Foxhart Fishman

Foxhart Fishman is a 3-piece indie groove band from Windsor, Ontario. The group blends a mix of upbeat pop melodies, stellar rhythms and a complex dynamic to create an original yet familiar sound that will encourage you to move your feet. They formed in the summer of 2014 after discovering a mutual love of creating music together. Their new EP “Watch It Grow” shows the bands development and true chemistry as best friends to deliver some lighthearted pop songs.

foxhartfishmanmusic.com

Ron Leary Sextet

Ontario-based singer/songwriter Ron Leary is a captivating performer who’s sarcastic and self-effacing tone will have you laughing boisterously one second and then wondering if you should have the next. It’s usually his voice that people talk about the most, one that’s been compared to “an old bottle of whiskey – warm, with a little bite and a velvety finish.”

ronleary.com

Suzie Vinnick Band

A Saskatoon native transplanted to the Niagara Region of Ontario, Suzie Vinnick is the proud owner of a gorgeous voice, prodigious guitar and bass chops, and an engagingly candid performance style.

Her career has seen triumph after triumph. Among her most recent successes: being nominated for a 2018 Canadian Folk Music Award for Producer of the Year with herco-producer, Mark Lalama.  Suzie achieved finalist status in the Solo/Duo Category at the 2013 International Blues Challenge in Memphis, TN; received the 2012 CBC Saturday Night Blues Great Canadian Blues Award and the 2012 Sirius XM Canada Blues Artist of the Year. Suzie has won 10 Maple Blues Awards (she has been nominated for 22 so far!), won the 2011 Canadian Folk Music Award for Contemporary Vocalist of the Year and is a 3X Juno Nominee.

Suzie has toured nationally with Stuart McLean’s The Vinyl Café and the John McDermott Band, and performed for Canadian Peacekeepers in Bosnia and the Persian Gulf. She was also the voice of Tim Horton’s for 5 years.

Suzie has just released her latest album, full-band roots and blues extravaganza entitled Shake The Love Around.

suzievinnick.com

The Drinkard Sisters

The blood harmonies of Bonnie and Caitlin Drinkard have been described as other-worldly, honeyed, supernatural, powerful, elemental. Performing around the Detroit music scene for nearly a decade, both as an acoustic duo and as backing vocalists with the Craig Brown Band (Third Man Records), the Drinkard Sisters are ready to share their gospel of Cosmic Americana with the masses on their debut album, Enough Already. Produced, mixed, and mastered by veteran Detroit producer Warren Defever (His Name is Alive, Iggy and the Stooges, Yoko Ono, Thurston Moore) Enough Already keeps the harmonies at the forefront while the band lays down colorful layers that carry the Drinkards’ introspective songs into a twangy, psychedelic dream world. Between fuzzed out guitar riffs, hot pedal steel licks from The Scrappers’ Pete Ballard, and the drone of Defever’s Mellotron, Enough Already blurs the lines between Americana, psych-folk and indie-twang.

drinkardsisters.com

Flower Face

“Flower Face originated as the acoustic solo project of Ruby Mckinnon. Since then, her confessional lyrics and haunting melodies have drawn an international audience and her vision has grown into something cinematic and universal, yet entirely unique. Joined now by a full band that brings the arrangements to life, Flower Face will captivate you and leave you heartbroken and in love all at once.”

flowerface.com

Eamon McGrath

Prolific Canadian songwriter Eamon McGrath follows up last year’s critically acclaimed Tantramar album with Guts, his seventh record in what is becoming a landmark outpouring of work from the thirty-year old Toronto based musician. In an exploration that began with Tantramar, McGrath expands on that album’s dark, introspective and atmospheric musical landscape that many call “Canadiana”: Americana’s darker, colder, Northern cousin. “I’m not interested in basing a career around the act of drunkenly jumping around onstage anymore. In all my years of touring,” McGrath reflects, “I remember the quiet, acoustic, intimate shows more than anything. Playing in a great-sounding hall in Innsbruck has stuck out to me more in the long run than any sweaty basement show in Vancouver.”

eamonmcgrath.ca

Old Man Grant

Thunder & Spit & Harmonious Clatter. A multi-instrumental group blending blues, bluegrass, and Americana folk, Old Man Grant are a northern take on a southern sound. Hailing from Ottawa, Ontario – a humid town built on wetlands – and inspired by the dark tone and inner turmoil of the southern gothic, this Canadian group has come up with a unique style at times called the “Bytown Swamp Stomp”.

