best possible way.”

A Buddhist Meditation Master Cured Mitchell’s Cocaine Addiction Mid-Album

The closing track, “Refuge of the Roads”, documents one of the strangest detours in rock biography. On her way back to Los Angeles from the East Coast, Mitchell stopped in Colorado to visit the controversial Tibetan Buddhist master Chögyam Trungpa. According to Mitchell, the visit cured her cocaine addiction — a habit she had developed during the Rolling Thunder Revue — and left her in an “awakened state” for three days, which she described as “no sense of self, no self-consciousness; my mind was back in Eden.” She later named “Refuge of the Roads” as one of her favourite songs she had ever written, and eventually rerecorded it with a full orchestra for her 2002 album ‘Travelogue’.

The Furry Lewis Song Caused a Real Blues Legend to Call His Lawyer

“Furry Sings the Blues” is Mitchell’s account of visiting the elderly blues guitarist Furry Lewis on Beale Street in Memphis, at a time when the surrounding neighbourhood was being demolished. It is a song of genuine compassion and historical curiosity. Lewis himself was not charmed by it. Rolling Stone ran a piece headlined “Furry Lewis is Furious at Joni” shortly after the album came out, reporting that Lewis was displeased with Mitchell’s use of his name and likeness. The man whose memory she was attempting to honour spent some of his remaining years being very publicly annoyed about it. Mitchell continued performing the song live anyway, including at The Band’s farewell concert captured in ‘The Last Waltz’.

5 Surprising Facts About Boston’s ‘Boston’

Eric Alper

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Apr 4, 2026

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5 Surprising Facts About Boston’s ‘Boston’

Tom Scholz recorded one of the best-selling debut albums in rock history in a flooded basement next to a furnace, on equipment he built himself, while lying to a major record label about where he was doing it. Epic Records thought the album was being made in Los Angeles. It was being made in Watertown, Massachusetts, in a tiny pine-panelled room that Scholz described as “hideous.” The label had signed what they suspected might be “a mad genius at work in a basement.” They were right. ‘Boston’ was released in August 1976, has sold at least 17 million copies in the United States alone, and remains one of the greatest corporate capers in the history of the music business. Here are five things you probably didn’t know about it.

Epic Records Had Already Rejected the Band — With an Insulting Letter

Before ‘Boston’ became the fastest-selling debut album in American rock history, Epic Records passed on it flat. The rejection letter, signed by company head Lennie Petze, opined that the band “offered nothing new.” RCA, Capitol, Atlantic, and Elektra had all turned them down too. The tape that eventually landed at Epic only got there because a Polaroid co-worker of Scholz’s forgot to mail it to ABC Records and left it sitting on his desk for months — where someone else overheard it, called a promoter in California, who called Petze back. The man who wrote the insulting letter ended up signing the band.

The Bulk of the Album Was Recorded With a $100 Guitar

While producer John Boylan arranged for singer Brad Delp to have a custom Taylor acoustic guitar charged to the album budget for thousands of dollars, Scholz was back in Watertown quietly recording “More Than a Feeling” on a $100 Yamaha acoustic he had bought himself. Boylan’s role was essentially to take the rest of the band to Los Angeles as a decoy — keeping Epic happy while Scholz did the actual work at home. The label never knew. “What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them,” Delp later said. When Scholz finally handed over a complete tape, the label thought the band had worked extraordinarily fast.

“Foreplay” — the Opening of the Album’s Most Epic Track — Was Written in 1969

“Foreplay/Long Time” is nearly eight minutes long and sounds like the kind of track that takes years to construct. It did. Scholz has said that “Foreplay” was not only the first song he ever recorded, but the first piece of music he ever wrote — composed as far back as 1969, a full seven years before it appeared on the album. He recorded the original version on a two-track machine in his basement. By the time it showed up on ‘Boston’, it had been sitting in Scholz’s head for most of a decade, waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.

Nirvana Quoted “More Than a Feeling” at Reading — and Nobody Missed the Point

When Kurt Cobain took the stage at the 1992 Reading Festival, he opened Nirvana’s set by playing the opening riff of “More Than a Feeling” — a deliberate nod to what many critics had already noticed: that “Smells Like Teen Spirit” shares a chord progression with it. Scholz had always credited “Walk Away Renée” by The Left Banke as the song’s main inspiration, and the guitar progression that follows the line “I see my Marianne walking away” is directly borrowed from that track. So the lineage runs from a 1966 baroque pop song to a 1976 arena rock anthem to a 1991 grunge landmark. Not bad for a tune written in a flooded Massachusetts basement.

