From a big family in Newmarket, Ontario, Hannah Georgas decided to move out to BC on her own at the age of twenty. She says she needed to “find my own place that felt like me”. Happily for us, she found that place in the supportive music scene of Vancouver...
Take Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion, add a guitar c/o of Jeff Tweedy, add one cat pun and some sunshine. Shake well, pour it out and you have “Chairman Meow,” one of 11 tracks from the duo’s new album, Wassaic Way (out August 6).
Traditional Danish dance melodies get a new lease on life when melded with a vibrant mix of salsa, jazz and folk in the hands of Denmark’s Habadekuk. Powerful horns, toe-tapping fiddle, accordion, strings, contagious rhythms and more catapults folk music well in to the 21sth Century. This young, lively, multi-instrumental 9-piece big band has something new and exciting to say – think a North Sea version...
Hanggai, from the steppes of Mongolia by way of Beijing, is a crossover band that blends traditional music and rock. The band’s members come from Inner Mongolia which covers a vast portion of China’s north, Xinjiang in China’s far northwest, Qinghai’s Haixi Mongolian Prefecture in northwest China and Beijing, China’s capital which lies far to the east.
Since he first emerged from Toronto’s burgeoning alternative scene in 1995 with the now iconic, “Everything I Long For”, Hayden has intrigued, not only for his music but also for his highly introspective personality and his fierce musical independence. He usually performs most instruments on his records, and almost always engineers, mixes, and produces them. Hayden ended a four year performance hiatus last fall...
One of New York’s most original bands, Hazmat Modine delivers a rustic and delirious blend of blues, reggae, klezmer, country and Gypsy-tinged music. Featuring the duelling harmonicas of front-man Wade Schuman and his sparring partner Bill Barrett, the funky tuba powerhouse Joseph Daley, guitarists Michael Gomez and Pete Smith, trumpeter Pam Fleming and drummer Rich Huntley, the band lays down a smouldering groove...
Hurray for the Riff Raff is Alynda lee Segarra, a 25-year-old Puerto Rican from the Bronx. She left home at an early age to travel the country, eventually settling in New Orleans where she began performing and recording with a revolving cast of musicians. Then, along with her long time fiddling sidekick, Yosi Perlstein, Segarra teamed up with the honky-tonk band...
“Gorgeous, sunstruck, acoustic soul”* – here’s Reid Jamieson. He was born and raised in Toronto, but now calls the west coast home. Reid is also a favourite and regular member of CBC’s Vinyl Café Orchestra and a grand prize winner for folk in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest for his song RAIL. Not only is he an inspired songwriter...
Anthony Joseph and The Spasm Band is a group led by Trinidadian poet, novelist and lecturer Anthony Joseph. Joseph moved to the UK In 1989, forming the band in 2005 in London as an offshoot of his then novel-in-progress “The African Origins of UFOs” – for Joseph, poetry is music and must be chanted, sung and declaimed...
With powerful instrumentals and beautifully arranged songs, skillfully executed and soulfully delivered, The Alan Kelly Gang sits firmly at the cutting edge of both the Traditional and World music scenes. Fronted by Ireland’s piano accordion maestro, described by New York’s Irish Voice as “in league with the best piano accordionists in the world”...