ABIGAIL LAPELL ANNOUNCES NEW LP, SHADOW CHILD, SHARES FIRST SINGLE

ABIGAIL LAPELL’S NEW ALBUM, SHADOW CHILD, ARRIVES MOTHER’S DAY WEEKEND, MAY 8, 2026 VIA OUTSIDE MUSIC 

WATCH / SHARE “HAZEL” FT. JILL BARBER HERE
BUY / STREAM “HAZEL” FT. JILL BARBER HERE

PRE-SAVE SHADOW CHILD HERE

NORTH AMERICAN TOUR DATES BEGIN FEBRUARY 26

TICKETS ON SALE HERE

Photo Credit : Jen Squires // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Every mother has a unique story. One thing is true for every mother, though: there’s no deadline quite like a pregnancy. Award-winning Toronto singer-songwriter Abigail Lapell was pregnant with her first child when she booked studio time on Vancouver Island to make an album about motherhood. The nine songs on Shadow Child, one for each month of gestation, had to be ready before then, and her return flight was booked on the last day she could safely fly in her third trimester. 

Working with producer Colin Stewart (Dan Mangan, Black Mountain), Lapell finished her songs in the studio and on rural walks beside the Pacific Ocean. She enlisted some of her favourite singers, all British Columbians, all mothers: Frazey Ford, Jill Barber, Pharis Romero. “They’re all people with unique, distinctive voices,” she says, “which is what I’m drawn to.”  

Today, Lapell is sharing the first single from the album, “Hazel” featuring Jill Barber. Part lullaby and part elegy, “Hazel” is a gentle love letter to an unborn or future child, or one that may never be. The song’s soft plucked electric guitar floats beneath sweet childhood imagery; sandcastles, snow angels, sunshowers, and a name carried off on the ocean breeze.

The single arrives with a visualizer created by Lapell “using old super 8 footage I filmed as a teenager and recently rediscovered. Shot at a melancholy yet hopeful time in my life, the film features birds in flight and at rest, often shaky, scratchy or out of focus. I feel like this stuttering footage has its own fragile beauty that resonates with the song’s sweet message of a nascent love, half-formed but all-consuming.”

WATCH / SHARE “HAZEL” FT. JILL BARBER HERE
BUY / STREAM “HAZEL” FT. JILL BARBER HERE


MORE ABOUT SHADOW CHILD
For Shadow Child, musically, Lapell was looking for a stark, acoustic sound, as opposed to 2024’s JUNO Award-nominated Anniversary (recorded in Niagara with Great Lake Swimmers’ Tony Dekker) and 2022’s acclaimed Stolen Time (recorded in Montreal with Howard Bilerman, featuring E Street Band saxophonist Jake Clemons).

Lapell’s road to motherhood was fraught, involving years of IVF and a 2023 miscarriage — that she experienced on stage while on tour. (She finished her set.) Her son was born in November 2024. The song cycle of Shadow Child covers joy and loss, using metaphors from Maritime tragedy, “little cannibals,” reproductive health, acquiring language, and lives altered by the arrival of a newborn. The title track refers to ultrasound imaging of “a liminal person that doesn’t quite exist yet,” says Lapell. “Their status is ontologically blurry.”

ABIGAIL LAPELL ON TOUR
Feb 26 - Niagara, ON - Niagara Artists Centre
April 10 - Saint John, NB - Imperial Theatre
May 8 - Richards Landing, ON - Algoma Trad
May 14 - Saratoga Springs, NY - Caffe Lena
May 15 - Exeter, NH - Word Barn
May 16 - Cambridge, MA - Club Passim
May 17 - New York, NY - Cafe Wha?
May 22 - Toronto, ON - Hugh's Room
May 23 - Chelsea, ON - Motel Chelsea
May 24 - Ottawa, ON - Ottawa Tennis Club

More Dates To Be Announced Soon

PRE-SAVE SHADOW CHILD HERE

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SHADOW CHILD TRACKLIST
01 Whistle Song (One In A Million)
02 Hazel ft. Jill Barber
03 Shadow Child ft. Frazey Ford
04 Mocking Bird ft. Dana Sipos
05 Talking To Myself
06 Little Cannibal
07 So Long ft. Pharis Romero
08 Mother Tongue
09 Sing A Rainbow

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SUMMERSETS RETURN WITH “SOMEWHERE GONE”

Photo Credit : Cayllan Cassavia // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Last year, summersets, the duo of Kalle Mattson and his childhood friend and long-time bandmate Andrew Sowka, shared two new singles, “Move Back Home” and “If You Were A Stranger”, the latter of which has been climbing the CBC Music Top 20 and is currently spinning on SiriusXM Canada’s North Americana channel.

Today, they’re sharing “Somewhere Gone”, a song that Mattson wanted “to feel like Sault Ste. Marie. So few songs are written about or reflect the part of the country where we’re both from, and with ‘Somewhere Gone’ I wanted to hopefully provide a snapshot of the place but also what it’s like to look back at your hometown after you have grown up and left, seeing it and yourself from a new point of view.” 

