New Canadian Music

After a significant gestation period, Gold & Youth's debut album "Beyond Wilderness" is finally out this week,  and with it the group's first official video for the moody, synth-pop driven single "Jewel". The promo clip was directed by Natalie Robinson and features the husband and wife team of Nico Archambault and Wynn Holmes, the latter of whom is seen dancing across an empty and angular cityscape. More on this highly anticipated release from Nerese Richter.

It’s not strictly CanCon, but hearing Chilly Gonzales discuss his contributions to the new Daft Punk record, Random Access Memories, he gets us psyched for that album’s May 21 release. In this installment of the Intel/Vice webseries "The Collaborators", the piano man explains his role as a chord-builder and melody maker, and his role in bridging old world classicism with futuristic electronica, and his earlier involvement as collaborator with Feist and Drake. When the A-list asks you personally to fulfill a specific musical role, how can you decline?

Exclaim! TV has just posted a wonderful rooftop performance by Toronto "art-country" folkies Beams, whose back-to-basics musical style includes a banjo, a mandolin, lap steel guitar and – ready for it? – a springy metal saw played with a violin bow. The group's vocal duties are deftly handled by Anna Mernieks and Heather Mazhar, whose intertwined harmonizing recalls Heart's Wilson sisters at their best.  "Just Rivers" is streaming now on Bandcamp.