Since summer 2016, the group has completed their “Why Not” tour of the Canadian East Coast, and their “Dead of Winter” tour of Southern Ontario. Aside from their favourite living rooms and dive bars, Old Man Grant has been bringing their rhythmic, expressive playing and soaring three-part harmonies to such notable stages as Toronto’s Horseshoe and Dakota Taverns, Wakefield’s Blacksheep Inn, Ottawa’s CityFolk and Marvest festivals, and official showcases at the Folk Music Ontario and Canadian Music Week conferences. Upcoming shows include Ottawa’s Bluesfest, Pelee Island’s “Island Unplugged” festival, and a “NAC Presents” showcase this fall.

This summer, Old Man Grant is looking forward to connecting with audiences both familiar and strange as they travel coast to coast, placing the songs off their upcoming album through trial-by-fire.

oldmangrant.com

Lydia Persaud

Raised on a healthy dose of the country music narrative and the spiritual motivation of gospel hymns, Lydia Persaud is reconnecting with her roots with her debut EP “Low Light”. Winner of the 2013 Oscar Peterson Award, Lydia has had an active involvement in the Toronto music scene since her graduation from Humber College’s Jazz program. After performing internationally with The O’Pears and Dwayne Gretzky, and backing artists such as Lee Fields, Jill Barber, Royal Wood, Jadea Kelly and Karl Wolf, Lydia has emerged with her own voice in the world of folk-soul.

Spring of 2017 found Lydia touring solo through Spain, then returning to Canada to play shows in Canada’s East Coast. “Low Light” features some of Canada’s finest musicians such as Robbie Grunwald (Jill Barber, Good Lovelies), Joel Schwartz (Birds of Chicago), Josh Van Tassel (Great Lake Swimmers), and Drew Jurecka (Jill Barber). Lydia’s intimate songwriting paired with subtle instrumentation inspired by her process of writing with voice and baritone ukulele is a highlight of the EP. Influenced by songwriters Eva Cassidy, Michael Kiwanuka and Ray Lamontagne, Lydia combines folk story-telling with a soulful vocal delivery.

lydiapersaud.com

Kaia Kater

As a Montreal born Grenadian-Canadian, Kaia Kater grew up between two worlds: one her family’s deep ties to folk music; the other the years she spent learning and studying Appalachian music in the USA. Her old-time banjo-picking skills, deft arrangements, and songwriting abilities have landed her in the spotlight in North America and the UK, garnering critical acclaim from outlets such as NPR, CBC Radio, Rolling Stone, BBC Music, and No Depression.

Kaia started her career early, crafting her first EP Old Soul (2013) when she was just out of high school. Since then, she’s gone on to release two more albums, Sorrow Bound (2015) and Nine Pin (2016). Her sophomore album wove between hard-hitting songs that touch on social issues like the Black Lives Matter movement (“Rising Down,” “Paradise Fell”) and won a Canadian Folk Music Award, a Stingray Rising Star Award. It also sent Kaia on an 18-month touring journey from Ireland to Iowa, including stops at The Kennedy Center, Newport Folk Festival and Cambridge Folk Festival. For her third album, Grenades(North America October 2018, Folkways/acronym Records; Worldwide January 2019), she took a decidedly different direction, choosing to lean into a wider array of sounds and styles, in order to convey a wider array of emotions and topics, most notably her paternal ancestry. Grenades has already received acclaim from Rolling Stone (smart, atmospheric Americana) and promises to bring listeners on an entirely new journey.

kaiakater.com

Daniel Romano

“Finally Free” marks Daniel Romano’s eighth long-playing album in the last eight years. He has had what understatedly would be considered a prolific output of incredibly entrancing, poignant and creative records in this span of time. Recording, producing, designing and landing his records into the minds and hearts of scores of fans the world over. He has been called a shapeshifter, contrived, a chameleon, a Charlatan, the best living songwriter, an asshole and a genius. His last record, “Modern pressure” received outstandingly high acclaim and praise from every notable publication out there and was acknowledged by most reputable “for-profit-prize-corporations” as well as a plethora of voguish “music-as-competitive-sport” year-end lists. Despite being the bronze placeholder in most of these dogfights, he is most often noted as a person of astounding influence on all of his musically economic successors.

danielromanomusic.com