GABRIELLE SHONK SHARES “AFTERTASTE”, ANNOUNCES TOUR DATES

WATCH / SHARE / BUY / STREAM “AFTERTASTE” HERE

TOUR DATES WITH CHARLIE WINSTON AND THE BARR BROTHERS BEGIN JANUARY 2023. FULL TOUR DATES FOUND BELOW

Photo Credit : villedepluie // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

This January, Montréal-based singer-songwriter Gabrielle Shonk will head to the road for a run of tour dates across North America. Full tour dates can be found below. Today, Shonk is sharing the new single, “Aftertaste” where the acclaimed songwriter ponders her relationship to partying as a way to cope with the pressures of life. Over animated synths, Shonk somber but soulfully sings of the depressive cycle that comes with binge drinking: “I said I’d only have a few / Once again I’m letting myself down / Surviving off these toxic fumes / I cross the line until I drown”. The track was co-written with Mathieu Sénéchal (Charlotte Cardin) and Peter Shonk, Gabrielle’s blues musician father.

The single is taken from Shonk's forthcoming sophomore album, out early next year. After a difficult breakup and parting ways with the major label behind her debut album, Shonk used her newfound creative freedom to make her sophomore album with longtime friends, co-writer Jessy Caron of the band Men I Trust, and producer Jesse Mac Cormack (Helena Deland). Watch for more new music from the record in the near future.

WATCH / SHARE / BUY / STREAM “AFTERTASTE” HERE

“Aftertaste” Single Artwork // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

WATCH / SHARE “HOW WE USED TO BE” HERE
BUY / STREAM “HOW WE USED TO BE” HERE

PRAISE FOR GABRIELLE SHONK

"her gorgeous comeback single... [is summed up as] “a ballad about a relationship that was hard to leave,” and you can hear the pain in her voice; wanting something back yet knowing it's gone." FLOOD Magazine
“Shonk sounds like an amalgamation of the past 20 years of star female songstresses ...”  - VICE Magazine

“Shonk’s voice, part of the same throaty jazz-pop lineage as Amy Winehouse” - W Magazine

"Shonk has a powerful voice with echoes of Adele and Alicia Keys, and her songs are steeped in the classic singer-songwriter tradition of artists like Joni Mitchell, Carole King and Tracy Chapman.” - Montreal Gazette

GABRIELL SHONK TOUR DATES
Jan 27 - Lasalle QC - Studio 1111
Jan 28 - Levis QC - Vieux Bureau de Poste
Feb 21 - St-Jérôme QC - Théâtre Gilles-Vigneault ^
Feb 22 - Granby QC - Palace de Granby ^
Feb 23 - Drummondville QC - Maison des Arts Desjardins ^
Feb 24 - Joliette QC - Salle Rolland-Brunelle ^
Feb 25 - Sherbrooke QC - Theatre Granada ^
Mar 11 - St-Hyacinthe QC - Le Zaricot
Apr 26 - Ottawa ON - The Bronson Centre #
Apr 27 - Quebec City QC - Palais Montcalm #
Apr 28 - Sherbrooke QC - Theatre Granada #
Apr 29 - Trois-Rivières QC - Salle J-Antonio-Thompson #
May 1 - Montreal QC - Corona Theatre #
May 2 - Toronto ON - The Great Hall #
May 4 - Boston MA - Café 939 #
May 5 - New York NY - Mercury Lounge #
May 6 - Philadelphia PA - World Café #
May 7 - Alexandria VA - The Birchmere #
May 9 - Los Angeles CA - Lodge Room #
May 10 - San Francisco CA - Rickshaw Stop #
May 12 - Portland OR - Jack London Revue #
May 13 - Vancouver BC - Hollywood Theatre #
May 19 - Lavaltrie QC - La Chasse-Galerie
May 20 - Jonquière QC - Côté Cour

^ w/ The Barr Brothers
# w/ Charlie Winston

GABRIELLE SHONK ONLINE
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BEGONIA SHARES VIDEO FOR NEW SINGLE, “COLD NIGHT”, ANNOUNCES FIRST RUN OF TOUR DATES

WATCH / SHARE “COLD NIGHT” HERE
BUY / STREAM “COLD NIGHT” HERE

FIRST RUN OF UPCOMING TOUR DATES BEGINS FEBRUARY 24 IN TORONTO

BEGONIA RETURNS WITH NEW LP, POWDER BLUE, OUT FEBRUARY 24 ON BIRTHDAY CAKE RECORDS

PRE-SAVE POWDER BLUE HERE
PRE-ORDER POWDER BLUE HERE

“Begonia has one of Canada’s most extraordinary voices, and thankfully she uses it to obliterate misery from this world one live performance at a time.” - NOISEY

“You’ve been let in on pop’s best kept secret.” - CBC Music

“…a complex, powerhouse synth-soul album that hangs on one of Canada’s most extraordinary voices.” - Line of Best Fit

“An audacious adventure in modern soul” - Globe & Mail

“The woman has, you would say, presence to spare. When she opens her mouth to sing it’s like, “What just happened?” - Exclaim!

