Browsing Tag

Canadian Singer Songwriter

Lensky’s ‘Valentine’s Day’: A Bittersweet Serenade Straight From A Scorned Soul

Posted on 24 February 2025

With the intimacy of an overheard confession and the weight of a longing left to decay, Lensky delivers a serenade steeped in vulnerability with ‘Valentine’s Day’. His sophomore single, mixed and engineered by Montreal producer Chris Kengard with guidance from Grammy-winning sound engineer Richard King, drifts through jazz-tinged alternative rock, soaking up the influence of Jeff Buckley, Wilco, and Lana Del Rey. Yet, for all the ghosts of past inspirations, ‘Valentine’s Day’ is wholly his own—an ode to the aching disconnect between love and reality.

Lensky’s vocals resist unnecessary inflections, reverberating with the same contemplative stillness heard in Father John Misty’s quieter moments. Wrapped in the ambience of warm guitar tones from Antoine Tousignant, supported by a rhythm section that mirrors the pulse of a restless heart, the instrumental arrangement pulls listeners into a meditative quietude. The track moves from soft introspection to a stirring, full-bodied climax, capped with a guitar solo that burns like a last flicker of hope before the flame dies out.

‘Valentine’s Day’ is out on all major streaming platforms, including SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Young Talent with Big Potential: Ruby Jean’s ‘One Step at a Time’

Posted on 27 January 2025

With her sophomore release, One Step at a Time, 11-year-old Ruby Jean from Kincardine, Ontario exhibited how she’s building the foundation for a career that could see her standing alongside the likes of Sabrina Carpenter and Taylor Swift if she continues to hone her craft with the same determination and tenacity.

The Americana-tinged pop earworm single is effortless to sink into and lose yourself within, offering a warm embrace of chords and harmonies that sweep you up in their sincerity. What makes this track truly impressive isn’t just the composition but the maturity Ruby Jean infuses into her lyrics and vocal delivery. It’s hard to fathom how an artist of her age managed to conjure such an emotionally rich sound, but she’s clearly a natural when it comes to pairing heartfelt narratives with impossible-to-forget melodies.

Ruby Jean, who wrote both the lyrics and music for One Step at a Time, shows a passion for singing, songwriting, piano, and guitar that belies her youth. Her talent for storytelling and her ability to make listeners feel every note set her apart from her peers, marking her as an artist to watch closely.

One Step at a Time is not only a testament to her potential but also a reminder of how far raw talent, passion, and authenticity can take an artist, no matter their age.

One Step at a Time was officially released on January 16; stream the single on all major platforms via this link.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Drift into the ether with Pinwheel Valley’s latest alt-indie-rock hit, Hot Air Balloon

Posted on 6 June 2022

The Canadian, Cyprus-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Pinwheel Valley, has released his metaphorical alt-indie rock masterpiece, Hot Air Balloon, which uses the slightly archaic mode of transport as a parable to reflect the importance of persevering our mental space.

It takes some serious reading between the anthemic uplifting lines to pull out the protestive fire that any establishment would be desperate to put out through fear of it cutting profit margins that are boosted by dull hiveminds. On the flip side of that, texturally, Hot Air Balloon is a dreamy, kaleidoscopic blister of bliss, which is all too welcome in these easy to lament times.

Every time, Pinwheel Valley breezes back even better than the last time we heard his exploratively introspective tracks, which still come with that A-list radio-ready appeal, despite the seemingly infinite depth.

Here is what he had to say about his latest release

“In some ways, Hot Air Balloon is a metaphor for pregnancy, inspired by the sequence of moving along and the process revealing itself, where a spirit permeates the boundless world, reflecting how a hot air balloon grows and rises into the ether, where our thoughts drift and amalgamate. The ether may be our final escape from those who manipulate us with vested interests in how we think and act.”

Hot Air Balloon will officially drop on June 6th, 2022. Hear it for yourselves on Spotify, SoundCloud and Bandcamp.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Ash Ravens takes us ‘Home’ in his latest emotionally enriched alt-indie single

Posted on 3 March 2022

With gorgeously finger-picked Spanish guitars blended into his latest swoon-worthy indie single, Home, Ash Ravens’ latest offering couldn’t be more soulfully arresting.

The monocultural-mould smashing finesse in Home makes a lot of sense when you start to look at the stamps on the bi-lingual artist’s passports. From his birthplace Bangladesh to the Sunset Strip to Melbourne to his current home Canada, he’s traversed the globe and picked up the sweetest tones along the way.

Ravens’ international experience also puts plenty of context behind Home, which blends pop, rock and country to concoct a consolingly cosy soundscape that will undoubtedly act as the antidote to homesickness. With Ravens’ vocals running at an evocative parallel with Elliott Smith and the instrumentals bleeding as much catharsis as The Beatles’ haziest tracks, Home is an instantly unforgettable triumph.

The official video for Ash Ravens’ latest single, Home, premiered on February 17th, 2022. You can check it out for yourselves by heading over to YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Emily Jean Flack – delicious, folky pop with ‘Another Year Gone By’

Posted on 25 April 2021

‘Another Year Gone By’ is the opening track and first single from Canadian singer songwriter Emily Jean Flack’s debut EP. And what a single it is, light, delicate, and airy, atmospheric and evocative in equal measure, the opening gentle piano chords, pipes, and keys perfectly accentuating Flack’s stunning voice. A mixture of Canadian and Celtic influences, Flack’s vocal is a thing of utter beauty, high yet never shrill, resonant and warm yet gossamer and glasslike at the same time. There’s a touch of Clannad’s Moya Brennan to the delivery, colourful, sweet, and with a dynamic range that seems effortless.

‘Another Year Gone By’ is stripped back, traditional instrumentation sitting hand-in-glove with a totally modern contemporary folk feel, those elements of Celtic pop mixing with the storytelling lyrics to perfectly showcase Flack’s raw, melodic versatility and panache.

You can hear ‘Another Year Gone By’, and the rest of the ‘Throwing Shapes’ EP, on Spotify; follow Emily Jean Flack here or on Facebook.

Review by Alex Holmes