Louise Burns, Caribou, Jon Vinyl and more: songs you need to hear this week
5 fresh tracks to add to your playlist right now
Here at CBC Music, we're always on high alert for new songs by Canadian artists.
This week, we're listening to new tracks from Caribou, Garçons, Louise Burns, Jon Vinyl featuring Loony, and the Dead South. Scroll down to find out why you need to listen, too.
What new Canadian tunes are you currently obsessed with? Share them with us on Twitter @CBCMusic.
'Cry,' Louise Burns
Between recently releasing a track called "Clowns" and featuring a few colourful jesters in her latest video for the single "Cry," Vancouver artist Louise Burns is really riding the current clown wave marked by the successes of films like It 2 and Joker. But what these clowns represent in the "Cry" visuals is probably just as terrifying as either of those big-screen villains: in a statement, Burns explained that the video "is all about poking fun of the foolish creatures in the music industry who have ever made me feel inferior." She acknowledges that it's a feeling that's "highly relatable" for anyone, not just those in music. But Burns perseveres, and we can, too, to the tune of Burns' infectious pop melodies.
— Melody Lau
'Sundays,' Jon Vinyl feat. Loony
You know when you get up too early on the weekend, groggily down a coffee and a piece of toast and then decide, "Screw it, I'm going back to bed?" Well, that's the same exquisite, self-indulgent feeling you get upon hitting play on "Sundays," a new slow jam from Jon Vinyl and Loony. Sounding like the human equivalent of an inviting, unmade bed, Vinyl brings his soft-grained vocals to the song's wonderfully uncomplicated lines — "I wake up every morning, have a coffee or a tea/ and write a song and play a beat" — while Hammond B3 organ chords throb in the background. And his complicity with Loony, who sings the refrain and joins Vinyl on wordless vocals in the song's coda, is just so right.
— Robert Rowat
'Black Lung,' the Dead South
Oct. 11 marked the release of the Dead South's third full-length album, Sugar & Joy, which is filled with wonderfully weird, vivid songs that range from barn burners to one-foot-in-front-of-the-other work songs. "Black Lung" falls into the latter category, a foreboding cello leading us on the march before the banjo, mandolin and guitar join in for a tale set in a mine in West Virginia. For four men from Regina, Dead South members Nate Hilts, Scott Pringle, Danny Kenyon and Colton Crawford sing a convincing Bible Belt number about the coal miner's disease, their harmonies perfectly linking the verses they trade as their distinct voices share the spotlight. The Juno-winning four-piece performed "Black Lung" live for CBC Music, which you can watch below, and we also recommend the Dead South's playful cover of the Beaches' "Money" from their Junos 365 session last year.
— Holly Gordon
'Home,' Caribou
Don't mistake Caribou's five-year absence for laziness. In fact, frontman Dan Snaith is one of the busiest musicians working in electronic music, between DJing around the world, cutting mixes and putting out music as Daphni. But Snaith has turned his attention back to Caribou, recently releasing a brand new single called "Home." A warm and jubilant loop of R&B singer Gloria Barnes' 1971 song of the same name creates the foundation for Snaith's version. The track is decidedly more low-key than Caribou's biggest hits ("Can't do Without You," "Odessa"), making "Home" a better fit for a Sunday morning spin than a late-night dance floor, but it's no less compelling. As Snaith inches toward 20 years of music-making, he continues to surprise listeners with new and exciting ways to craft and shape dance music. — ML
'Ladybug,' Garçons
All of the defecations coming your way
When you in the mood you wanna get in the moment
And ride 'til it's over
Not gonna lie, the lyrics of this song from Garçons' new album, Be Human, have got us scratching our heads. And yet, they flow and are somehow consistent with the endearingly muddled state of the duo's lead singer, Deelo, who, in the video below, often seems to be either distracted by voices or communing with ghosts. Perhaps they're the ghosts of soul legends from the '60s and '70s, whose music he and bandmate Julian Strangelove have assimilated and updated so convincingly. The pseudo-psychedelic "Ladybug" unfolds over a repeated, slightly distorted guitar line, a foundation for Deelo's beautifully sung rhapsody about his moped-riding, ladylike muse.— RR