WATCH / SHARE “SOMEWHERE GONE” HERE
BUY / STREAM “SOMEWHERE GONE” HERE

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Previous single “Move Back Home” is about “the housing crisis in Canada, and specifically how our generation (millennials) have had to settle for a life that looks markedly different from the ones our parents led,” says Mattson. “The characters in the song are a composite of so many of our friends in their early 30s who are moving back to our hometown (Sault Ste. Marie, ON), after living in larger cities, because “moving back home” is their only real option of ever owning a home or starting a family. I’ve made peace that I will probably never own a home, what was an option for previous generations is not one for me, but I wanted to put that reality into a song where the characters are ‘settling’ and ‘settling down’, both for each other and in the larger context of their lives.”

WATCH / SHARE “MOVE BACK HOME” HERE
BUY / STREAM “MOVE BACK HOME” HERE

“If You Were A Stranger” is “my attempt at writing a genuine love song for my partner (with a splash of humour),” explains Mattson. “Since 2021 I’ve taught songwriting in the music department at Carleton University. Teaching at any level was certainly not something I ever thought I would do, but in teaching songwriting, it’s opened up a lot more areas in my own writing (what’s the saying ‘the best way to learn is to teach’? I think they also say ‘those that can’t do, teach’ but whatever). Every songwriter I know admires John Prine, but only until you try and write like him do you realize how hard it is to be genuine and funny all at once. And I think it features some great understated playing from Jim Bryson, Christine Bougie, and Peter Von Althen, one of our favourites.”

WATCH / SHARE “IF YOU WERE A STRANGER” HERE
BUY / STREAM “IF YOU WERE A STRANGER” HERE

MORE ABOUT SUMMERSETS
summersets is the new duo from JUNO Award and Polaris Music Prize nominated singer-songwriter Kalle Mattson, and longtime collaborator Andrew Sowka. Influenced by the storytelling of John Prine and delivered with the delicacy of Simon & Garfunkel, their debut full-length, small town story, was produced by Jim Bryson (Kathleen Edwards, The Weakerthans) and nominated for both a 2024 Ontario Folk Music Award and a 2025 Canadian Folk Music Award. They are currently in the studio working on their followup LP once again with Jim Bryson, Peter Von Althen (Skydiggerrs) and Christine Bougie (Bahamas), due out this year.

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MAGI MERLIN RETURNS WITH ENTHRALLING NEW SINGLE, “POPSTAR”

MAGI MERLIN’S NEW SINGLE “POPSTAR” OUT TODAY VIA BONSOUND

WATCH / SHARE “POPSTAR” (VISUALIZER) HERE
BUY / STREAM “POPSTAR” HERE

PERFORMANCE DATES BEGIN MARCH 24

Photo Credit : Sophia Perras // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Magi Merlin returns with “POPSTAR”, a fierce, declarative single which carries her intent to reframe fame as responsibility. This new song comes out a few days after a successful European tour opening for Yaya Bey, and the release of her cover of IDLES’ “POP POP POP”, which was praised by the band’s lead singer, Joe Talbot, on social media. “POPSTAR” has already generated international acclaim before its release, premiering on Huw Stephens’ BBC Radio 6 Music show a few weeks ago.

Co-produced with Funkywhat, “POPSTAR” sees Magi Merlin expand on her unique, catchy-yet-singular sound while doubling down on the role she wants to play as an artist. “After writing this song and thinking about it with intention, I think I can see the true responsibility of an artist,” says Magi. “It is to be a messenger, to influence and to inspire change in the people listening. I don't think the point is to single-handedly change the world; it's to remind all of us that we can, if we do it together.”

WATCH / SHARE “POPSTAR” (VISUALIZER) HERE
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MORE ABOUT MAGI MERLIN
Magi Merlin [pronounced Mahd-j-eye] calls her sound ‘Broken R&B’, but really, it’s whatever she feels like breaking down and rebuilding in the studio. From indie pop and ’90s house to R&B, hip-hop and jazz, it’s a collage where the glue often is a masterful use of harmonies and a clever juxtaposition of lyrical lightness and depth. In addition to being a writer, composer and co-producer, she also takes the lead on art direction, aiming to use her keenness for fashion and storytelling to build a visual universe that’s as intentional, infectious and self-defined as her sound.

WATCH / SHARE “POP POP POP” (IDLES) HERE

With her 2022 EP Gone Girl, the Montreal-based artist gained praise from outlets including Bandcamp Daily, The FADER, The Line of Best Fit, and Nylon, which led to touring with Noga Erez and a LATAM date with Omar Apollo. Ever since, Merlin has kept busy, working on new music, releasing singles and a smaller surprise project: A Weird Little Dog, which dropped as she began a US tour supporting saxophonist Nubya Garcia. She then reworked IDLES’ “POP POP POP”, flipping it into a club banger that she performed live for Glamcult TV. She’s made continuous festival appearances at Osheaga, Festival d’été de Québec (opening for Ty Dolla $ign), Treefort, Reeperbahn, and the Montreal International Jazz Festival, while simultaneously making her acting debut in Mile End Kicks (with Barbie Ferreira, Devon Bostick and Juliette Gariépy). She continues to unveil her work as a creative powerhouse, one layer at a time, every move pointing toward a larger body of work soon to be released to the world.

PERFORMANCE DATES
03/24/2026 - Toronto, ON - The Baby G 
03/25/2026 - Montreal, QC - Casa Del Popolo
06/26/2026 - Mayenne, FR - Un singe en été

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