Hopefully, this does not come as a shock to anyone, but sooner or later, you’re going to die. The how and why of it might leave a little wiggle room but, without exception, you and everyone you know will eventually shuffle off this mortal coil. It’s something of an inevitability. The good news: what happens next is largely up to you.
That’s not a pitch designed to entice you into whatever brand of afterlife awaits you in the hereafter, but another kind of immortality altogether.
Terra Spencer is already well known as a Nova Scotian folksinger. In certain circles, however, she’s known for an entirely different skillset: seeing people off into the sunset of their lives as a funeral director. Spencer says that those two worlds are overlapping with the increasing popularity of “legacy songs”: bespoke anthems to help the deceased and deceasing make their final exeunt while avoiding going gentle — or at least not going quietly — into that good night. Continue reading Death & Dirges: Terra Spencer on How To Avoid Going Quietly Into That Good Night→
It’s no secret that the pandemic has had adverse effects on our favorite musicians and artists alike; this has led to many artists speaking out against how the music industry and streaming services make a profit while the artists themselves struggle to keep up. In an industry where live performance is necessary to keep the lights on–but has been near impossible for over a year—it’s understandable to begin to wonder how such a system was ever allowed. For Ian Janes, this was a challenge to meet head-on. Continue reading Ian Janes Takes a Stand for Artist Compensation with ‘Episode 5’→
“Hashtag BLM,” the latest single from Nova Scotian rapper Tachichi, was recorded in July of 2020. In the wake of the murder of George Floyd by on-duty Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, not to mention a few centuries of systemic racism and oppression, tensions had reached a snapping point. Now, with the release of this single nearly a year later, Tachichi reminds all of us that little has changed, least of all the message: Black Lives Matter. Continue reading A Year Later, Tachichi’s ‘Hashtag BLM ft. Skratchbastid and Jah’Mila’ Reminds Us That the Message Hasn’t Changed→
2018 was set up to be a slow year for Adam Young. On what he describes as a “lazy New Years Day,” with nothing else that looked terribly pressing on his schedule, he committed himself to a year-long songwriting challenge, ambitiously taking on the self-imposed project of turning out one song a day. The first single from that endeavour, “Corned Beef and Garbage” provides a taste of what to expect from Young in two flavours: a traditional version pairing Young’s Cape Breton style of piano playing against Chrissy Crowley and Colin Grant’s fiddles, and a second more modern New Orleans style with a jaunty beat from Brian Talbot propping up a whole section of woodwinds from Brad Reid. Continue reading Adam Young Serves Up Two Styles of ‘Corned Beef and Garbage’→
