This week’s tracks
Valley – Oh shit … are we in Love?
Status/Non Status – Find a Home
Elwins – For Love to Come and Find You(Don’t Wait)
Anika – Change
Wapums – Sunray
Angelique Kidjo – Africa One of a Kind
Milky Chance – Colorado
El Michels Affair – Zaharila
Dan Mangan – Troubled Mind
Valley – Oh shit … are we in Love?
After 21- 22 weeks of the podcast, the time has come to repeat some fine artists. Here is Valley with their brand spanking new release, “ Oh shit … are we in Love?”
Status/Non Status – Find a Home
snippets from a CBC article (Holly Gordon · CBC Music · Posted: Jun 08, 2021 9:00 AM ET)
How a new EP and name are helping Status/Non-Status interrogate the effects of colonization
The band formerly known as Whoop-Szo questions who holds status — and who doesn’t
‘It’s been my whole life in many ways, but the reconnection process to culture, it’s been 10 or 15 years as well…. And I’ve learned a lot about my family and our history and the true stories around that, why maybe we were disconnected.’ — Adam Sturgeon (Savanah Sewell)
“The first song I wrote was called ‘Boozhoo,’ and I was just learning how to say the word hello [in Anishinaabemowin],” says Adam Sturgeon, lead singer of Status/Non-Status.
“‘Find a Home’ is a song about loving yourself, I think. It’s a traveling song, sort of — I think you can feel that. And so that was bringing me some sort of solace in that experience where you’re in that doldrum of wonderment. But it was comfortable and it’s kind of an older song that I was writing and reworking and yeah, just about accepting and loving yourself wherever you are on your journey.
Elwins – For Love to Come and Find You(Don’t Wait)
We have played The Elwins before as well and we are including this track as The Elwins finally returned to the stage a couple of weeks ago to do 2 shows at the Phoenix Theatre in Toronto.
This song is taken from the 2021 ep release IV More
Anika – Change
From Album of the Year website – how can you do this, it is only September!
On Change, Anika delivers a call to action that she takes to heart. Though her first solo album in over a decade is indebted to the spooky, surreal sounds of her early solo releases and her work with Exploded View, it also sheds a decidedly different light on her music. Since much of her 2010 debut album and 2013 EP consisted of frosty covers of ’60s pop songs that ranged from ironic to heartbroken, listeners actually got to know more of Anika as a songwriter on Exploded View‘s albums, where she expounded on timely and timeless subjects in elliptical but gripping fashion. Even though she recorded Change with her bandmate Martin Thulin, it’s apparent that this is a solo album: Its songs are leaner and more flexible than her work with Exploded View
Wapums – Sunray
Bob heard Wapums – Sunray on the always dependable CBC radio 3. There isn’t a lot of info available on the internet about this artist but here is the link to the artist’s Bandcamp page.
https://wampums.bandcamp.com/album/sunray-3
This is First Nations music at its finest.
Angelique Kidjo – Africa One of a Kind
Album – Mother Nature
Africa, One Of A Kind
Kicking off our Back To School special with a song featuring @angeliquekidjo and @YoYo_Ma
Angelique wanted to drop out of school but her dad wasn’t having it.
The singer and activist went on to found Batonga, an organization that supports higher education for girls in Africa.
Mother Nature finds 4-time GRAMMY-winner Angelique Kidjo joining forces with some of the most captivating young creators of West African music, Afrobeats, Afro-pop, hip hop and r&b, and represents a newly heightened awareness of her own musical legacy and remarkable influence she’s had on younger generations
She has a great website where there is lots to explore.
Angelique Sings for the Opening Ceremony of the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo
Angelique Kidjo – UNICEF – no Pata Pata Official Video
Covid 19 video – what to do to stay safe from Covid – no touch time
This is a great song that I added to the extended version of the show. From her website:
UNICEF is excited to announce the official release of Angelique Kidjo’s music video for “Pata Pata”, a fresh take on Miriam Makeba’s 1967 hit song. Once called the “world’s most defiantly joyful song”, Makeba’s ‘Pata Pata’ has been re-recorded by UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, Angélique Kidjo, to spread information about COVID-19, with a focus on hundreds of millions of people in remote communities around the world.
Milky Chance – Colorado
Milky Chance is a German rock band who seemed to combine the vocals of Fontaines DC with the instrumentation of The Cars.
This track was heard on an Alt Nation live concert set from the Bottle Rocket Festival in Napa Valley. The crowd there seemed to know this 2021 song thoroughly as they lustily sang along…
Here’s the studio version
El Michels Affair – Zaharila
Album – Yeti Season 2021
this song is described as ‘languid, psyched-out’
El Michels Affair – Zaharila
I had to keep in this paragraph about the inspiration for Yeti Season – this is from Rolling Stone:
Covid upended that rhythm last spring. Suddenly, the kids were home 24/7, and Michels was looking for ways to fill the time while still finding ways to clock hours in the studio. He was also cut off from the close friends and collaborators who had been an integral part of El Michels Affair’s music and his own personal support system. So, one day last year as the snow was falling in Rhinebeck, he got out an old Yeti costume and decided to chase his kids around the yard.
Rolling Stone Magazine
Dan Mangan – Troubled Mind
Dan Magnan is a Juno award winning Canadian musician. He has toured extensively throughout North America, Europe and Australia, having released 5 studio LPs
The song “Troubled Mind” is taken from his 2018 lp “More or Less” The video is kinda fun
In 2017, Magnan started Side Door concert company where artists could put on shows online. Little did he know that three years later due to COVID, these types of shows would take off on platforms like Zoom.
How Dan Mangan’s Side Door Is Paving the Way for the Brave New World of Live Music
“I do believe that this new world is going to stick around,” he says of the company’s highly profitable livestreams
When Vancouver songwriter Dan Mangan co-founded the concert company Side Door in 2017, he thought he was creating an “Airbnb for gigs” — an online platform to allow artists and unconventional venues to connect and put on DIY shows. Once coronavirus lockdowns began, however, he quickly realized that he had accidentally stumbled onto the perfect platform for interactive online shows.
By Alex Hudson Published May 21, 2020 Exclaim! Magazine
Whole-Hearted 