We Love Canadian Music
Canada’s National Arts Centre
Subscribe
We Love Canadian Music brings you up close and personal interviews with Canadian musicians on far-ranging topics from life on the road to the artists they find most inspiring. Join us every two weeks for a new interview!
Available episodes
Newest first
Oldest first
Feb 17, 2020
Leela Gilday
Inspired by her deep connection to the North, Dene singer-songwriter Leela Gilday shares a very personal vision of life as a northern woman. During her conversation with Heather Gibson they explore topics of social justice, the challenges of being an Indigenous artist and her latest album North Star Calling. (Recorded with a live audience.)
Links:
We Love Canadian Music podcast: https://nac-cna.ca/en/podcasts/show/we-love-canadian-music
NAC Presents: https://nac-cna.ca/en/presents
About the National Arts Centre: https://nac-cna.ca/en/about
More NAC Podcasts: https://nac-cna.ca/en/podcasts
playlist_add
Jan 14, 2020
Good Lovelies
This episode is guaranteed to cure your post holiday blues with laughter. Heather and the Good Lovelies do their best to keep things professional as they chat about performing their 13th annual Christmas tour, bringing their kids along for the ride and mastering social media. The Good Lovelies are unanimous in their vote for favourite tour location but there is dissent in the roller coasters vs waterslides poll. Also… tambourine pants.
playlist_add
Nov 29, 2019
Amanda Martinez
Amanda Martinez is a singer-songwriter whose music exultingly blends her Mexican father and South African mother’s roots with Latin soul and folklore. Her sultry, bright vocals and upbeat sound get entire audiences on their feet around the world.
Amanda chats with Heather about her work with SOS Children's Villages and the inspiration for her fourth album Libre.
playlist_add
Oct 25, 2019
Amos The Transparent
With over 10 years and 4 albums to their name, Ottawa’s Amos the Transparent are a long-standing staple in the independent Canadian folk-rock world. They have performed at SXSW, WayHome, The Strombo Show, CBC’s Q, and the Big Sound Festival in Australia. Amos the Transparent are best known for their dense instrumental arrangements, layered sounds and lush harmonies. Heather speaks with the band about taking on side projects, how they approach music writing and things to do on a 15 hour drive to Halifax.
playlist_add
Sep 30, 2019
Diyet
Born in a tent and raised in a cabin on the shores of a glacial lake in the Kluane region of Canada’s Yukon, country-roots artist Diyet is a seamless amalgam of cultures. Via folk music and Aboriginal forms, she channels her various linages (Southern Tutchone, Japanese, Tlingit and Scottish) into stories and melodies deeply rooted in her Indigenous world view, and northern reality.
playlist_add
Aug 29, 2019
Megan Bonnell
Megan Bonnell has never been easily pigeon-holed into the predictable mold of the singer-songwriter and her new album Separate Rooms embraces this edict, turning traditional musical genres on their heads. With her hallmark honesty, Bonnell effortlessly tackles such intense subject matter as mental illness, early pregnancy loss, and the dissolution of love.
playlist_add
Jul 5, 2019
Hillsburn
Hillsburn’s indie-rock sound draws on the songwriting focus of folk music, and combines it with a pop sensibility. The band’s performances are dynamic, energized, and emotive. You won’t want to miss this band that is already on its way to becoming a national treasure.
playlist_add
Jul 2, 2019
Blue Rodeo
For close to thirty years now, Blue Rodeo has taken the road less travelled – and succeeded far beyond anyone’s expectations. The band emerged in the early 80’s as a countrified rock band in the era of hair metal and glossy pop.
playlist_add
May 29, 2019
Suzie Vinnick
Earnest, and with a touch of heart-felt twang, Suzie Vinnick is a prodigious singer-songwriter, and veteran of the Canadian roots scene. A Saskatoon native transplanted to the Niagara Region of Ontario, she’s the proud owner of a gorgeous voice, serious guitar chops, and an engagingly candid performance style.
playlist_add
May 3, 2019
Christina Martin
If raw denim had a sound, it’d be a Christina Martin. In the grand tradition of highway Canadiana, Martin’s songwriting is honest-to-goodness jukebox rock for the craft beer generation. The winner of multiple East Coast Music Awards, Christina Martin cut her teeth in Austin Texas, and returns with her most personal and ambitious record to date “Impossible To Hold”.
playlist_add
Mar 27, 2019
Kalle Mattson
Kalle Mattson is a 27-year-old Ottawa musician who first caught the public ear with 2014’s Someday, The Moon Will Be Gold, an album that dealt with the death of his mother, when he was 16. His new album, Youth., is a coming-of-age record about innocence lost, promises denied, and the purgatory of one’s mid-20s.k
playlist_add
Mar 15, 2019
Jeremy Fisher
JUNO-nominated folk singer Jeremy Fisher brings his catchy songwriting to circle time with his first collection of music aimed at young listeners. His trademark wit and penchant for story telling ensures that there’s a little something for the whole family.
playlist_add
Mar 7, 2019
Lynn Miles
With her lilting alto and serpentine melodies, Ottawa’s Lynn Miles furtively holds a vital place within Canadian folk music’s firmament.
