Fernie’s finally ready. At 26 years old, the Montreal singer has gone international: fighting back his doubts and embracing his history, transforming seasons of pain into unflinching, cinematic R&B. Now signed to Secret City Records—after catching the ear of Patrick Watson—Hopeless Dreams is the proof that this exciting new talent is here to stay, singing dark songs that light up the night.   For all its vulnerability, Hopeless Dreams isn’t “a hand reaching out for help,” Fernie says. This sumptuous record is “a hand reaching out to other people, so they don’t feel alone. That’s universal. That’s for everyone.”  

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Montreal harpist and singer Emilie Kahn oscillates from sunburned hopelessness to a quickening confidence on her latest album Maybe (2023), a collection of shimmering, lovesick pop music. Emilie has released two previous albums (the first, 2015’s 10,000, under the moniker Emilie & Ogden, followed by Outro, under her own name, in 2019), toured with notable acts such as Half Moon Run, and earned accolades everywhere from The New York Times and Mojo to KCRW and BBC 6Music.

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Unessential Oils is a search for something authentic. Bits and pieces of Warren Spicer’s life’s traumas, weaknesses, successes and breakthroughs, moments of clarity and enlightenment mixed with the mundane and menial. The weight of grief and anger imposed on the joy and ecstatic freedom of new life. “The process was the therapy of working through, the result is more a document than construction, it’s what happened, not what I made happen,” he says. 

Warren is widely known as the front-person for Montreal band Plants and Animals. This is his first solo record, an opportunity to take his collective experience and focus on a singular vision. 

The result is an album that’s somewhat like a jazz record in that it’s about the musicians’ performances. Many of the songs are quite minimal in terms of songwriting, but the execution and the playing are very adventurous with room for embellishment and playing around. The songs are filled with small patterns that loop again and again, and the musicians were encouraged to play whatever they want, to react to the music and to each other.