They Lost the Grammy for Best New Artist to a One-Hit Wonder — and Then Sold 17 Million Albums

Boston were nominated for the Grammy Award for Best New Artist for their debut album, which by any measure should have been a lock. They lost to the Starland Vocal Band, whose surprise hit “Afternoon Delight” had caught the mood of America’s Bicentennial summer. The Starland Vocal Band never had another significant hit. Boston went on to sell 17 million copies of their debut in the United States alone, went Diamond, and placed every single song on the album into permanent classic rock radio rotation. The Grammy voters have had fifty years to think about that one.

5 Surprising Facts About ABBA’s ‘Arrival’

Eric Alper

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Apr 4, 2026

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5 Surprising Facts About ABBA’s ‘Arrival’

“Dancing Queen” started as a song called “Boogaloo.” “Money, Money, Money” was once “Gypsy Girl.” The album’s title track is an instrumental that almost didn’t exist. And the whole thing — one of the biggest-selling records in pop history — was recorded over fourteen months while the band was simultaneously conquering the world, cancelling tours, and trying to figure out what came next. ‘Arrival’ was released in October 1976, became the best-selling album of 1977 in both the UK and West Germany, and turned ABBA from a novelty act with a Eurovision hit into one of the most unstoppable forces popular music has ever seen. Here are five things you probably didn’t know about it.

“Dancing Queen” Was Inspired by a George McCrae Disco Record — and Almost Didn’t Come Out First

The track that became ABBA’s signature song began life as a backing track called “Boogaloo”, built around the dance rhythm of George McCrae’s “Rock Your Baby.” When Benny Andersson brought the backing track home and played it for Anni-Frid Lyngstad before the vocals were even recorded, she reportedly started crying — she called it one of those songs that goes straight to your heart. Then, despite the band knowing they had something enormous on their hands, manager Stig Anderson insisted the more folksy “Fernando” come out as a single first, delaying “Dancing Queen’s” release by months. It still topped the charts in sixteen countries and remains ABBA’s only number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

The Album’s Title Track Is a Keyboard Instrumental That Was Nearly Left Off Entirely

Most people who love ‘Arrival’ have never really thought about the fact that the closing track — the one the album is named after — has no vocals whatsoever. Mostly featuring Benny Andersson on keyboards, the piece was the very last thing recorded for the album, added almost as an afterthought once everything else was done. The word “Arrival” had already been chosen as the album title before the instrumental existed, which means the song was written to fit the name, not the other way around.

“Knowing Me, Knowing You” Predated the Divorces It Seemed to Be Written About

One of the most striking things about “Knowing Me, Knowing You” is how personal it sounds — a devastatingly clear-eyed account of a relationship ending, of walking through empty rooms and accepting that it’s over. What makes it stranger is that Björn Ulvaeus and Agnetha Fältskog, and Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, were both still married when it was written in early 1976. The song came before the pain it seemed to document. Both couples would divorce in the years that followed, giving the track a biographical weight it was never originally intended to carry.

The “Money, Money, Money” Video Is the One Its Director Is Most Proud Of

Lasse Hallström directed most of ABBA’s classic videos, but when asked which one he considers his finest work, he doesn’t pick “Dancing Queen” or “Knowing Me, Knowing You.” He picks “Money, Money, Money” — a Cabaret-inspired miniature film that follows Anni-Frid Lyngstad from the grinding reality of working life into lavish dream sequences about wealth and escape. It was a genuine step forward in music video storytelling at a time when most clips were just bands miming on a stage, and it pointed toward the visual sophistication ABBA would bring to everything they did for the rest of the decade.

‘Arrival’ Was Selected for the US National Recording Registry — Alongside “Dancing Queen” Specifically

In 2024, the Library of Congress added ‘Arrival’ to the National Recording Registry, deeming it culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant. What makes this unusual is that “Dancing Queen” received its own separate citation within the same designation — recognised both as part of the album and as a standalone work of enduring importance. It is ABBA’s only number one on the Billboard Hot 100, their only song on Rolling Stone’s original 500 Greatest Songs list, and in 2022 it received a BMI Million-Air award for having been played six million times on American radio alone. Not bad for a song that almost came out six months later than it did.

5 Surprising Facts About Keith Jarrett’s ‘The Köln Concert’

Eric Alper

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Apr 4, 2026

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5 Surprising Facts About Keith Jarrett’s ‘The Köln Concert’

Nobody planned for ‘The Köln Concert’ to be anything. No grand artistic vision. No carefully curated setlist. No moment of inspiration in a candlelit studio. Just a broken-down rehearsal piano, a pianist who hadn’t slept in days, an 18-year-old promoter begging him not to walk out, and a tape machine that happened to be running. What got recorded that night in Cologne on January 24, 1975 went on to become the best-selling solo jazz album in history and the best-selling piano album ever made. Around four million copies sold. Designated a cultural treasure by the Library of Congress. And Keith Jarrett, for a long time, wanted every single copy stomped into the ground. Here are five things you probably didn’t know about it.