“[Begonia] conjures charming vintage soul and lays on the richly layered choruses. But she’s also enormously distinct in her crystalline delivery, which pairs perfectly with songs about starting down doubt and anxiety.” - NPR Music

Photo Credit : Calvin Lee Joseph //  DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Just last month, Begonia (Alexa Dirks) shared the news of her upcoming LP, Powder Blue, and released the single “Right Here”, which is already rising up the CBC Music Top 20 charts. Today, in addition to announcing the first run of upcoming tour dates beginning at Toronto’s Great Hall, the Polaris Music Prize and JUNO Award nominated artist is sharing another single from the upcoming album, “Cold Night”.

“This song is the breakdown of a horrible life-changing relationship in three parts,” says Dirks. “Like...stages of grief I guess? Verse one is when you’re not ready to let go and just the thought of being ‘left behind’ makes you feel so desperate and detached, like you’re not even human anymore. Verse two is reflecting on the reality of the relationship itself and particular stories that come up only with time to reveal the truth. The last part of the song after the strings hit is all about accepting it for what it is and moving forward. Like sitting in your despair and sadness, but also knowing that it needed to be over and that you did the right thing by walking away.

“Deadmen (producers Matt Peters and Matt Shellenberg) really knocked it out of the park with their string arrangements on my upcoming album, and this song in particular is one of my favourites so I'm so glad to be releasing it as a single.”

WATCH / SHARE “COLD NIGHT” HERE
BUY / STREAM “COLD NIGHT” HERE

“Cold Night” Single Artwork // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

MORE ABOUT POWDER BLUE
On the album’s name, Dirks says, “Powder Blue is more of an emotion. It makes me think of my baby blanket, the colour of the virgin mary’s shawl at the church Christmas play, the airiness of clouds on a summer day, chlorine filled water in a hotel pool, Elvis in the 70s wearing an ill-fitting jumpsuit, the wallpaper in my room growing up, the collection of faded denim jackets in my basement.”

“The name of this album needed to be something that encompasses all of the feelings that these songs give me when they are put together,” Dirks continues. “When I listen to them as a unit, they send me back to the words, the colour. To me, this album holds a muted nostalgia, musings on childhood, the complexities of new love, self love, religion, virginity, and sexuality. There’s an indulgence in emotional depth and pain yet also an indulgence in love and a poppy lightness—two sides I’ve always tried to balance. I feel like I let my guard down even more with this record and decided to not hold back on either end.”

WATCH / SHARE “RIGHT HERE” HERE
BUY / STREAM “RIGHT HERE” HERE

MORE ABOUT BEGONIA
As Begonia, Alexa Dirks is bold, brazen with her florid, surprising pop that is tempered with sensitivity and wisdom. In her music, Begonia leans hard into a sense of arrival. Whether it’s learning to come into her own or processing a brutal heartbreak, Dirks’ intimate lyrics and audacious sound allows for her audience to relate to the messiness of life with an honesty that is refreshing. 

Her debut LP, Fear, was nominated for a JUNO Award for Adult Alternative Album Of The Year and was longlisted for The Polaris Music Prize. It was one of Exclaim!’s Most Underrated Albums of the Year, made end of the year lists from CBC Music and Dominionated, and saw both “Beats” and “Hanging On A Line” named as CBC Music Top 20 Fan Favourites of the year. Fear also spent 10 straight weeks as the #1 album in Canada on Earshot’s Top 50 chart. 

Fear was written and co-produced with a familiar team of Matt Schellenberg (Royal Canoe) and Matt Peters (Royal Canoe) along with Marcus Paquin (The National, The Weather Station, Julia Jacklin).

Dirks' first solo EP, Lady in Mind, was well-received, being listed on NPR’s 10 Artists You Need To Know in 2017 and single “Juniper” reached #1 on the CBC Radio 2 Top 20. Noisey wrote that, “Begonia has one of Canada’s most extraordinary voices, and thankfully she uses it to obliterate the misery from this world one live performance at a time.” NPR wrote that Begonia is “the place where synth-pop meets old soul and scrappy meets sexy." 

