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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

Power Pop Pioneer Gary Klebe of Shoes Steps Out Solo With Debut Album ‘Out Loud’

Eric Alper
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Power Pop Pioneer Gary Klebe of Shoes Steps Out Solo With Debut Album ‘Out Loud’

Gary Klebe has spent decades as a foundational member of Shoes, one of power pop’s most influential and ahead-of-its-time bands, and ‘Out Loud’ is his first-ever solo album. It’s also a one-man operation, written alone and tracked almost entirely without outside help in his basement studio on nights and weekends, using a favorite collection of stompboxes and vintage gear.

Lead single “Not Tough Enough” sets the tone immediately, combining a euphoric, upbeat sonic landscape with self-deprecating lyrics about a once over-confident man finally meeting his match. Klebe explains the song’s premise with characteristic directness: “A once over-confident guy who thought he knew it all has finally met his match and is now facing a thorough ass-kicking. The feeling of helplessness is a new experience and not one he is enjoying.”

The album sounds like Shoes because it comes from the same instincts, but ‘Out Loud’ has its own distinct character shaped by the vulnerability of working alone. Drums were tracked in Nashville with John Richardson, whose credits include Gin Blossoms, Badfinger, and Tommy Keene, but everything else came together in Klebe’s own space. The vocal harmonies, built by multi-tracking his own voice into stacked layers, draw directly from techniques he learned working with iconic British producer Mike Stone, known for his work with Queen, Journey, and Foreigner.

One of the album’s most compelling backstory elements is the Butch Vig connection. Klebe served as something of a mentor to the Grammy-winning producer behind Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’ and Smashing Pumpkins’ ‘Siamese Dream’, and when he sent Vig the solo project, Vig became one of the main voices pushing for its release.

Vig’s endorsement is unambiguous: “When I listen to Gary’s new record, I hear all that in the DNA. It’s in the production and the songwriting. It’s timeless, in a way. It’s so retro that it sounds fresh, because it’s not like anything on Top 40 radio. He’s made a timeless power-pop album.”

Shoes formed over 50 years ago and are still making music, with more to come. But ‘Out Loud’ stands entirely on its own as a solo statement from a songwriter who has nothing left to prove and everything still left to say.

‘Out Loud’ Tracklist:

  1. Room To Breathe
  2. Not Tough Enough
  3. Love Beyond
  4. Wrong All Along
  5. Eyes Open Wide
  6. Shake Me
  7. No Afterglow
  8. Bridges Are Burned
  9. Won’t Quit On You
  10. Invading My Space
  11. In A Heartbeat

The Temper Trap Soar Back With Euphoric New Single “Into The Wild”

Eric Alper
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0
The Temper Trap Soar Back With Euphoric New Single “Into The Wild”

The Temper Trap are back in full flight, and “Into The Wild” is the clearest signal yet that one of Australia’s most globally recognized acts has found their footing again. The new single and video arrive as the latest in a run of releases that has firmly re-established the band, following euphoric anthem “Giving Up Air” and its Solomun remix, bold indie-rock track “Lucky Dimes,” and a fresh take on “Sweet Disposition” from German dance act BUNT.

“Into The Wild” tackles the duality of body and mind, the existential yearning to push beyond physical limits and find something wilder on the other side. Produced by Styalz Fuego, whose credits include Troye Sivan, Charli XCX, and Khalid, with Catherine Marks, known for her mixing work with Wolf Alice, boygenius, and Manchester Orchestra, the track is freeing, pulsing, and soaring, Dougy’s hypnotic falsetto floating over undulating drums that pull the listener in and hold them there.

The band frames the song’s significance plainly. “After years of being apart and trying to find our groove again, ‘Into the Wild’ was the spark that lit the fire.”

The accompanying video, directed by emerging Melbourne creatives Joey Clough and Edvard Hakansson, leans fully into the surreal, a dreamlike car ride on wide open roads cut with chaos and strangeness, the mind proving wilder and more uncontrollable than the world outside. It’s a visual that matches the track’s spirit completely.

Of Monsters and Men Unveil a Stunning Animated Short Film for New Album

Eric Alper
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Of Monsters and Men Unveil a Stunning Animated Short Film for New Album

Of Monsters and Men have always understood that their music exists in a world of its own, and the animated short film for “The Block” and “Mouse Parade” makes that world visible in the most beautiful way possible. Directed by Honor Price, the stop-motion film is a tender, surreal journey through miniature sets and hand-made puppets, where humor and vulnerability sit comfortably alongside each other, small characters navigating big feelings inside a playful and fragile world.

The film arrives as a companion piece to ‘All Is Love and Pain in the Mouse Parade’, the band’s fourth studio album, a self-produced record with nuanced contributions from Josh Kaufman, known for his work with The National, Bob Weir, and Bonny Light Horseman, and longtime collaborator Bjarni Por Jensson. The album wraps listeners in hygge, that distinctly Icelandic sense of gentle, comforting warmth that lingers long after the music ends.

The short film captures that atmosphere completely. It feels less like a music video and more like a pocket-sized poem, intimate, offbeat, and deeply human, the perfect visual extension of a record steeped in quiet emotional depth and the effortless chemistry of old friends creating together.

Legendary Late Night Bassist Will Lee Opens Up About Playing With All Four Beatles and Three Decades on Letterman

Eric Alper
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Legendary Late Night Bassist Will Lee Opens Up About Playing With All Four Beatles and Three Decades on Letterman

Will Lee spent more than 3 decades holding down the bass chair on the Late Show with David Letterman, played with all 4 Beatles, and has a story about Paul McCartney trying to buy his bass that alone is worth the price of admission. In this wide-ranging conversation with Rob Cass on dopeYEAH talk, Lee covers everything from switching from drums to bass as what he initially called his biggest mistake, to the massive influence of Jaco Pastorius, working on Donald Fagen’s ‘The Nightfly’, how John Lennon’s discomfort with his own voice inadvertently led to the invention of flanging, and the James Brown Late Show appearance nobody saw coming. Honest, funny, and deeply human, it’s a remarkable portrait of one of the most connected and undersung figures in modern music history.

Video: Ryan Gosling Takes on Final Jeopardy in a Clip You Need to See

Eric Alper
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0
Video: Ryan Gosling Takes on Final Jeopardy in a Clip You Need to See

Ryan Gosling on Jeopardy is exactly as entertaining as it sounds. The clip, tied to his film Project Hail Mary, puts Gosling in the Final Jeopardy hot seat and the result is the kind of chaotic, genuinely funny television moment that reminds you why celebrity game show appearances exist in the first place.

The Trainspotting Cast Reunite on Graham Norton to Celebrate 30 Years of a Generation-Defining Film

Eric Alper
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The Trainspotting Cast Reunite on Graham Norton to Celebrate 30 Years of a Generation-Defining Film

30 years on, Trainspotting still feels like it landed yesterday, and the cast reunion on The Graham Norton Show is a genuinely warm and hilarious celebration of a film that changed British cinema forever. The iconic cast gather on the sofa to share behind-the-scenes secrets, wild stories from the shoot, and reflections on the friendships and careers that grew out of one of the most culturally significant films of the 1990s, capped off with a reenactment of the legendary movie poster that is exactly as good as it sounds.

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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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