Clea Anaïs - Electric Religious - Dorothea Paas - Kyle McKearney
Calgary musician & RALEIGH co-founder Clea Anaïs returns to music today with the release of her debut solo single, “Hazy Days.” Anaïs had taken a break from music to pursue a career in aviation. COVID-19 had other plans. With the world in a pandemic lockdown, Anaïs' focus returned to her first love… music.
Discussing “Hazy Days,” Anaïs stated, “'Hazy Days' captures that moment when you meet a new person and know simultaneously you love each other, but that no matter how things play out you won't move forward in this life together. It is about the practice of really being present with someone, because the second you let go, time will catapult you forward again, and the moment will be lost forever.During the second verse, I imagine the tailors of time embodied by wise deities in the original gardens. I envision them spinning the tapestry of fate from delicate spider web timelines. The track stretches and plays with our perception and relationship with time and reality. ‘Hazy Days’ feels like a brief flash of summers past, and I hope the listener is transported to a nostalgic moment they would like to remember."
A mixed race, multiethnic artist, Clea was raised in Calgary by a Mauritian dancer, and a British painter, Clea’s compositions center on two things: her multifaceted artistic sensibility, and an emotional intelligence as sharp as a shard of bright-colored crystal. Clea creates art that moves in interesting ways, and through this there are moments when she is vulnerable, and those moments move you because they are some special combination of being listenable, evoking thought/memory, and feeling new.
Her session work spans many genres, having worked with Richard Reed Parry (Arcade Fire) on his project Music for Heart and Breath, doing residencies at the Banff Centre, and recording with bands like Woodpigeon, 100 Mile House, Reuben and the Dark, and Astral Swans. “Hazy Days” is the first of two singles expected in early 2021, hinting at a full-length album.
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Electric Religious is the project of Edmonton-based Métis singer-songwriter, Brandon Baker, whose guitar-driven music has been described as “bursting with inspiration, insight, and hope.”
Deeply influenced by the psychedelic sounds of Jimi Hendrix, Baker took his moniker from a Hendrix quote: “When I get up on stage, that’s my whole life. That’s my religion. My music is electric church music. I am electric religion.” The debut Electric Religious album, Yeah, Yeah, No (2018) featured the single “Revolution,” which achieved a coveted spot in the CBC Searchlight Top 100 in 2019, and spent multiple weeks at #1 on the Indigenous Music Countdown.
A virtuosic guitar player whose live performances are undeniably impressive, Baker has performed for audiences as large as 50,000 during the opening ceremonies for Red Bull Crashed Ice, which was broadcast to over 1.7 million viewers. Other accolades for Electric Religious include an “Artist to Watch” nomination at the Edmonton Music Awards (2015), and a nomination for Aboriginal Artist of the Year in Baker’s home province of Saskatchewan (2009).
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Beloved Canadian songwriter, Dorothea Paas is today sharing her new single, "Anything Can't Happen" alongside which she is announcing her long-awaited debut album, also titled Anything Can't Happen and set for release via Telephone Explosion Records on May 7, 2021. For over a decade, Paas has played her unique, prismatic style of folk songcraft for audiences across North America, and lent her talents as a guitarist and vocalist to artists including Jennifer Castle, U.S. Girls, and Badge Époque Ensemble. The songs on this album have been a long time coming, transforming through a near-infinite number of forms whilst being performed at house shows and in sold-out venues.
All of this makes Anything Can’t Happen feel far more mature and complex than a debut album. It’s a statement of purpose, the next step in a decade-long process of artistic growth and evolution, and a bridge between the DIY style of Paas’s previous cassette releases and a more refined studio sensibility. Recorded between Hamilton, ON, and Toronto, and mixed by Max Turnbull (Badge Époque Ensemble and U.S. Girls) and Steve Chahley, these songs bring a diverse range of musical influences into the conversation: inflected with the layered reverberations of Grouper, shot through with the piercing harmonies of the Roches, electrified with the searing energy of Sonic Youth. You can hear Neil Young in the grittiness of the title track’s guitar; Joni Mitchell’s Hejira in the album’s lyrics, Fairport Convention in Paas’s voice. The influence of Stevie Wonder – one of Paas’s greatest musical role models – is present too, in the album’s conceptual foundations.
This first album-titled single is a meditation on trust at three levels – in relationships, in the self, and existential trust in the future. In tandem with these ideas, the music, which draws on off-kilter percussion fused with Paas's silvery vocal and guitar work, moves from rhythmic and confrontational, to drifting and introspective, and finally comes to an anthemic, euphoric conclusion.
The refrain "anything can happen at any time" is sung with confidence, but its meaning is ambiguous. Layered guitars, stacked harmonies, and heaven-bound synths feel big and bolstering, while also carrying a wide range of emotional possibilities including abandon, joy, fear, and grief.
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Kyle McKearney is a well-accomplished artist & songwriter; ready to take the world on with his unique, modern-vintage, Americana sound.
Born and raised in small-town northern BC (Canada), Kyle grew up surrounded by family and their love of Country & Bluegrass music. After high school, Kyle had the opportunity to move to Nashville, TN, where he spent his days submersed in learning how classic Country and Rockabilly songs were crafted. He eventually made his way back to Canada and settled in Calgary, AB, where him and his brother Shade started a band together. It was then that Kyle really dug in, and started perfecting his skills in: singing, songwriting, all aspects of recording, touring and performing, which have led to being a full time career.
Over the years, Kyle’s been a part of a few successful projects that found him: co-writing a song with Roger Taylor (of the legendary band, QUEEN), on a national tour with Nick Carter (the Backstreet Boy), along with garnering three Top 20 CHR/Top 40 hit songs on Canadian commercial radio, a top 30 at Pop/Hot AC radio, a Top 30 on Active Rock radio, and a Canadian Radio Music Award nomination in 2017 (an incredible feat for an independent artist).
He spent 6 months of 2019 on the road, playing guitar and touring across North America with Queen’s production of “We Will Rock You” the musical; his 15th year of experience in touring. To date, he has sold over 35,000 digital units equivalent.
Kyle has also co-produced all of his new music with Russell Broom (Paul McCartney, Jan Arden, George Canyon, Brett Kissell) and has just released his debut single “Devil Water.”
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