Hillside Festival – Lineup Announced!
July 22-24, 2022
Guelph, Ontario

2022 Hillside Festival has announced their lineup! Artists playing include:
Allison Russell, DakhaBrakha, Dan Mangan, Sauna, Texas King, Aoife O’Donovan, Bahamas, Bedouine, Cadence Weapon, Habibi, Hyd, King Hannah, Kinnie Starr, Kobo Town, Luna Li, NOBRO, Shane Koyczan and the Short Story Long, Tami Neilson, Allison Lupton Band, Anyway Gang, The Blue And Gold, cleopatrick, Danny Michel, DJ Shub presents War Club Live, Donovan Woods, Eivør, Gangstagrass, Ifriqiyya Electrique, Le Ren, Lizzie No, OMBIIGIZI, and more!

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Daniel Bellgarde – Live
w/ Lilison Di Kinara
Monday, July 4th, 6:00pm
Loto-Quebec Stage, Montreal International Jazz Festival

It is with great pleasure and pride that Daniel Bellegarde presents PASTOURELLE, the 2nd album of his trilogy of rural music from Haiti and the French West Indies at the Montreal international Jazz Festival.

It will also be a unique moment as Daniel has the pleasure to invite friend Lilison di Kinara ( Felix Awards winner and Junos Awards nominee) from Guinea-Bissau for this concert!

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King Cardiac – Bloodlines

King Cardiac released their much anticipated debut record Bloodlines on June 10th. The album culminates a BIG year that saw the band put out 3 singles and showcase at Folk Alliance International, Global Toronto and the Farms for Change Festival.

The genre bending ensemble features singer-songwriter and guitarist Gabriel DeSantis uniting with members of The Heavyweights Brass band with hard grooves and brooding vibes.

For Bloodlines, the band settled into “The Rooster Studio” run by Don Kerr (Bahamas, Ron Sexsmith) who engineered and co-produced the record along with DeSantis. It was mastered by Grammy nominee and Juno and Polaris Prize winner, Philip Shaw Bova (Feist, Lido Pimienta, Andy Shauf).

The 9 tracks offer cinematic vignettes of DeSantis’ time living overseas on a narrowboat on the London canals and his adventures throughout Europe. Tones vary between songs; from noir meanderings through the back alleys of Camden on “Stale Melodies” to the fervent and relentless horn lines that punctuate a psychedelic voyage on “Amsterdam” to the surprisingly vulnerable and sincere meditations on ancestry, inheritance and the human experience on the title track “Bloodlines.”

The music video for “You Got It Bad”, directed and produced by DeSantis provides viewers with a stunning black and white journey through London, following a dancing mania contagion as it makes its way through the city. The cinematic imagery compliments guest musician Anh Phung’s stellar flute lines. The whole video was filmed in motion with dancers Patricia Langa, Anna Preidel, Alex Felton and Anna Tierney.

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Shannon Linton – On Tour

Shannon Linton is a Canadian singer-songwriter, classically trained vocalist, and climate activist. After narrowly avoiding a career in opera, she began performing and recording her own songs, first with Northern Hearts (2019 CBC Searchlight Top 100) and now as a solo artist.

Shannon’s debut EP, In Spite of Everything, was released May 30, and she has invited a dream team – multi-instrumentalist Saskia Tomkins and the velvet-voiced Whitney O’Hearn – to join her for a series of shows across southern Ontario to celebrate the release.

The tour is already underway, but there are still stops in Smiths Falls, Ottawa and Cobourg on the schedule.

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Tin Constellations – There’s A Bird In My Tree

We’re pleased to bring you our 2nd single There’s A Bird In My Tree, featuring the A side track Rabbit holes and the B side Bitterness Across Your Countryside.

UPCOMING SHOW:
Tin Constellations & Weathered Siding
The Wolfe Island Hotel – Wolfe Island, ON
Saturday, June 18, 2022 – 1:00pm – 3:00pm

Broke Fuse – Splashdown

Hailing from Scarborough, Ontario, one-man blues-band Broke Fuse drops the 5-song EP Splashdown on June 10. This collection of harmonica-driven instrumentals is the third release from Broke Fuse in as many years.

Jay Moonah is the man behind Broke Fuse. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, he has recorded and released two LPs: Why Should I Be Blue? (2020) and Rocket Ride (2021). Both albums were well received, garnering stellar reviews, chart-topping success on the Roots Music Report Canadian Top 50, and a 2021 Maple Blues Award nomination in the New Artist category.

Splashdown features five distinctive all-instrumental tracks. Two take their inspiration from different beers from Scarborough’s Common Good Beer Company: “Caught In A Eddy (For the Common Good part 2)” is a surf music tribute, while “Solace (For the Common Good part 3)” recalls a mellow style of blues rock instrumental, with harmonica taking the role ordinarily assumed by pedal steel or bottleneck guitar. Appropriately, Common Good will also be the site for Splashdown’s release party on Saturday, June 11.

Two new pieces grace the EP: “South Scarborough Hoedown”, laced influences of southern rock, traditional folk, and a bit of psychedelia; and “Big Noodle Boogie”, a 12-bar blues rave-up with a few turns and twists. Rounding out the set is the quirky “Rabbi From Texas Too”, which actually has its origins 20 years earlier with Moonah’s band at the time, roots-rockers Uncle Seth.

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The Syndicut Songwriter Retreat
June 10-12, 2022
Willow Sound Records Studio – Russell, ON

The next Syndicut Songwriter Retreat is happening June 10-12th at beautiful Willow Sound Records studio in Russell, ON (a short 25 min drive east of Ottawa). At this retreat, indie artists and songwriters will look for a deeper understanding of themselves as music creators and find their place in today’s music industry while fine tuning their songwriting tools.

The program for the weekend consists of meet & greets, workshop sessions, writing exercises, co-writing, one-on-one meetings with Tara Shannon and Debbie Zavitson, a swimming pond, fireside jams, a gorgeous setting, catered meals, and accommodations if needed. Please note that there are limited spots remaining so, anyone interested should let us know as soon as possible by registering online (see link above) or send an email to admin@syndicutmusic.com with any questions.

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Sarah Siddiqui – Show Me

The follow up EP to Toronto Arts Council funded 2018 album “No More Waiting Rooms”, Sarah Siddiqui’s new EP “Show Me” is a beautifully brief collection of stunning Alternative-Folk-Pop songs with vocal performances to match. Born to International Pakistani Poet Laureate mother, Syeda Nuzhat Siddiqui, Sarah’s poetic and honest storytelling talent shines through.

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David Donar

I am a folklorist, cartoonist and a professor of Art with an interest in old time music and folk tales. I believe that story telling is one of the foundations of what it is to be human. Stories can be ethnic, cultural, spiritual, emotional, political, humorous, regional, personal, true and/or false. Narrative can be expressed through art, literature, music, film, theater, religious and secular means.

What I love about story is how it can change and evolve over time by various medium and person. The very nature of folk tales or folk tunes for that matter is to be expressed orally within a live setting. Stories are handed down and with each performance it changes to reflect the audience and or teller. Folksongs are not meant to be frozen but to be played and interpreted in many different ways. Ironically, by recording or publishing a folksong or tale, you create a situation where it can become dogmatic or “set in stone”. Probably why, I like the web format as each story or song that I am interested in can be changed or grouped into a series of evolving work.

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Katherine Fischer – West Coast
Release: May 27, 2022

With moody vocals and the Pacific Northwest rain personified, Katherine Fischer’s new single West Coast is a stunning heartbreak song. “I don’t love you, but if I did, would there be something to hold onto”.

“West Coast” is available everywhere May 27, 2022.

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