DANA LEE SHARES FIRST NEW MUSIC OF THE YEAR, “LEAVE A TRACE”

DANA LEE SHARES NEW SINGLE, “LEAVE A TRACE”, FROM UPCOMING ALBUM DUE LATER THIS YEAR VIA RAM ON RECORDS

WATCH / SHARE “LEAVE A TRACE” HERE
BUY / STREAM “LEAVE A TRACE” HERE

TOUR DATES BEGIN JULY 31

Photo Credit : BNB Studios  // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Dana Lee’s got the perfect recipe for hard-hitting country-folk confessionals. The Nelson B.C. singer-songwriter mashes old-time country and indie rock into gripping, heartfelt reflections on coming apart while trying to get it together. Produced by Boy Golden and Austin Parachoniak (Del Barber, Leith Ross), “Leave A Trace” is the first taste of new music from her upcoming album, Big Time, due out later this year via Ram On Records.

“Leave A Trace” ponders “all the places and people that have left their mark on me,” says Dana. “As I age, I wonder if it should be time to settle down, or do I remain committed to the constant wandering I’ve grown accustomed to? I was inspired to create a music video. Shot by Peter Koch on a summer day in August, my friends Zuri Reynolds and Denby Huber helped give the song a playful visual to accent the melancholy topic.”

WATCH / SHARE “LEAVE A TRACE” HERE
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MORE ABOUT DANA LEE
Dana’s sound is informed by her early musical experiences: playing in an old-timey bluegrass band; participating in break-out jam sessions with her musical extended family; and honing her powerful voice singing Mennonite hymns in three-part harmony. With a full length album coming out in fall, Dana Lee has set her summer aside to play acoustic sets around BC and up north, teasing the masses for the music to come. Dana has a long history of performing in western Canada including tours with Richard Inman and performing at celebrated Manitoba festivals such as Winnipeg Folk Fest, Real Love, and Harvest Moon. Tree planting friends and a woodworking program brought Dana Lee from Manitoba to Nelson BC where she currently resides. 

TOUR DATES
Jul 31 - Westwold, BC - Westwold Hall
Aug 01 - Prince George, BC - Prince George Legion
Aug 06 - Whitehorse, YK - The 98' Hotel Lounge
Aug 18 - Fort St. John, BC - Chilli Cookoff House Show
Aug 19 - Edmonton, AB -  Bent Stick Brewing
Sep 01 - Slocan, BC - The Shop
Sep 02 - Nelson BC - The Royal

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TORONTO SINGER-SONGWRITER EMMA WORLEY RETURNS WITH NEW SINGLE, “BUDDY”

EMMA WORLEY SHARES FIRST NEW MUSIC SINCE SENTIMENTALIST,
“BUDDY” OUT TODAY VIA ACRONYM RECORDS

WATCH / SHARE “BUDDY” LYRIC VIDEO
BUY / STREAM “BUDDY” HERE

Photo Credit : Sam Tudor // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Toronto singer-songwriter Emma Worley blends alternative folk and americana with lyrics that tuck grief, humour and introspection into the same fold. Following the release of her debut album, Sentimentalist (2022), Worley began touring and showcasing in North America. However, her career took a sudden pause as she dealt with a health diagnosis.

During this period, Worley turned inward and began to write. Today, she gives us a glimpse into her process with the new single, “Buddy”. “This song is about the vertigo-inducing experience of running into an ex and being introduced as their friend,” explains Worley. “It’s that gut punch of feeling the life you built together erased in real time. 

“Specifically, this song was written while driving home from the Danforth in Toronto after seeing my (very recent) ex play a show. I went into that night braced for big feelings, but wasn’t prepared for the emotional free fall of being introduced to their tour manager as their best friend. In retrospect, I think that was actually a very sweet thing to say!”

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MORE ABOUT EMMA WORLEY
Hailing from Guelph, Ontario, and now residing in Toronto, Worley spent many years dedicated to a career as an emerging visual artist. Upon graduating from the Ontario College of Art and Design University, Worley garnered attention for her sculpture/installation work through exhibitions, installations, and residencies at various high-profile institutions. However, despite her burgeoning success in the visual-arts world, Worley found herself compulsively drawn towards creating the material that would become her debut album, Sentimentalist. Pulling from lived experience, triumph, heartbreak, and everything in between, the wisdom and grace of this collection is telling of Worley's dedication to relatable storytelling and emotional finesse.

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GHOSTKEEPER RETURNS WITH NEW SINGLE / VIDEO, “MOHKINSTSIS”

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

PAST PRAISE FOR GHOSTKEEPER

“a re-conjuring of joy that mingles with wounds past and present, thrusting them to the forefront of a musical partnership that spans decades, land, time and space. … amongst the tapestry woven by Cîpayak Joy's multilayered extension of contemporary electronica, Ghostkeeper's past, present and future dance hand in hand.” Exclaim!

“The pop experimentalists return to their roots while pushing their creativity forward on new album, Cîpayak Joy.” RANGE Magazine

Photo Credit : Jared Sych // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

“Mohkinstsis” is the brand new single from Calgary Métis pop experimentalists Ghostkeeper. It's the first missive since their last album, the critically-acclaimed Cîpayak Joy. Centred around the core duo of founding members Shane Ghostkeeper and Sarah Houle, “Mohkinstsis” gets the rest of the band – drummer Eric Hamelin (JOYFULTALK) and bassist Ryan Bourne (solo, Chad Van Gaalen) – back in the room together, and the results are stellar.

The band's playing provides a robust framework for Shane's storytelling, expertly nuanced but never drawing attention to itself. Subtle sonic colourings in the margins add a sense of tension and release for the song's key moments, and it all rides out in a dreamy, quasi-doo wop reverie, Hamelin's tumbling drums tussling with a more developed version of the opening guitar lick. The mix, by longtime Ghostkeeper associate and JOYFULTALK mastermind Jay Crocker, is roomy and spacious mix, allowing the song room to breathe, and revel in the dramatic sonic vistas that emerge from simmering, in-the-pocket rhythm section-led sections.

The song itself is both a nostalgia-laden origin story of Ghostkeeper and Houle's romantic beginnings, and also an offering of sincere thanks to the various communities that welcomed them so warmly upon their initial move to Calgary years ago. Chief among these communities were the Blackfoot people, Shane recalls. “They were so welcoming, so nourishing and supportive when we first got here”, he says. “Not long after moving here, I was gifted an eagle feather as a welcoming token, and it hangs from the headstock of my guitar to this day.”

WATCH / SHARE “MOHKINSTSIS” HERE
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Before living together, Shane would – literally – run from his house north of the Bow river (‘vintage kicks look sweet on concrete’ he sings) to meet Sarah after work, stopping only for a short breather on the picturesque Crescent Heights ridge, which overlooks the river and downtown Calgary. While bracing himself for the rest of his journey, he'd find himself gazing down at the confluence where the Bow meets the Elbow river, imagining what it would have been like in its days as a Blackfoot nation encampment.

Thanks to his participation in filmmaker Trevor Solway's Amplify, an acclaimed docu-series focused on Indigenous singer-songwriters, Shane was able to meet and talk with various Blackfoot elders as part of the project. It was in these meetings he learned that, historically, the Blackfoot people were well known for welcoming people of other nations to meet at the confluence to prepare for their journeys west to the holy waters of the Banff hot springs, and Ghostkeeper couldn't help but see a parallel with his own feelings of welcome in the community. He began to regard the confluence as “two rivers that meet like lovers forged in destiny” a perfect metaphor for these early romantic years with Houle.

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