Our playlist this week is all about new songs on our radar this month. Spotify has their Release Radar playlists and we have an OurBasement Release Radar playlist. This has become a monthly thing as there always seems to be enough new tracks each month for a full playlist. The songs on the playlist today have mostly been released since our last Release Radar in mid December. Some were released with an album and some are singles in advance of an upcoming album. You will find multiple genres of music on there, even a few country tracks I allowed on the playlist.

I was excited about many tracks on the list, like Rich Aucoin’s release called Release. He was letting people get a sneak peak of the video and hear the track before it was officially released. You could send him a message on messenger and get the link for the video that is posted below or get the track by sending him a text to the number he shares at shows. It was a fun interactive way to get some interest generated. The song and video are gorgeous.

There were new tracks from Suuns, Jeremy Fisher, Young Galaxy along with more new tracks from Galaxie, U.S. Girls, Bahamas, and Wet Secrets which made me very happy. And Melted Wings is on Spotify now! I also shared some of the new tracks from my province of Saskatchewan from artists Etienne Fletcher, formerly of Indigo Joseph, Bombargo from Saskatoon, The Wolfe who were Searchlight finalists last year and local sweetheart Belle Plaine. I love sharing the music of our local talent. Do you know some local talent in your area that we should know about? Please share!

Another track I want to feature this month is the dark electro pop “Sun Don’t Shine” by Toronto-based Kayobe. After receiving critical acclaim for electronic recordings under different monikers, Kayobe is Kevin O’ Brien’s first solo project. With production experience in the realms of pop, hip hop, jazz and electronic music, Kevin has been generating buzz in the Toronto scene as a sought-after songwriter and producer. “Sun Don’t Shine” was inspired by dark electronic/hip hop influences and features Olive B. on vocals. The track comes off Kayobe’s debut Hidden EP which is set for release this January.

I was also excited to hear Born Ruffian’s new single “MIss You”. It is a rousing track from their upcoming new album  Uncle, Duke & The Chief which will be released on February 16th via Paper Bag Records. Pre-order here.

“I found this old voice memo on my phone from 2015 called ‘I miss you so much baby’,” says the band’s Luke Lalonde. “It was just the chorus of ‘Miss You’ with vocal and piano, very early 60s vibe. I guess I just heard it on the right night when I had a guitar at hand and the rest of the song came very quickly. I think the narrator is a mix of pure ego and emotional suffering. He thinks the people walking by him on the sidewalk actually care about him, or are paying attention to him. This guy is sort of full of himself but he’s proud of his pain and his longing, he feels like it elevates him somehow and he wants to show it off.”

Born Ruffians’ new album, Uncle, Duke & The Chief, feels brashly defiant in its embrace of old-school rock ‘n’ roll aesthetics. In lieu of mouse-clicked studio trickery, it invites you to bask in the natural reverb of the handclaps, tambourine rattles, and booming drum beats bouncing off the studio walls. It is a record less concerned with what sounds hip than what feels good. Uncle Duke & The Chief was produced by Richard Swift (Foxygen, Tennis, Nathaniel Rateliff).

Now go listen to the playlist and share the love of our talented Canadian artists and the music they make!