PRE-SAVE POWDER BLUE HERE
PRE-ORDER POWDER BLUE HERE

TOUR DATES
Feb 24 - Toronto, ON @ The Great Hall
May 10 - Los Angeles, CA @ Hotel Café
May 18 - Portland, OR @ Hawthorne Lounge
May 19 - Seattle, WA @ Sunset Tavern

 DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

 POWDER BLUE TRACKLIST
01 Chasing Every Sunrise
02 Heaven
03 Married By Elvis
04 Right Here
05 I’m Not Dying
06 Marigold
07 Butterfly
08 Cold Night
09 Crying
10 Bleeding Heart
11 The Only One
12 NYE2013

BEGONIA ONLINE
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EVANGELINE GENTLE RELEASES NEW VIDEO, “GAY BAR”, IN WAKE OF CLUB Q MASS SHOOTING

WATCH / SHARE “GAY BAR” HERE

ALL PROCEEDS FROM THE BANDCAMP PURCHASE OF “GAY BAR” TO BENEFIT QUEER ASTERISK, A COLORADO NPO

PURCHASE “GAY BAR” VIA BANDCAMP HERE

“Evangeline Gentle's self-titled album is a triumph” - Exclaim!

“Gentle's voice communicates an aching warmth that comes with knowing hardness and choosing softness instead… every time I listen to the record, I'm blown away anew by their songwriting and the space they're carving out across multiple genres — indie pop, alt-folk, singer-songwriter — in a way that feels effortless" - CBC Music

"Gentle's voice grabs you instantly with its purity and expressiveness" - FYI Music

“Gay Bar” Video Still

Today, Peterborough’s Evangeline Gentle is sharing the new single and video “Gay Bar”, a track which wasn’t supposed to be released until 2023, but in the wake of recent mass shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs which took the lives of 5 people and injured 19, “I feel called to meet this moment with its release,” says Gentle. Originally written in 2021 as an “expression of reverence for the sacredness of queer spaces,” Gentle wrote it “with gratitude for the sense of belonging my community has and continues to gift me. ‘Gay Bar’ seeks to embody unapologetic queer joy as an act of resistance. Our communion is divine and resilient; even in the face of violence we will do as our ancestors did, we will gather, we will dance, we will love, and we will resist.”

On the video and the terrible news itself, Gentle says “It has been challenging to write about the ‘Gay Bar’ video in the wake of the recent mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs. I can’t help but imagine the video’s cast of queer people – including my sister, my best friends, my peers, killed in a similar mass shooting. I feel righteous anger and profound grief, and it is because of these feelings that I want viewers who aren’t queer to imagine this: the beauty and joy of us dancing in this video, of celebrating our lives, destroyed by a gunman, like those who murdered 5 at Club Q in Colorado Springs and 49 at Pulse in Orlando.

“But this is not all that I feel. I also feel deep love and gratitude for my community, and eternal hope for our collective healing. This part of me wants viewers to see only the celebration of our lives, the warmth of our joy, and our resistance against acts of queer-phobic violence and terror.”

WATCH / SHARE “GAY BAR” HERE

In solidarity with queer people in Colorado, Gentle will be donating all Bandcamp sales of “Gay Bar” and a portion of subsequent streaming proceeds to Queer Asterisk – a Colorado based nonprofit organization providing counseling services, educational trainings, and therapeutic programs that center queer and trans experiences.

PURCHASE “GAY BAR” VIA BANDCAMP HERE

“Gay Bar” Single Artwork // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

MORE ABOUT EVANGELINE GENTLE
Evangeline Gentle is a Scottish-Canadian internationally acclaimed folk-pop songwriter, performer and vocalist based in Ontario, Canada. Contemplative and affecting, Evangeline’s lyrics evoke lush emotional landscapes within the listener and seek to unite audiences with a sense of “sameness”. A celebration of queerness and queer culture is woven throughout.

Produced by Jim Bryson (Kathleen Edwards), and mastered by Grammy-nominated engineer Philip Shaw Bova (Bahamas, Feist), her 2020 debut self-titled release earned international praise. Gentle was interviewed by legendary host Scott Simon on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday, appeared in Forbes, and received radio play on BBC, CBC, SiriusXM and more. 

Evangeline supported headliner Donovan Woods at the 2021 Mariposa Folk Festival, with other standout performances including those at Maverick Festival (UK) and Static Roots Festival (Germany) in 2022. She has supported acts such as Kathleen Edwards, Tim Baker, Begonia, Basia Bulat, Craig Cardiff, Whitehorse and Sarah MacDougall.

WATCH AND SHARE "SUNDAYS" HERE

WATCH AND SHARE "ORDINARY PEOPLE" HERE

EVANGELINE GENTLE ONLINE
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