TAMI NEILSON COVERS JONI MITCHELL’S “RIVER”

“River” Single Artwork // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Tami Neilson first discovered Joni Mitchell’s Blue as a teenager. "I was on tour with my family band all around Canada and the U.S. and for my birthday one year, my dad gave me the Blue album on CD, I was immediately obsessed.”

That album, Neilson says, "gave me that kind of permission and confidence to become the writer and the artist and the producer that I am today."

For Canadian-born Neilson, the song “River” dives into the pain of homesickness, a sentiment that resonated deeply during her first Christmas living abroad in New Zealand. "Being in the southern hemisphere, the seasons are flipped so it's really it's hot and it's summery, and it's so strange to be decorating your Christmas tree and in shorts and a tank top," she said.

"I remember putting on the Blue album and the song ‘River’ came on and I just immediately started sobbing because I know this song is about regret over a broken relationship.... But for me, it just became this song about homesickness and longing, and the longing was to be home."

LISTEN AND SHARE “RIVER” (JONI MITCHELL COVER) HERE

BUY / STREAM “RIVER” (JONI MITCHELL COVER) HERE

The song has taken on more relevance for Tami as the pandemic has kept her from visiting her family in Canada over the past 18 months. Being in Auckland, Tami was able to perform a few shows, including a brief album release tour which culminated in a sold out show at the Civic Theatre which was later released as a concert film.

WATCH AND SHARE TAMI NIELSON LIVE AT THE CIVIC

As well, Tami launched “The Tami Show”, a 12 episode YouTube series filmed entirely from her New Zealand home. Tami’s latest album, CHICKABOOM!, was released in February 2020, and although her world tour was cancelled, the album became Tam’s biggest release to date, with nearly 2M streams, placements in Snowpiercer and Family Law, and mass critical acclaim including rave reviews from Rolling Stone, No Depression, Billboard and more. 

CHICKABOOM! also earned Tami her first JUNO Award nomination for Best Contemporary Roots Recording while winning New Zealand’s Best Country Song of the Year for lead single “Hey, Bus Driver” and for Best Country Artist.

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JEAN-MICHEL BLAIS REVEALS “passepied” FROM UPCOMING ENSEMBLE LP


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AUBADES, THE POST-CLASSICAL ICON’S FIRST ENSEMBLE RECORD, OUT FEBRUARY 4, 2022 VIA ARTS & CRAFTS

PRE-ORDER AUBADES HERE

Photo Credit : William Arcand // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Today, post-classical piano icon Jean-Michel Blais is sharing “passepied” from his upcoming album, aubades, due out February of next year via Arts & Crafts. Blais says of the track that “passepied” was a "popular Breton dance from the Middle Ages, lively and cheerful, later taken over by the aristocracy, reminding me of square sets, of line dancing. ‘feelings are intense / words are trivial / pleasures remain’. A tribute to Debussy."

LISTEN / SHARE "PASSEPIED" HERE
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“passepied” single artwork // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

aubades marks the Montreal-born musician’s transition from pianist to composer, as he writes for an ensemble for the first time in his career. Written during the pandemic and following a breakup, Blais has used his distinctive musical voice to create a defiantly uplifting record with glistening instrumental textures and warm major tonalities. The album’s title refers to the “aubade”, a Middle Ages morning love song about lovers separating at daybreak, a dawn serenade. 

Jean-Michel Blais has been a celebrated figure in the post-classical piano world since the release of his critically-acclaimed debut album II in 2016. He attended Quebec’s prestigious Trois-Rivières Music Conservatory but left after two years of study, exhausted by the restraints of the traditional music curriculum. Blais then travelled widely before retraining as a special education teacher. Whilst working as a teacher, he returned to music on his own terms, rediscovering his passion through improvising on the piano. These improvisations formed the basis of a recording career that has earned him two Polaris Music Prize nominations, a #1 on the Billboard Classical chart and a Time Magazine top ten album of the year. 

LISTEN / SHARE "DOUX" HERE
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Despite the difficult global and personal backdrop, Blais described the time writing this album as a “fruitful moment of creativity for me. We started having hares in the park, beautiful butterflies flying everywhere. It was a time of lots of blossoming, and also a moment when I blossomed from being a pianist into a composer.” Musical ideas captured in over 500 recorded piano improvisations were transformed by Blais into 11 compositions performed by a 12-person ensemble. During the composition process, Blais collaborated with Alex Weston, former music assistant to Philip Glass. The musicians were recorded with close-up microphones, creating a richly intimate atmosphere that captures the human behind each instrument, from the mechanics of the woodwind keys to the snap of a double bass string. 

