ROSE COUSINS REVEALS NEW SINGLE FROM UPCOMING LP

ROSE COUSINS’ NEW ALBUM, CONDITIONS OF LOVE - VOL 1, OUT MARCH 14, 2025 VIA NETTWERK

WATCH / SHARE “THAT’S HOW LONG (I’VE WAITED FOR YOUR LOVE)” HERE
BUY / STREAM “THAT’S HOW LONG (I’VE WAITED FOR YOUR LOVE)” HERE

2025 CANADIAN TOUR DATES BEGIN MARCH 29

PRE-SAVE CONDITIONS OF LOVE - VOL 1 HERE

“On her new album, Conditions of Love - Vol. 1, Rose Cousins returns to her own first love — the piano — to craft 10 testaments to the human heart in all its glorious, inane complexity. The record delivers Cousins' trademark capacity for wry wit and emotional gravitas, but her archness never serves as a way to keep a distance between herself and her lyrics. Cousins knows how to find the light in the dark, she knows survival, and she's crafting whole worlds here."
CBC Music, Albums We Can’t Wait to Hear in 2025

“Rose Cousins is here to tell us about love. Vol. 1 of that treatise promises more of Cousins's deftly rendered, soul-inflected pop music. Light as air but deep as space, lead single "I Believe in Love (and it's very hard)" makes a simple declaration sound like the bravest thing you could ever admit.” Exclaim!, Most Anticipated Albums of 2025

Photo Credit : Lindsay Duncan // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Today, acclaimed multi-JUNO Award winning singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Rose Cousins shares another new song from her upcoming Conditions of Love - Vol 1, which arrives March 14, 2025. “That’s How Long (I’ve Waited For Your Love)” is a poetic analogy for a seemingly unquantifiable length of time; the length of a longing. What are the ingredients of waiting?

“The concept of time endlessly fascinates me,” explains Cousins. “I keep looking for how the heart experiences ineffable amounts of time. How longing can last forever and loss can speed time up but also grind it to a halt. Love pulls us into the present and presence. It’s incredible how something we can’t see has such a deep influence on how we feel.”

WATCH / SHARE “THAT’S HOW LONG (I’VE WAITED FOR YOUR LOVE)” HERE
BUY / STREAM “THAT’S HOW LONG (I’VE WAITED FOR YOUR LOVE)” HERE

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MORE ABOUT CONDITIONS OF LOVE - VOL 1
On her new album, Rose holds her listeners’ hands as she guides them on a journey through the "conditions of love." Ever the emotional explorer, the Nova-Scotia-based artist seeks truth, in all its imperfection, in the depths of humans’ most complicated of emotions: love. The journey results in a striking clarity, and it’s the gift of that clarity that brings on surprising tears.  

WATCH / SHARE “K’S WALTZ” HERE
BUY / STREAM “K’S WALTZ” HERE

Rose shares, “Love feels great and makes us ridiculous. It's tiring and intense, joyful and devastating. Falling in love, being in love and staying in love are all such different things. Being human is emotionally complicated enough without attempting to relate to another who is just as complex, and in the most vulnerable of arenas: romance. Love is wondrous and absurd (and very hard). Humour helps.” 

WATCH / SHARE “DENOUEMENT” (LIVE PERFORMANCE VISUALIZER) HERE
BUY / STREAM “DENOUEMENT” HERE

Co-produced with trusted friend and longtime bandmate Joshua Van Tassel, Conditions of Love - Vol. 1 sees Rose return to her first love, the piano. “Piano is where I feel the most connected. It’s the best partner in expressing the emotion I’m mining,” she shares. She first introduced the upcoming body of work with the gorgeous, piano-driven ballad “Forget Me Not,” followed by the slow-burning, nostalgic “Borrowed Light,” and the uplifting, “I Believe in Love (and it’s very hard),” which Rose has called the cornerstone of the upcoming album.  

