Our playlist this week is all about new songs on our radar this month. Spotify has their Release Radar playlists and now we have an OurBasement Release Radar playlist. This has become a monthly playlist as there are so many songs released every month that 2 months was just too long. All the songs on the playlist today have been released since our last Release Radar in mid November. Some were released with an album but not many. Some singles are in advance of an upcoming album and some are new remixes of an older track. There are a few seasonal tracks in there as well.

I was excited about many tracks on the list, like Certainly by Heavy Bell. Heavy Bell is a duo made up of Royal Canoe frontman Matt Peters and actor/singer-songwriter Tom Keenan. I am loving this first track and look forward to hearing more from this project. Galaxie, U.S. Girls, Donovan Woods, Bahamas, Michael Rault, Wet Secrets and so many more all had new tracks for us to hear. It feels like Christmas!

Melted Wings don’t have tracks on Spotify but Land of Fallen Snow is a personal favourite this month. In case you missed it you can find out more about Michael Wynn’s project on our site here.

 

I am also really enjoying the track called Beat Wave by Holy Gasp. It is described as big band punk/orchestral hardcore sounds. In the great tradition of The Holy Gasp, no one can quite agree on what to call what they’ve created. The song features 17 players, including Karen Ng (Andy Shauf, Feist and Broken Social Scene), Jessica Upton-Crowe (Beliefs), Nixon Boyd (Hollerado), and many other notable Toronto musicians.This was the first song written for the album, and the first song written after frontman Benjamin Hackman’s divorce. His thoughts on that time below:

When my wife and I split up, I needed to make an extreme lifestyle change. I moved out to Toronto Island and started work on a new record. I started with Beat Wave. I was real depressed at the time. And real lonely, too. Most days I couldn’t get out of bed. I’d lay there on my stinked-up sheets, weeping… wishing for my old life back… They were dark days indeed. I needed to write it out, to laugh at myself, and to take the edge off and find a way to cheer myself up. Divorce shocks the system bad, you know. It makes you ask a whole lotta questions about how you’re gonna live your life and who you’re gonna be in your post-married world. You set out to build a future with someone, and when you call it quits on a marriage, you call it quits on that future too. So you gotta rewrite yourself entirely.

Previously featured band Featurette has a track on our playlist this month as well. The new track is punchy, angry and ticks all the boxes of how the band’s feeling about the current political climate. Here’s the band’s thoughts on the track:

Upside Down is an ode to the decline of our modern world and our values, which for us was punctuated by the US Presidential election, and the fallout thereafter. Everything is so backward lately, we think many of us are feeling it, no matter which side you’re on. When Lexie was writing the lyrics, she couldn’t shake the imagery of Lady Liberty in bed with Donald Trump.

There is some R&B pop on the playlist as well such as Sara Diamond’s Three Words.
Sara was a child star who sold millions of records and became quickly disenchanted with the grind and little control over her trajectory. Now at 22 Sara is releasing original music that she wrote herself, exploring the world from her own perspective without any compromises. Sara’s thoughts on the new song:
Three Words was inspired by the frustration I felt from love being thrown as a word, and not an action. It was produced by Austin Tecks and Noah Barer, with additional production by Lowgo. Recording the song was fun, because I was able to get up there in the emotions and really go for it. It’s not an angry song…it’s a powerful song. About understanding my worth after the fact and knowing where to put my foot down with love. I hope people will recognize their worth in listening to the song. I tried to capture the resentment and frustration that comes from feeling like you were cheated in respect to love. Words can only go so far, and if this song can spark that for people, I’m good to go.

There is so much more new music for you to discover. Take a listen and see what new favourites you may find.