Insights

At a small club show, the lighting is often treated as background decoration. A few coloured par cans, a dimmer switch behind the bar and a haze machine that…

In 2014, an unusual indie folk project turned a 19th-century diary into the source material for modern songs. Rather than treating the old writing as a museum…

A great headphone mix can make a modest recording setup feel remarkably intimate. Instead of relying on a large control room, nearfield monitors and a treated…

A whistle is usually treated as a flourish: a bright little turn at the end of a chorus, a playful sound between lyrics, or a trace of childhood carried into a…

For one night in Montreal’s independent music circuit, the usual question of what a show should cost was handed to the women performing it. Rather than…

For a young independent musician, the first guitar lesson may arrive through a cracked phone screen rather than a music shop or private tutor. A search for…

Mara Vale’s Static Bloom arrives wrapped in soft-focus glamour: glassy keyboards, close-miked vocals and drum machines that seem to pulse from a bedroom at…

In 2013, a free MP3 could travel further than a band’s tour van, press budget or carefully planned release campaign. A download posted by a small music blog…

Cleaning the house is easier when the soundtrack has movement. Fast banjo rolls, handclaps, fiddle runs and close vocal harmonies can turn washing floors,…

The 2015 indie compilation curated by a collective of women in music captures a particular kind of musical energy: intimate, independent and community-minded.…