WATCH / SHARE “BORROWED LIGHT” HERE
BUY / STREAM “BORROWED LIGHT” HERE

Rose Cousins’ songwriting plumbs the depths of the human condition. Her work has garnered her two JUNO Awards (2013’s We Have Made a Spark & 2021’s Bravado), two Canadian Folk Music Awards, eleven East Coast Music Awards and one Grammy Award nomination (2018’s Natural Conclusion), along with praise from the likes of the CBC, No Depression, LA Times, Associated Press, Billboard, Folk Alley, and NPR, who raved “Cousins’ disarmingly fluid vocal tone has the ability to convey the most internalized feelings without an ounce of fuss.” Over the years, she has shared stages with Patty Griffin, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Jann Arden, Kathleen Edwards, Joe Henry and Anais Mitchell, and her music has fittingly underscored scenes from notable TV shows including Grey’s Anatomy, Fire Country, Batwoman and Heartland. 

WATCH / SHARE “I BELIEVE IN LOVE (AND IT’S VERY HARD)” HERE
BUY / STREAM “I BELIEVE IN LOVE (AND IT’S VERY HARD)” HERE

ROSE COUSINS CANADIAN TOUR (MORE DATES TBA)
March 29 - Fredericton, NB @ Wilmot United Church
April 1 - Sherwood Park, AB @ Festival Place Theatre
April 2 - Calgary, AB @ National Music Centre
April 3 - Saskatoon, SK @ The Basement
April 5 - Winnipeg, MB @ West End Cultural Centre
April 7 - Montreal, QC @ Bar Le Ritz
April 8 - Kingston, ON @ The Broom Factory
April 9 - Peterborough, ON @ Market Hall Performing Arts Center
April 11 - Toronto, ON @ Masonic Temple - The Concert Hall
April 12 - Hamilton, ON @ The Westdale
April 13 - Ottawa, ON @ National Arts Centre
April 16 - Charlottetown, PE @ Confederation Centre Of The Arts
April 17 - Halifax, NS @ Rebecca Cohn Auditorium
April 18 - Moncton, NB @ Capitol Theatre (Moncton)
April 19 - Saint John, NB @ Imperial Theatre
June 13 - St John's, NL @ Majestic Theatre

PRE-SAVE CONDITIONS OF LOVE - VOL 1 HERE

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CONDITIONS OF LOVE - VOL 1 TRACKLIST
01 To Be Born (overture)
02 Forget Me Not
03 I Believe in Love (and it’s very hard)
04 Denouement
05 That’s How Long (I’ve waited for your love)
06 Needed You
07 Wolf and Man
08 K’s Waltz
09 Borrowed Light
10 How is this (the last time)

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JOLIE LAIDE ANNOUNCES NEW LP, CREATURES, SHARES FIRST SINGLE / VIDEO

JOLIE LAIDE’S NEW ALBUM, CREATURES, OUT APRIL 30, 2025 VIA VICTORY POOL RECORDS

WATCH / SHARE “NO SHAPE I KNOW” HERE
BUY / STREAM “NO SHAPE I KNOW” HERE

PRE-SAVE CREATURES HERE

“Jolie Laide…is a kind of travelogue that traces the line between freedom and empty aimlessness: a child’s oceanside liberty that becomes an adult’s existential terror.” - Pitchfork

“It is self-evidently brutal…But it is beautiful, too, the unadorned music – just her and an acoustic guitar – luminous and clarion…” - The Guardian

Photo Credit : Heather Saitz // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Creatures, out April 30, 2025 via Victory Pool Records, is the lush, sprawling new album from Jolie Laide, a band who came together under some cool circumstances and have grown into a vibrant, unpredictable unit, revealing new dimensions for a group of seasoned musicians and writers. Their story is both the closing of a decades-old circle and one of the evolution of a quasi supergroup.

