Fresh off the heels of her new release, ‘Love and What I Thought It Was’, Mimika is making the transition from songwriter to soul-baring artist. With over 2 million streams as a writer and a degree from Berklee College of Music, Mimika’s ‘story first’ approach to songwriting has earned her the kind of balance that …
creativity
Finding her own voice in Jazz: Nicky Schrire
Nicky Schrire is a British-South African vocalist and composer based in Toronto, Canada. Her work has seen her likened to vocalists Joni Mitchell and Esperanza Spalding with The Boston Globe’s Jon Garelick noting that “though her approach has earned her comparisons to Gretchen Parlato and Becca Stevens, the similarities are superficial. She’s got her own …
The Magic of Songwriting with Econoline Crush’s Trevor Hurst
When The Devil Drives is the latest album from Canadian rock veterans Econoline Crush, formed some 30 years ago by frontman Trevor Hurst, now the sole original member. The band’s first full-length album in over a decade, and documentary film, Flatlander, about a rocker from Brandon, Manitoba’s second career as a psychiatric nurse, will be …
Being open to new collaborations with Jeremy Voltz
Burned-out mathematician turned indie-soul artist, Jeremy Voltz’s music is inspired by thinking deeply about the people in his life and what he’d love to have the courage to say to them. Reminiscent of Jeff Buckley, Hozier, and Stevie Wonder, he has a voice that is powerful and haunting. As a vocalist, Voltz has toured the …
Pete Eastmure: Writing with Images
Pete Eastmure is diving deeper into the Americana/Canadiana genre with his new album “Devil’s Taxi”. The album was created during the “Shutdown” and is a follow up to Pete’s acclaimed album, “Keep Your Love Steady” from 2019. The single “Devil’s Taxi” is an evocative and emotional journey song rooted in the story of Robin Hood, …
Writing a long song with Civil Wray
Sparkle. It’s exactly what Civil Wray does on her brand-new single, appropriately entitled “Sparkle”. Civil Wray, the nom de plume of Toronto singer songwriter Andrea de Boer, worked with producer Matt DeMatteo (Danko Jones, Big Wreck, Ashley MacIsaac) in creating an ethereal, dreampop song, that may remind listeners of artists like Fiona Apple, David Bowie, and Tame Impala. It’s a song about …
White-collar folk with Jason Pilling
Jason Pilling is a singer-songwriter who draws lyrical content from a lifetime of being a regular nice-guy with a math degree, a nice little nuclear family, and 20 years of white-collar career experience. “I celebrate the nuance of a normal life,” Jason likes to say, by which he means he doesn’t do love songs. Genre-wise, …
Happy New Year and some random stuff
For our first episode of 2023, Phil and Neel hung out to talk about a bunch of things on our minds. We talked about: Our upcoming songwriting challenge to write in an unusual mode Peter Gabriel is releasing his first album of original songs since 2002 The Dreamtonics Synthesizer V virtual singer software, and Neel’s …