Blais also consciously found himself leaning towards major tonalities, which he believes are surprisingly rare in modern classical piano music. “With this album, I was definitely responding to certain trends,” Blais reckons. “For example, the fact that the solo piano tends to sound melancholic. That’s good, but I’ve done that already, I wanted to go beyond that.”

LISTEN / SHARE "MURMURES" HERE
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In aubades, every instrument is given moments of expression to an extent that took the players by surprise. Blais says, “there’s often been this dominant idea in classical music that one instrument is the chief, the king of all the instruments, and the others are in the background merely supporting.” He was inspired by more democratic musical textures from the Renaissance and Middle Ages, as well as the social democratic artistic ethos of the English 19th century poet, designer and activist William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement. 

Jean-Michel Blais will be taking aubades on the road in 2022. Full tour dates can be found below.

PRE-ORDER AUBADES HERE

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AUBADES TRACKLIST
murmures
passepied
nina
flâneur
ouessant
if you build it, they will come
amour
yanni
absinthe
carrousel
doux

2022 TOUR DATES
Mar 27 - London, UK - Purcell Room
Mar 30 - Hamburg, DE - Nachtasyl
Mar 31 - Berlin, DE - Planetarium
Apr 1 - Cologne, DE - Altes Pfandhaus
Apr 2 - Copenhagen, DN - XXX
Apr 4 - Oslo, NO - Röversatden
Apr 6 - Amsterdam, NL - Concertgebouw
May 6 - Clermont-Ferrand, FR - La Comédie
Jul 9 - Montreal, QC - Montreal Jazz

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CASSIDY MANN SHARES NEW SINGLE, “STOP A HEART”

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CASSIDY MANN SIGNS TO END X MUSIC - THE NEW LABEL FROM DONOVAN WOODS AND MICHELLE SZETO

Photo Credit : Mary Rose // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Today, Cassidy Mann is following up her recent single, “Election Night”, with another new track, “Stop A Heart”, a song about “the exact moment when you know you have to end a relationship and then realizing that means you’re going to hurt another person in the process,” says Mann.

“There have been times where I’ve sat on that feeling for a while and tried to figure out how to minimize the damage but it’s just a form of procrastination. It’s putting off the break up because even though you know it’s the right call, it sucks to do. I’ve been on the other side of that situation too and it’s not fun either way. But heartbreak happens to everybody and you can’t control it, you just have to feel it and know that eventually it will pass. Because it will.”

LISTEN AND SHARE “STOP A HEART” HERE

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“Stop A Heart” Single Artwork // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Recently, Cassidy Mann announced her signing with End X Music (End Times Music), the new label from Donovan Woods and his long-time manager Michelle Szeto.

MORE ABOUT CASSIDY MANN
Entwining her acoustic roots with gentle electronic textures, Cassidy Mann often reshapes a small moment into a powerful and poetic song that feels both personal and relatable.  “My favorite thing is to write about tiny things that make the bigger picture more important somehow,” she says. 

WATCH AND SHARE CASSIDY MANN’S “ELECTION NIGHT” VISUALIZER HERE

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Growing up in the Prairies of Winnipeg, Mann has been singing since she could talk. Her parents bought her a guitar as a birthday present when she was 9. By 14, she started taking songwriting more seriously and her emerging talent led to a nomination for Aboriginal Recording of the Year at the Western Canadian Music Awards. Watch for more news about Cassidy soon. 

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MORE ABOUT END X MUSIC
The core of End Times’ mission is transparency and adaptability. In the world of streaming, the data is available. Artists should understand their expenses and their earnings as well as anyone they work with. It allows us to interpret and react to how, why, and where songs are being discovered. 

There are many pathways to success, and success looks different to everyone. Every artist and every project is unique and artists should be confident that the team built around them is being created thoughtfully and purposefully in service of their individuality. 

We’ll focus on songwriters, regardless of genre, and work together to make their music valuable by getting it to people who will use it and love it.

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