Songs of the Week: April 14 - 20, 2025

April 22, 2025 by Christine McAvoy in Song Of The Day, Songs Of The Week

“Crazy Streets” by Ewan Currie

These are the vibes I needed going into this week!

Frontman for The Sheepdogs, Ewan Currie has announced a solo venture and an upcoming album, Strange Vacation, and has put out the first track “Crazy Streets”.

The mellow vibes of both the track and the visualizer below hit exactly right for me this morning. Currie say the song “came from that feeling of being imposed upon by the city I was living in. Life just felt chaotic. You come home expecting to relax and find some solitude, but for me, that wasn’t achievable. It’s sort of a shout-out to big city living.”

Christine

“Cat Guy” by Propagandhi

Propagandhi is back with “Cat Guy”, the second single to their upcoming album At Peace.

The sardonic anthem proves the band is an sharp as ever, with frontman Chris Hannah explaining “From my songwriting perspective, the two things I was thinking of was capturing a little bit of Judas Priest’s Firepower LP as if SNFU’s Chi-Pig was writing the lyrics.”

At Peace is out May 2nd, and check out the feline friendly lyric video for “Cat Guy” below!

Kirk

“Take It To The Limit” (Eagles Cover)
by Leif Vollebekk and Angie McMahon

I love a good cover song, and especially so when it is a completely reimagined version of the original, and that is exactly what’s going on with this cover of The Eagles song “Take It To The Limit”.

Leif Vollebekk spontaneously recorded the song with Australian singer-songwriter and musician Angie McMahon during his last trip to Oz and I’m glad they did because it’s beautiful.

Christine

“A.ajax” by Peach Pact

Last week, Toronto’s Peach Pact released the lead single off their upcoming debut album, Die Hydrated.

“A.ajax” is a punk banger that confronts “society's fixation on status and identity”.

The song also comes with a rad DIY stop-motion video directed by Peach Pact and animated by claymation artist Adrian Venti! You can watch below, and mark June 13 for the release of Die Hydrated.

Kirk

Songs of the Week: November 18 - 24, 2024

November 25, 2024 by Christine McAvoy in Song Of The Day, Songs Of The Week

“E-E-Y-O-R-E (That's Me!)” by Frog Eyes

Vancouver’s Frog Eyes are back with a brand new single called “E-E-Y-O-R-E (That's Me!)”

The song features the frantic pace and distinct vocals from Carey Mercer that we know & love, with the band explaining: “"E-E-Y-O-R-E" has that riff that happens in the middle and end of the song, and it’s rare, and I like it. When we play it live, our keyboard player Shyla will often look at my guitar with enthusiasm and encouragement. The song itself is a bit about loneliness, fear, isolation, the irony that we all are simultaneously bombarded with these isolating emotions, but unable to bust out of these individual spheres. Eeyore: our collective familiar, our beloved daemon.”

You can check out the fun video, directed by Derek Janzen, below!

Kirk

“Peace Of Mind (Morning)” by Leif Vollebekk

I needed a pretty, acoustic song this morning with the grey outside and Leif Vollebekk delivered it.
“Peace Of Mind” is a re-recording from his new album Revelation (no relation to us) and the man himself says of the song: “there’s something about a mountain that always makes you feel at ease. It can inspire the stillness you need to find yourself.”

Leif is on tour right now and will be swinging through Vancouver in February for two shows at The Pearl.

Christine

“Window” by The Weather Station

As we get closer to the release of Humanhood, the next album from The Weather Station, we’re treated with another tease in the way of the latest single, “Window”.

The anthemic new song from Toronto’s Tamara Lindeman is accompanied by a video directed by Philippe Léonard, and features Lindeman’s performance of the song projected out the window of a moving van onto trees, forest, and passing signs. Lindeman says the video was “filmed on the island of Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs, Quebec late one night with battery powered projector, with many attempts to get that one perfect take. Philippe’s note to me was ‘you are the window.’”

As well as the single, she announced a huge tour for next year, starting in January in the UK, and winding back to Canada, including a show here in Vancouver on May 16th at the Hollywood Theatre!

Kirk

Songs of the Week: May 20 - 26, 2024

May 28, 2024 by Christine McAvoy in Song Of The Day, Songs Of The Week

“Rainy Day Janey” by Joel Plaskett

An appropriately titled song for the soggy weather Vancouver’s been having lately!
“Rainy Day Janey” is the new track by Joel Plaskett from the freshly announced new album One Real Reveal.

The album was recorded solo on a 4-track cassette machine, and the tour he just announced (One Real Reveal On Wheels - say that 3 times fast) will be just as intimate with Joel performing solo. [In Vancouver on September 20th at St James Hall, by the way.]

Cozy up with some tea and listen along to the new track below.

Christine

“Momentum” by Skye Wallace

Skye Wallace doesn’t care what people think anymore.

But more specifically, Skye says that the line in her latest single “Momentum” “doesn’t mean I don’t care - it’s just a reminder to act from a place of self fulfillment rather than the approval of others - it’s a zero-sum game.”

The frenetic tune is the latest release of her collaboration with the legendary Hawksley Workman — though was actually the first they wrote together — and appropriately enough for the mane, keeps up the same energy as the others.

No word yet on a new album, but Wallace has been playing a string of secret shows in Toronto recently, and will be back to the west coast in a few weeks, including a show here in Vancouver at Green Auto on June 12th!

Kirk

“Moondog” by Leif Vollebekk

Leif Vollebekk just announced his brand-new album, Revelation, which is set to be released on September 27, and along with it we got a new single “Moondog”.

According to the press release, the songwriting on this record was “inspired by an exploration that began with Carl Jung’s I Ching and continued into the science of alchemy and the mystery of the divine. The final result is at once organic, earthy and celestial, with themes of nature -- water, astral constellations, mortality – woven into a meditation on living in an ever-changing present laced with existential doubt, the search for a higher power.”

Well then! I can’t wait to hear the rest of the record! According to Lief “Moondog” was a “meditation on love” and with it is a scenic video filmed in Norway. Check it out below.

Christine

“Frozen” by WAASH

Last year, Vancouver songwriter Andrew Bishop unveiled his latest project WAASH with a self-titled EP, but now we’re getting a taste of the upcoming full length with “Frozen”

The new single is an upbeat, 80’s influenced pop tune, and is a “statement on putting up boundaries as a form of self-care”.

No word yet on a release date, but the (also) self-titled fell length will be out soon on Light Organ Records.

Kirk