Insights

In 2015, a collaborative EP could begin with little more than a borrowed room, a handful of unfinished songs and a deadline that refused to move. That was the…

Elise Bouchard’s Static in the Curtains sounds as though it was assembled after midnight, when the neighbours have stopped moving furniture and the heating…

Some electronic pop songs begin with a synthesizer patch, a drum machine, or a carefully written chorus. Others begin in a film archive, where a single line of…

In 2013, an independent band’s first American tour could depend on a surprisingly modest sum of money. Gas, accommodation, border paperwork, promotional…

For Lena Vale, an album was never meant to arrive all at once. Her debut full-length, The Long Way Home, was released as a sequence of seven 7-inch singles,…

Some songs tell ghost stories with creaking floorboards, distant footsteps, and names whispered after midnight. Others use hauntings as emotional language,…

Bluegrass is built on movement: quick flatpicking, rolling banjo patterns, vocal harmonies, and the bright, human cry of a fiddle. A cello bow seems to belong…

Montreal’s independent music scene has always been larger than its venues, posters, and release schedules. It lives in rehearsal rooms, record shops, borrowed…

An ambient recording can begin with a sound that most listeners would ignore: pine needles shifting underfoot, a branch tapping against another, or wind moving…

SXSW 2015 was a particularly rich year for discovering women-led independent music. Across unofficial showcases, label parties, hotel stages, and crowded…