To celebrate Canada Day, we curated a playlist of new music from across the country that is sure to impress your friends and family this summer.
From shimmering indie pop to jungle-inflected electronica (and everything in between), you’re guaranteed to have these songs on repeat from now until Labour Day.
“Sidewinder” by Ken Yates
Ken Yates is a master of world-building. A folk-rock songwriter based in Creemore, Ont., his panoramic approach to storytelling transports his listeners to vividly rendered locales: a snow-covered lake, a quiet island dappled with trilliums, a lonesome gas station on the side of country road, the suffocating gloom of a darkened city apartment. But while Yates’s earlier work was sometimes morose, his latest record, “Total Cinema,” feels both triumphant and fresh: the tempo is faster, the guitars are brighter and the narrator — though still cynical — seems to have found a measure of peace.
Like many of the songs on the album, opening track “Sidewinder” is about a man coming to terms with the broken state of the world and the messiness of life; about planting roots and celebrating the relationships that give life its shape and purpose.
“Remember” by Bambii (feat. Ravyn Lenae & Scrufizzer)
There’s no better way to embrace the heat of the summer than blasting some Bambii. With the recent release of “Infinity Club II,” the Toronto DJ and producer shored up her reputation as one of today’s most thrilling electronic artists, serving up yet another combustible collection of dance-floor-ready tracks that scuttle rapidly between genres and styles, drawing on diasporic influences from the Caribbean and the U.K. to foster a sound that is uniquely Toronto.
On “Remember,” Bambii teams up with American R & B singer Ravyn Lenae and U.K. rapper Scrufizzer, layering their voices over a driving bass line and propulsive breakbeat to create a sound both languid and unbridled. It’s a song for summer dusk, when the heat of the days slowly burns away, and the cool air of the evening beckons with possibility.
“Baby Blue” by Billianne
Things are happening fast for Billianne, a 22-year-old indie pop singer from Milton, Ont. Since the Star named her ”music’s next big voice” in 2023, she’s caught fire, appearing on “The Today Show” and “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” and drawing comparisons to “a young Adele” after a recent set at SXSW. (She was also picked to open up for legendary R & B/blues singer Mavis Staples at Toronto Jazz Festival.)
Earlier in June, Billianne announced her long-anticipated debut album, “Modes of Transportation” (out in August), and shared a music video for “Baby Blue,” a bubbly and infectious breakup song about shaking things off and moving forward.
“Carried Away” by Men I Trust
Listening to Men I Trust can feel like floating down a lazy river in a slender canoe, rocking slightly in the current. “Equus Caballus,” the latest album from the Montreal dream pop torchbearers is a master-class in atmospheric indie rock — the perfect soundtrack for a gentle swing in a hammock or a strong cocktail on a patio. On “Carried Away,” Emmanuelle Proulx’s voice floats over a hypnotic groove, rising and falling like en errant helium balloon disappearing into the horizon.
“Adelaide” by CJ Wiley
Songs about friendship are criminally underrated. “You still call me up when my heart is burning / To calm me down with a midnight sermon,” Toronto alt-country singer CJ Wiley sings on “Adelaide,” a remarkable song about chosen family, and “choosing to love and grow together instead of growing apart. Wiley’s debut album, “So Brand Now,” is filled with striking songs about love, identity and acceptance, but none pull at the heart strings quite like this one.
“Joury” by Shanii
Don’t sleep on Shanii, a Syrian-Lebanese singer with a buttery voice and an effortless sense of swag. Now based in Toronto, his latest track is a sultry, down-tempo slice of R & B/hip-hop fusion that feels ready-made for hot, humid nights in the city.
“Home” by Aysanabee
“If home is where the heart is / Then we must be heartsick,” Aysanabee laments on “Home,” a rousing roots-rock anthem about learning to live with the immutable shapes of our past. “We can’t go back, we can’t go back, we can’t go back.” He is only 30, but the Oji-Cree songwriter sounds profoundly world-weary and battle-scarred, and his thick baritone makes these songs feel both lofty and galvanizing.
With two stellar albums now under his belt — his sophomore record “Edge Of The World” came out June 20 — the sky seems like the limit for Aysanabee.
“One Gripe” by Yves Jarvis
In February, Montreal-based experimental artist Yves Jarvis quietly put out “All Cylinders,” an exuberant, kaleidoscopic mishmash of funk, yacht rock and electrifying guitar theatrics. It sounded great in the winter, but it sounds even better now that the sun is out. Built around a skittish groove, Jarvis sounds like the reincarnation of Prince on “One Gripe” — a comparison he hammers home with a tightly wound guitar solo in the song’s second half.
