We called it way back in August 2019, when we covered Jamacian-born, Halifax-based musician Jah’Mila for a feature on the Halifax Urban Folk Festival: “If you’re not already addicted to the artist’s distinctive, roots-y reggae, her HUFF showcase will have you hooked,” we decreed, begging readers to stop what they were doing to turn up […]
Feature
Posted inArts + Music
With India Gailey, sounds are louder than words
India Gailey at Open Waters Festival 2021 Sun Jan 10, 7:30pm Details and tickets at tickethalifax.com, $5/$10 There’s a scene in the 2007 rom-com Music and Lyrics, starring Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore, where the two leads have an artificial debate of a conversation that seems to exist only to highlight, underline and hit you […]
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The year the music lived
We need music. There’s no other way to explain why it’s been with us for almost as long as fire has been. It tells stories and shares feelings—reminding us that there’s at least one other person out there, behind a guitar, who feels like we do. In a year where the feeling has just been […]
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Dave Gunning’s golden rage
A bird’s-eye view of a great river. A guitar strums. We see a man playing and singing next to the river: Dave Gunning. “It’s still up there in the hills, where the scars haven’t healed,” Gunning sings. He is sitting next to Cochrane Hill, where Atlantic Gold has proposed an open-pit gold mine. Gunning’s song “For […]
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From A to Zamani
Evergreen Festival: John Gracie w/Zamani, Carloyn Curry Dec 18, 6-9pm, Facebook Live @EvergreenFestNS It’s hard to imagine the certified triple-threat, SOCAN Young Songwriters Award-winning Zamani ever feeling awkward. It’s easier to picture the R&B singer-songwriter/producer like a young Hannah Montana, but cooler: A teen idol-in-the-making passing amongst her peers with a magnetism that’s propelled her […]
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Taking five with Braden Lam
Evergreen Screen presents Braden Lam Sun Nov 29, 4pm Facebook livestream; Youtube livestream, free The first time Braden Lam played at The Carleton, it was to a sold-out throng of college kids, screaming their heads off. It was 2018, and Lam seemed as amazed by the energy in the room as anyone. When was the […]
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Halifax Pop Explosion’s 28th festival should be starting tonight
Tonight should have been the first night of the Halifax Pop Explosion. Sure, in a year where a lot of things should have been happening but then haven’t, this doesn’t feel so surprising. But, the venerable music festival going silent in its 28th year? It leaves a hell of a hole in Halifax’s music scene. […]
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Keonté Beals’s coronation
Keonté Beals, the soft-spoken R&B luminary of North Preston, had had a hard night. There was a disagreement with his significant other and a (rare) drink to ease the pain. Then, hungover from the night before, Beals went to his studio and picked up a notebook and pen. With the lights off, headphones on and […]
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Kestrels cracks open
The year 2017 was a bit on all sides for Kestrels’ songwriter Chad Peck, as a long-term relationship and his band dissolved simultaneously. A destabilizing summer followed while house sitting for a friend in Brooklyn—a friend that’s also Ash frontperson, Tim Wheeler. “We had some good press. We got written up in all these cool […]
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Rich Aucoin’s American fever-dream
The opening notes of Rich Aucoin’s newest album—the oxygen-doused, psychedelic-streaked United States—sounds like the start of a movie: Close your eyes and you can see the screen rouse to life, a nameless city coming into focus. It’s morning and the sun sits just overtop the buildings, an egg yolk suspended in the sky. “Boarded up […]