Comprised of revered American indie singer-songwriter Nina Nastasia (who has amassed a stunning and critically acclaimed discography of unique, darkly melodic albums), and Jeff MacLeod, Clinton St. John, and Morgan Greenwood (also of the band Florida BC), Jolie Laide planted its roots some two decades ago through a mutual connection. The lion's share of Nastasia's solo albums were masterfully recorded by the late, great Steve Albini, and in the mid-00s, MacLeod and St. John's old band The Cape May had just finished recording their album Glass Mountain Roads with the veteran engineer. Nina was next in line for the studio. A night of commiserating in the studio led to Albini’s suggestion that The Cape May become Nastasia’s touring band for her upcoming North American and European tours and this pairing turned into a fruitful collaboration and a longstanding friendship.

Today, they share the first single from their new album, “No Shape I Know”. The song “takes place in a holding cell in a not too distant dystopian future,” says St. John. “Those in the cell are at odds with accepting that their inaction lead them to this place. Their overlords are always watching, listening – a looming threat.”

WATCH / SHARE “NO SHAPE I KNOW” HERE
BUY / STREAM “NO SHAPE I KNOW” HERE

MORE ABOUT CREATURES
Announcing itself via a series of earthy thumps on a floor tom, Creatures opens wide with Nastasia's unmistakable voice, at once disarmingly sweet and laser-sharp. Jolie Laide is an intriguing way to hear the singer, who developed a tight, focused approach over the course of her active solo career. Here, she embraces sounds that would have been out of place on one of her own albums; on opener “Cheyenne”, Nastasia's voice swims in a swirl of delay trails, enveloped by a storm of overdubbed toms, and Clinton St. John's instantly evocative voice provides the perfect foil. “Holly”, a character study of two strangers rambling through a post-apocalyptic wasteland, is awash in beautiful cascades of affected electric guitars, imbuing a gently psychedelic glow to the song's edges, while remaining grounded in a more familiar dusty, percussive rhythm.

This sonic sea change may have something to do with one of the key elements that initially birthed this band. In early 2020, Kennan Gudjonsson, Nastasia's partner and longtime musical collaborator took his own life. This tragic and dislocating event took place right before the world found itself similarly unmoored as the COVID-19 pandemic. Looking for solace, Nastasia and MacLeod leaned on their deep friendship and shared songwriting obsession, throwing themselves into the remote recording sessions that became their self-titled 2023 debut. Nastasia found liberation in her new “band” environs: no longer the sole focal point, and working with a new set of parameters for how her music could sound and exist in the world, Jolie Laide provided something of a revelation. 

Reflecting on the impressive scope of Creatures, MacLeod says, “the album plays like a mix tape”, citing its deep range (folk to spaghetti westerns to post-punk to sludge to electronic pop) of sonic approaches. Fittingly, as their name translates to ugly/pretty, the band’s stories find grace and beauty in the imperfect. Powerfully poetic, often anthemic, narratives soar over Greenwood and MacLeod’s layered multi-instrumental wizardry. Making good on that description, “Something For The Thrill” takes a mid-album left-turn, delivering a veritable rock song, complete with thick, hairy guitars, heavy drumbeat and brash, pissed-off sounding vocals. But within the menace, there is that sweet melodic aspect cutting the hard edge, and the song is once again a testament to these singers’ inspired pairing, with the duet being the through line of Creatures. Despite how different some of these songs feel to each other, and indeed to Jolie Laide's 2023 debut, the instantly recognizable voices of Nina Nastasia and Clinton St. John tie everything together.

The astute observer might notice a strong uptick in the electronic realm on Creature, most clearly in the album’s brilliant one-two of cautionary dystopian nightmares, with “No Shape I Know” and “Small Things”, boasting the album’s most wearily hopeful, soaring choruses. Indeed, the album is replete with warm synths and uniquely textured drum machine patterns, and largely attributed to producer and multi-instrumentalist Morgan Greenwood who was invited wholesale into the fold for some of their first shows in 2023. Greenwood (ex- Baths, Azeda Booth), who cut his teeth on Boards of Canada and Aphex Twin, was warmly encouraged to liberally apply his sensibilities to the record – as was producer/engineer Colin Stewart, who oversaw the production at his studio, the fabled Hive Creative Labs. “The majority of this record was written in the studio,” MacLeod says, “and Colin took on the traditional producer role, becoming essentially a fifth member, providing direction and ideas.”

