Single Servings, April 5, 2021

By Jason Schneider

Each week Single Servings brings you a balanced diet of the freshest Canadian tracks, spanning Electronica to Rock, Folk to R&B, and everything in between. Remember to support the artists by purchasing their music or adding them to your playlists!

Joe Nolan – Lowlights

Release Date: April 2

Label: Fallen Tree Records

Coming off the success of last year’s Drifters, Edmonton troubadour Nolan seems to be making the most out of his isolation time by producing new material like the beautifully intimate Lowlights. He’s up for a Canadian Folk Music Award this week for Contemporary Album of the Year.

Website. Stream here

Melanie Durrant – Listen

Release Date: April 2

Label: Melo-D’s Inc.

Past multi-Juno nominee Durrant offers a preview of her new album Where I’m At with this stinging cut produced by Statik Selektah (Nas, Wiz Khalifa) that updates a ‘90s hip-hop and R&B sound. Expect to be hearing a lot more from her in the months ahead.

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Godspeed You! Black Emperor – First Of The Last Glaciers

Release Date: April 2

Label: Constellation

The always-challenging Montreal post-rock collective has returned with an expectedly bracing new album, G_d’s Pee AT STATES END, and this selection displays the group in all its mesmerizing cacophonous glory. Their music-for-end-times approach has never been more appropriate.

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Dana Sipos – Light Around The Body

Release Date: April 2

Label: Roaring Girl Records

Fans of British psych-folk will immediately fall in love this latest offering from the criminally underrated Sipos, a first taste of her album The Astral Plane, due out June 25. Produced by Sandro Perri and driven by a deft finger picked acoustic guitar riff, it will definitely transport you to another dimension.

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The Slowinks – Stay With Me Awhile

Release Date: April 2

Label: (weewerk)

Fronted by powerhouse singer Felicity Hamer (formerly of United Steel Workers Of Montreal), The Slowinks blend classic country, jazz and western swing into an intoxicatingly timeless brew. On this title track to their debut album, the drummer-less quartet shows off some serious twang, tinged with just the right amount of country darkness.

Website. Stream here

https://orcd.co/staywithmeawhil

JayWood – Some Days

Release Date: April 2

Label: Royal Mountain

JayWood is the pseudonymous psychedelic funk-pop project of Winnipeg’s Jeremy Haywood-Smith. What started as a bedroom recording project of sad jangle-pop songs, evolved into his debut EP Some Days, out on April 23. The title track certainly shows a lot of potential, incorporating a range of elements without ever losing a solid groove.

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PostData – Inside Out

Release Date: March 29

Label: Paper Bag Records

PostData, Paul Murphy of Wintersleep’s solo project, released its third album Twin Flames back in March, and is now sharing a new animated video for the track Inside Out made by prolific Canadian director Christopher Mills. The trippy visuals are a nice complement to the music, which builds to the kind of triumphant crescendo that’s become Murphy’s trademark.

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Andrea Nixon – Outskirts

Release Date: April 2

Label: Independent

Since releasing her debut album in 2017, Edmonton’s Andrea Nixon has grown into a powerful voice within the Canadian roots music scene. Her new single Outskirts, produced by Russell Broom (Jann Arden) might just be her most accessible work yet without compromising her artistic identity. Outskirts follows Andrea’s 2020 single Blind Spot as the second preview of her forthcoming full-length album, the provocatively titled Barbed Wire Dreams.

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Dorothea Paas – Container

Release Date: April 2

Label: Telephone Explosion

Toronto native Paas has built a reputation as a guitarist and vocalist with Jennifer Castle, U.S. Girls and Badge Époque Ensemble, and she steps out on her own with her debut album Anything Can’t Happen on May 7. Many of its songs have been gestating for years, and the jazzy, Joni-esque Container is indicative of the album’s overall theme of Paas coming to terms with her religious upbringing.

Bandcamp

Mark J. Nyvlt – The Tree

Release Date: April 2

Label: Independent

We’re all craving the outdoors for some mental and physical rejuvenation at the moment, and Ottawa jazz-folk troubadour Mark J. Nyvlt (pronounced “Ni-valt”) is here to oblige with the video for The Tree, from his latest album This ‘N’ That. The song is meditative on its own, but when combined with the stunning visuals captured by the video’s creator, Janina Mueller, the effect allows Nyvlt’s thought-provoking words to fully sink in.

Bandcamp