The Wrong Piano Nearly Killed the Concert Before It Started

Jarrett had specifically requested a Bösendorfer 290 Imperial concert grand for the performance. What he got was a small, battered baby grand that had been left backstage for rehearsals — tinny in the upper registers, weak in the bass, with pedals that barely functioned. A replacement instrument was located but a piano tuner on the scene warned that transporting a grand piano without proper equipment, in the rain, at low temperatures, would destroy it. They were stuck with the wreck. Jarrett nearly walked out entirely.

An 18-Year-Old Promoter Talked Him Into Playing

The concert was organized by Vera Brandes, who at the time was Germany’s youngest concert promoter — just 18 years old. She had booked the show, sold it out to over 1,400 people, and now found herself standing between an exhausted, back-braced pianist and an empty stage. Jarrett had not slept properly in days, had eaten almost nothing before the show, and had driven to Cologne by car through the night rather than fly. Brandes persuaded him to go on anyway. The recording equipment was already set up. He played.

The Piano’s Weaknesses Shaped the Music Itself

Because the instrument was so thin in the bass and so brittle in the upper register, Jarrett was forced to concentrate almost entirely on the middle range of the keyboard. He developed rolling left-hand ostinatos and rhythmic vamps to compensate for the lack of resonance in the low end — techniques that gave the performance its distinctive, hypnotic, gospel-tinged drive. ECM producer Manfred Eicher later reflected that Jarrett probably played the way he did precisely because the piano was so poor. The instrument’s limitations became the music’s greatest strength.

Jarrett Hated What the Album Became

Despite — or perhaps because of — its massive success, Jarrett has been famously ambivalent about ‘The Köln Concert’ for decades. In a 1992 interview with Der Spiegel, he said he wanted to see every one of the millions of copies stomped into the ground, frustrated that the album had become little more than ambient background music, a lifestyle soundtrack for the patchouli-scented seventies. He resisted publishing a transcription for fifteen years, finally relenting in 1990 — but only with the stipulation that the recording itself remain the final word.

It Was Declared a Cultural Treasure in 2025 — Fifty Years After It Was Recorded

In 2025, the Library of Congress added ‘The Köln Concert’ to the National Recording Registry, deeming it culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant — joining a list of recordings considered part of America’s musical heritage. The same year marked the album’s 50th anniversary, which prompted a German feature film, ‘Köln 75’, premiering at the Berlinale, as well as a French documentary tracking down the actual piano Jarrett played that night, and a graphic novel in development. Half a century on, the world is still trying to make sense of what happened in that opera house.

5 Surprisings Facts About Joni Mitchell’s ‘The Hissing Of Summer Lawns’

Eric Alper

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Apr 4, 2026

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5 Surprisings Facts About Joni Mitchell’s ‘The Hissing Of Summer Lawns’

There are albums that define a moment, and then there are albums that define an artist. Joni Mitchell’s seventh studio record, ‘The Hissing of Summer Lawns’, released in November 1975, is firmly in the second category — and then some. This is the record where Mitchell stopped caring what you thought and started making music entirely on her own terms. It marked her official departure from the mainstream, the beginning of her jazzbo journey, and the work of an artist so absolutely assured of herself that she didn’t bother to leave a map for anyone trying to follow. It doesn’t carry the rhapsodic reputation of ‘Blue’, but it is unquestionably one of her finest albums — and almost certainly her most timeless. Fifty years on, here are five things you might not know about it.

It Contains One of the First Commercially Released Sampled Records in History

Long before hip-hop made sampling a cultural institution, Joni Mitchell was looping tribal percussion on “The Jungle Line.” She took a field recording of the Royal Drummers of Burundi, built it into a repeating loop, and ran her Moog synthesizer and vocal over top of it — creating something that had genuinely never been heard before on a major label release. Music historians now point to it as a landmark moment, a full decade before sampling became a defining feature of popular music.

Prince Called It “The Last Album I Loved All the Way Through”

Prince was famously particular about music — his own and everyone else’s. So when he singled out ‘The Hissing of Summer Lawns’ as the last album he loved completely from beginning to end, that meant something. He praised it repeatedly in interviews over the years, and the record’s influence can be heard in his own restless refusal to stay in one genre. High praise from one of the most musically demanding artists who ever lived.