Another album highlight, “Wharwolf” is a tour de force of ideas and shifting moods; beginning with intricately programmed drum sequences and a plaintive, bleak vocal from St. John, it crashes into an epic wall of guitars and propulsive drumming, before uncannily sliding into a glistening calm after the storm, Nastasia's reverb-drenched voice floating amidst sparse webs of guitar. The whole thing unquestionably hangs together, but it's a hell of a ride. MacLeod says that “the song was originally demoed in a fairly traditional manner,” but after the band opted for a more unique approach, “we completely dropped it to the studs and rebuilt it, spending days in the studio  tinkering,” and it paid dividends.

Elsewhere, “Murder Ballad”, while confronting the notion that ghosts might actually exist even if god doesn’t, skews closer to Florida BC territory. Fronted by St. John and continuing the long line of bands he and MacLeod have helmed (including The Cape May and Pale Air Singers), Florida BC has spent the last number of years carving their own niche, one that radiates a similarly unmistakable feeling as Nastasia's. But here, MacLeod's gently brushed, loping drums and St. John's signature emotive drawl are buffered by Nastasia's equally world-weary vocals, and one could be forgiven for asking “what took so long?” 

Looking back on the trajectory from Jolie Laide's self-titled debut to the brand new Creatures, it's anyone's guess where this group will go next. For fans of Nina Nastasia or the Florida BC band family, there's plenty of both of those things, but there's also a whole new, unified thing; with Creatures they're presenting it in widescreen. 

PRE-SAVE CREATURES HERE

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CREATURES TRACKLIST
01 Cheyenne
02 Holly
03 Murder Ballad
04 Wharwolf
05 Dalton
06 Something For The Thrill
07 No Shape I Know
08 Small Things
09 Old Collapser
10 Saw The Wave

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PUP ANNOUNCE NEW ALBUM, WHO WILL LOOK AFTER THE DOGS?, SHARE NEW VIDEO

PUP’S NEW ALBUM, WHO WILL LOOK AFTER THE DOGS?, OUT MAY 2ND
VIA LITTLE DIPPER / RISE RECORDS 

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

PRE-SAVE WHO WILL LOOK AFTER THE DOGS? HERE

“The Toronto band Pup has long made frenetic punk-pop with neat verse-chorus-bridge structures underlying Stefan Babcock’s raucously overwrought and
fully self-aware lead vocals.” - New York Times 

"PUP’s fourth album, ‘The Unraveling of PUPTheBand,’ finds the quartet completely removing any of the limits left on their music, pushing things as far as possible" - The New Yorker 

“Hearts on their sleeves, the group captures the rage and frustration of human fallibility with crashing drums and infectious irreverence" - NPR Music

"all the catchy, fast-paced melodies, big singalongs, and ooh-oohs and whoa-oas that you could want in a PUP record" Exclaim!

"The new songs are boisterous, catchy, and meta while also earnestly wading through the nuances of depression in a manner often reserved for “confessional” indie rock…an instant mood-booster." - Pitchfork 

“transmuting life’s frustrations into unhinged visceral joy” - Stereogum (Album of the Week) 

“‘The Unraveling of PUPTHEBAND’...reinforces the message that it’s okay to be yourself, no matter who you are." - Vulture 

"PUP’s winning recipe is 49% snark, 51% heart" - Bandcamp (Album of the Day) 

