September brought a pretty wide-ranging batch of Canadian indie releases into OurBasement, and this month’s Release Radar definitely isn’t sticking to one particular sound.

We started close to home with Saskatchewan artists Belle Plaine and Kacy Lee Anderson, and there’s plenty more prairie representation throughout the playlist, including Birthday Cake Trebuchet, Slow Down Molasses, Bombargo and Eekwol.

There’s also a nice mix of familiar Canadian names and artists you may be discovering for the first time. Field Guide teams up with Georgia Harmer, while Clever Hopes brings in Jenn Grant. Jon McKiel, Land of Talk, Lisa LeBlanc, Jean-Michel Blais and Patrick Moon Bird all bring very different flavours to the playlist.

And then things get a little noisier and weirder—which is generally a good thing down here.

We’ve got Ghostkeeper, Art d’Ecco, Actors, Lammping, Yoo Doo Right and Alex Henry Foster adding some darker, stranger and more experimental edges to the mix. Montréal and Toronto are well represented too, with NOBRO, Thunder Queens, Zeus and The Surfrajettes.

There’s also plenty of electronic, experimental and instrumental territory. NESS NÖST and LAL take us in some decidedly different directions, while Colin Stetson and Brìghde Chaimbeul bring us somewhere considerably more atmospheric. And that’s just the beginning—there’s plenty more to discover the further you dive into the playlist.

So, as usual, there’s no particular genre box required to get into OurBasement. September gave us everything from folk and roots to indie rock, punk, hip hop, electronic music and experimental sounds.

And that’s really the fun of Release Radar: finding out what Canadian artists have been making lately and giving a few of those new songs a place to hang out together.

As we head into the final stretch of 2026, the Canadian indie music scene is still keeping pretty busy. November is looking like a particularly good month to get out and see what’s happening.

One of the big events coming up is Indie Week Canada, happening November 12–14 in Ottawa. It’s a three-day, multi-venue festival and music conference focused on independent alternative, rock and pop music.

There’ll be live showcases, industry events, networking and plenty of opportunities for musicians to connect with audiences—and with each other.

And, of course, there’s the added bonus of discovering a band before they become too popular to see in a tiny room.

Then, just a few days later, M pour Montréal runs November 18–21. It’s another major showcase for emerging Canadian artists, bringing musicians together with international music buyers, tastemakers and other industry people.

So if you want to get a sense of where some of Canada’s independent music might be heading next, Montréal is a pretty good place to be looking.

And there are plenty of artists still out there playing shows as the year winds down.

There are a lot of shows happening across the country this fall, so there’s really something for everyone if you get out there and look for it.

And that’s the thing about the Canadian indie scene: there’s always something happening.

As we get closer to the end of 2026, we’ve still got festivals, showcases, conferences, tours, new releases and plenty of musicians continuing to build their audiences one room at a time.

There really isn’t much of an off-season.

There’s always another show, another new release, or another musical rabbit hole waiting around the corner.

That sounds like a pretty good reason to keep hanging out in OurBasement.

TIDAL Music:

YouTube link: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXlqXQdPeYlo&si=f4HHY0T2LHbV9PZY