Critics Savaged It on Release — and Completely Reversed Course Later

When ‘Hissing’ dropped, reviewers were genuinely baffled and often hostile. Rolling Stone called it “a great collection of pop poems with a distracting soundtrack.” Robert Christgau praised Mitchell’s ambition while taking issue with her choice of session musicians. Fans who had been shouting for “Big Yellow Taxi” felt abandoned. The album still went gold and earned Mitchell a Grammy nomination, but the critical consensus was that she had lost the plot. Today, Pitchfork has given it a perfect 10, and music writer Howard Sounes has called it her masterpiece — worthy of standing alongside Dylan’s ‘Blood on the Tracks’.

It Is a Deeply Feminist Album Disguised as a Jazz Record

On the surface, ‘Hissing’ sounds like an elegant, jazz-inflected art-pop record. Underneath, it is a sharp and unflinching reckoning with what women of Mitchell’s generation were told their lives should look like. On “Harry’s House,” wives paper over their real feelings to maintain domestic peace. On “Sweet Bird,” beauty and youth are currencies that expire. On “Don’t Interrupt the Sorrow,” women claim their right to exist as individuals. Mitchell and her peers had been raised to believe that marriage and domesticity would fulfill them entirely — ‘Hissing’ was her answer to that lie, delivered with jazz chords and devastating precision.

It Was Mitchell’s Last Top-10 Album — and She Didn’t Care

‘The Hissing of Summer Lawns’ reached number 4 on the Billboard 200, making it Mitchell’s last album to crack the top 10 in the United States. Rather than course-correcting to win her audience back, she responded by making ‘Hejira’, which was even more experimental, followed by the double album ‘Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter’, and then her full-blown collaboration with jazz legend Charles Mingus. Mitchell had never made a record that wasn’t bigger than the one before, and the audience’s rejection stung — but she was never going to reel anyone back in by retreating. That Joni didn’t live here anymore. ‘Hissing’ was the proof.

Collingwood Anthem Maker Shjaane Glover Unveils Radiant Title Track “Conjure This”

Music

Eric Alper

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Apr 4, 2026

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Collingwood Anthem Maker Shjaane Glover Unveils Radiant Title Track “Conjure This”

Following the atmospheric success of his return to the airwaves, Southern Ontario singer-songwriter Shjaane Glover today announces the release of his vibrant new single, “Conjure This.” Out now, the track serves as the eponymous heartbeat of his forthcoming six-song EP, “Conjure This,” arriving April 24. Shifting from the introspective textures of his earlier work into a sun-drenched, rhythmic landscape, Glover delivers a high-energy indie-folk anthem that leans into the beautiful absurdity of staying present when life feels most unpredictable.

Written during a surf trip in Nicaragua, “Conjure This” was born from a striking emotional paradox. While standing on a beautiful beach, Glover found himself navigating heavy news from home—a contrast that transformed into a spirited “anthem to keep trucking on.” The track’s lyrical depth is mirrored in its catchy, bouncy rhythm, featuring a standout performance where Glover sings: “The air you breathe it is real / Don’t try to change how you taste it / Or tell me how to feel / I’ll try a new vacation yeah.” These lines encapsulate the song’s mission: a refusal to let external complications dampen the visceral experience of the moment.

The production, helmed by collaborator Craig Smith, marks a dynamic evolution in Glover’s sonic palette. Recorded at Smith’s studio, the track evolved from its original acoustic roots into a lush, full-band production. The arrangement is propelled by the infectious groove of drummer Jenna Applewhaite and the vibrant, life-affirming textures of Jay Stiles’ organ work, creating a sound that sits at the intersection of indie-alternative grit and folk-rock polish. This shift toward a more upbeat feel highlights Glover’s versatility as an artist capable of marrying complex emotions with undeniable melodies.

Media outlets will find a compelling story in the “paradox of paradise” that inspired the track—the universal human experience of finding joy amidst external chaos. Furthermore, the single’s creative origin story provides a vivid travel-based hook, as Glover’s songwriting continues to be deeply shaped by his experiential connection to geography, whether it be the shores of Central America or his home base of Collingwood by Georgian Bay. A third captivating angle lies in the upcoming music video, which leans into a playful, chaotic aesthetic that mirrors the song’s sense of disbelief, offering a visual departure from standard indie-folk tropes.

Based in Collingwood, Glover has built a reputation for music that lives at the junction of atmosphere and raw emotional clarity. His return is defined by a renewed sense of intention and a catalogue of songs built to last. Known for a high-energy stage presence that expands his studio recordings into immersive live events, Glover invites his audience to slow down and sit honestly with their feelings, even when those feelings are as complicated as black out in a tropical storm.

As the lead-up to the “Conjure This” EP intensifies, Glover is set to bring his dynamic energy to the stage with a hometown release show at Side Launch Brewing in Collingwood on April 24, as well as a summer appearance at the Fourwinds Music Festival on July 11. “Conjure This” is more than just a title track; it is a declaration of artistic arrival—a toast to the accolades of the present and a bold step into a luminous future.