Photo Credit: Vanessa Heins // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Toronto punk heroes PUP— comprised of Stefan Babcock, Nestor Chumak, Zack Mykula, and Steve Sladkowski— will release their highly anticipated forthcoming album Who Will Look After The Dogs? on May 2nd via Little Dipper / Rise Records. Who Will Look After The Dogs?, PUP’s pummeling and cathartic fifth LP, is their most immediate, no-frills, and hard-hitting full-length yet. It was made in Los Angeles with producer John Congleton over the course of three weeks, and it’s the culmination of PUP’s past decade of constant touring and their palpable, livewire chemistry. The album evokes the lightning-in-a-bottle intensity of their self-titled debut (except they are much better at their instruments now), and finds our self-deprecating frontman Stefan Babcock at his most reflective, vulnerable and prolific. Over 12 tracks, Babcock excavates his life's relationships—romantic, with his bandmates, and most ruthlessly, his relationship to himself. There’s plenty of growth, but also plenty of unpredictable mayhem in the arrangements and an acerbic bite in the writing. And while PUP historically are at one another’s throats during the album process, this time they scrapped their tedious perfectionism and rediscovered the joy of making loud music together. They had fun this time, we swear! 

Also out today is the album’s lead single “Hallways.” The first song Babcock wrote for the album, “Hallways” is bracing and raw, but its lightness keeps it together: ‘Cause when one door closes, it might never open / There might be no other doors.’

“Within days of announcing our last album, coincidentally titled The Unraveling of PUPTHEBAND, my life unexpectedly imploded. I wrote the lyrics for 'Hallways' while all that was going on. It was a weird fucking week," says Babcock. "The title of our new record, Who Will Look After The Dogs?, is what I wrote at the top of the page, the very first thing written for this album. I think it’s devastating, but in a ‘holy shit this is overdramatic’ kinda way. At least in context of the line that comes before it. That’s what makes it funny to us. That overblown stuff we all say in our dark moments can be hilarious once you've cooled off a bit. I don’t know if anyone else thinks it’s funny, but sometimes you gotta laugh at yourself. It's the only way out of the abyss. Trust me.” 

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

MORE ABOUT PUP
Over the past decade, PUP have thrived on volatility. It's not really a joke when the Toronto punks release songs like “If This Tour Doesn’t Kill You, I Will” or put out albums called The Unraveling of PUPTHEBAND. Though its four members are all best friends, creative dysfunction and interpersonal friction make their snarling and self-deprecating songs thrilling. To their shock and occasional dismay, it’s why their four albums are critically acclaimed and the crowds at their galvanizing live shows have only grown. It hasn’t gone off the rails yet but it definitely could. The possibility it could all blow up at any second is the band’s magic. 

Following the release of 2022’s The Unraveling of PUPTHEBAND, their most adventurous and maximalist full-length, the band’s lives changed significantly. Guitarist Steve Sladkowski got married, bassist Nestor Chumak settled into being a dad, and drummer Zack Mykula moved to a new place in Toronto that allowed him to expand his home studio. As the others were making big decisions and getting their acts together, Babcock felt isolated. He had just ended a decade-long relationship and cut himself off from his bandmates. "We don't get along when we're making records, so I tend to retreat,” says Babcock. “In the past, I'd find comfort in another person, but this time I was at it alone. Being bored and lonely I just started writing music nonstop.” Where the older records took Babcock two to three years to get through 12 tracks, he wrote over 30 songs for Who Will Look After The Dogs? in a year. 

While writing, Babcock had time to reflect and maybe even grow up. “So many early songs were about how I'm a complete fuck up,” he says. “While that remains true, I stopped hating myself as much as I did when I was younger and the people around me accepted me for who I am.”

Where PUP’s previous LPs served as a window into six months of Babcock’s life, the songs here take a holistic view of his romantic partnerships, his friendships, and how he treated himself from his youth to now. In a way, writing this album served as a mirror to his emotional growth. It was hard, occasionally sucked, but was ultimately worth it. 

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

Babcock began to view these songs as a chronology: the first few songs were written from the perspective of his past youthful naïveté, the middle third from frequent bouts of self-loathing, and the final few cuts from the acceptance that comes with finally getting your shit together. “There's a lot of sadness in the back half of the record, but there's a lot more hope here too,” says Babcock. “I'm just coming to peace with who I am.” 

When Babcock brought what he wrote to the rest of the band, they all agreed to let the songs develop as organically as possible. “We realized it should be four people in a room playing,” says Chumak. “The most important thing was trying to do the most with just us.” Historically, the band’s jam sessions are contentious affairs but here, everything fell into place for once in the most quintessential PUP way. “We straddle the line between it falling off the rails and then being totally in the pocket,” says Sladkowski. “But our four disparate personalities are what make it interesting.” 

They decamped to Los Angeles to work with producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, Death Cab For Cutie, Mannequin Pussy). In the studio, he helped the band work through their nagging tendency to overthink things. When they’d like how a take sounded, he’d remind them that they didn’t have to try it again. He’d tell them when songs felt overwritten and to trust each other in the moment. “If we can't solve an arrangement or songwriting problem in the room between the four of us in a few minutes, then it's not really worth solving because we’d just get into a hole and lose perspective,” says Mykula. “Thanks to John, getting out of our heads made it fun.” 

They recorded the entire album in three weeks—less than half the time it took to make The Unraveling of PUPTHEBAND. “When I first started writing the lyrics for this record, everything felt really heavy,” says Babcock. “By the time we recorded it, even those dark songs felt light and fun. We didn't even really fight while making this record. It all just felt fucking awesome.” 

Compared to the rest of their catalog, Who Will Look After The Dogs? evokes the early days of PUP – except they are much better at their instruments now, as they’re well out of their reckless twenties and have played nearly a thousand shows since then. “Because we were less precious with everything this time, it felt like we were capturing the feeling of being in a band for the first time when you finally hear everything clicking,” says Babcock. There’s even a newfound optimism and hope here. Even when things seem irrevocably fraught and you slip back into stupid old habits, being around your closest friends can get you through. Or, at the very least, they can tell you to get over yourself. 

“With the band, I have such an intense, personal connection with those three guys that I don't have with anybody else in my life,” says Babcock. “Sometimes you have to really go through the shit to have that big high of creating something with your best friends that you could never do alone.” 

PRE-SAVE WHO WILL LOOK AFTER THE DOGS? HERE

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WHO WILL LOOK AFTER THE DOGS? TRACKLIST
01 No Hope 
02 Olive Garden 
03 Concrete 
04 Get Dumber 
05 Hunger For Death 
06 Needed To Hear It 
07 Paranoid 
08 Falling Outta Love 
09 Hallways 
10 Cruel 
11 Best Revenge 
12 Shut Up

TOUR DATES 
05/07/25 - Birmingham, UK @ XOYO Birmingham*& 
05/08/25 - Leeds, UK @ Project House*& 
05/10/25 - Manchester, UK @ O2 Ritz*& 
05/11/25 - Glasgow, UK @ SWG3 (TV Studio)*& 
05/12/25 - Newcastle, UK @ Newcastle University*& 
05/13/25 - Bristol, UK @ Marble Factory*& 
05/15/25 - Southampton, UK @ Engine Rooms*& 
05/16/25 - London, UK @ O2 Forum Kentish Town*& 
05/18/25 - Amsterdam, NL @ Melkweg* 
05/20/25 - Cologne, DE @ Club Volta* 
05/21/25 - Hamburg, DE @ Logo* 
05/22/25 - Berlin, DE @ Hole44* 
05/23/25 - Munich, DE @ Strom* 
05/25/25 - Paris, FR @ Bellevilloise* 
05/27/25 - Madrid, ES @ Sala Mon 
05/28/25 - Barcelona, ES @ Upload 
05/29/25 - València, ES @ Loco Club 
05/30/25 - San Sebastian, ES @ Dabadaba 

* support from Illuminati Hotties 
& support from Gob

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