playlist_add
Dec 18, 2018
Amanda Lowe
Born in Sri Lanka, raised on Prince Edward Island and now residing in Ottawa, ON - Amanda Lowe Warnakulasuriya is a multi-lingual singer-songwriter that writes music that can be sweet, heartbreaking, and enchanting. With just her voice, her guitar, a pinch of reverb, and awkward wit she creates a warm inclusive vibe, highlighting life’s dark, cloudy and sunny days.
playlist_add
Dec 3, 2018
Sarah Bradley
Sarah Bradley is a singer-songwriter based in Ottawa, ON. She captivates audiences with her keyboard, soulful voice, and songs that are full of emotion and sincerity. Her musical influences are pulled from a wide array of genres, but her ambient-pop sound remains her own. Sarah’s solo singing and songwriting has earned her an esteemed spot in the Franco-Ontarian music scene. In 2009, she participated in the competition La Brunante, where she finished in second place. In 2010, she participated in the Ontario Pop contest, where she won the prize of Prix de la Première Chaîne de Radio-Canada.
playlist_add
Nov 20, 2018
Rosie & the Riveters
Rosie & the Riveters never planned to get political. But opening a newspaper or watching the news these days made it impossible to see the status of women around the world and stay silent. The result is Ms. Behave – a collection of gritty, sultry, vintage-inspired folk anthems that paint a portrait of a woman’s voice in a man’s world.
playlist_add
Oct 22, 2018
Mark Bragg
An east coast legend, Mark Bragg is perhaps one of Newfoundland’s most flamboyant singer-songwriters. Mix the earnest rock of Bruce Springsteen, with Elton John’s showmanship, and Tom Wait’s dramatic flair, and you’re about half way there.
playlist_add
Oct 12, 2018
Rebecca Noelle
After making waves as the 1st runner-up on TVA's La Voix (The Voice : Canada), Rebecca was invited by The Jacksons to make a guest appearance on their Canadian tour. She has also performed alongside Roch Voisine, UK's Birdy, USA's Florida Georgia Line, and continues to tour with French-Canadian music icon Marc Dupré.
playlist_add
Sep 28, 2018
Noah Derksen
Influenced by the contrasting cultures of Canadian prairies and the west, Noah Derksen writes with the groundedness of harsh Manitoba winters mixed with the optimism of British Columbia’s coastline. Ever seeking motion and progression, Noah’s self-described “contemplative folk” has taken him across Canada and the United States.
playlist_add
Aug 15, 2018
Emma Cook
Emma Cook combines a powerful and haunting voice reminiscent of Sarah McLachlan with the song stylings of Feist or Jenn Grant. She also knows what it means to struggle. The Toronto indie-pop singer was well on her way to making a name for herself before a falling tree branch caused a serious head injury and forced her to take a hiatus from music to focus on recovery. After a three year battle with Post-Concussive Syndrome, Emma drew 2016 to a close with the release of her third album Same Old Song.
playlist_add
Jun 29, 2018
Kelly Sloan & Isaac Vallentin
Kelly Sloan is an award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter with pure and clean vocals, which compliment her personal and earnest songwriting. Her musical influences range from folk to country, while fusing elements of vintage '50s and '60s pop rock. Kelly’s unique delivery brings her sound to life with a continuity of vibration, offering a singular statement of heartfelt expression and honesty. Isaac Vallentin has been surreptitiously creating some of Canada's most fearless avant-garde pop music of the last 3 years. His charcoal baritone stitches abstract song-poems through a patchwork of art-soul, electronics, and American primitive guitar traditionalism.
playlist_add
Jun 4, 2018
Port Cities
Port Cities’ self-titled debut album may be the group’s first effort together, but its members share deep, intertwining roots in the Maritime music scene. In addition to releasing three solo albums, Carleton Stone has written songs for and with everyone from Quebecois soul sensation Bobby Bazini to beloved acoustic troubadour Donovan Woods. Dylan Guthro has parlayed his own folk/RnB fusions into match-ups with Halifax hip-hop hero Classified and EDM crew Neon Dreams (whose 2015 single “High” featured Guthro alongside rap superstar Waka Flocka Flame). And Breagh MacKinnon is a jazz-schooled chanteuse whose 2012 album, Where the Days Went, was nominated for an ECMA Award; she has since lent her voice to recordings by East Coast pop icons David Myles and Ria Mae.
playlist_add
May 23, 2018
Sarah MacDougall
Whitehorse-based, Western Canadian Music Award-winning artist Sarah MacDougall is an up-and-coming artist known for her honest and poetic songs, passionate performances, and unique voice. Born in Sweden, 24 hrs Vancouver called her “one of the most promising exports out of Sweden since ABBA.”
playlist_add
May 8, 2018
Erin Costelo
Erin Costelo is Halifax’s queen of salt water soul. Armed with her husky baritone and endless poise, ECMA winner Erin Costello channels the grand tradition of southern US vocal jazz and R&B, embodying the spirit of legends like Nina Simone and Donny Hathaway. Her latest album “Down Below, The Status Quo” was recorded with east coast stalwart Joel Plaskett, and has received glowing praise nationally.
playlist_add
Apr 23, 2018
Amelia Curran
Amelia Curran is a Juno-Award winning songwriter, activist and mental health advocate from St. John’s, Newfoundland. Curran’s music is distinguished by her intricate and elliptical lyrics, geologic in their resilience and oceanic in their depths. Over the course of a decade, Curran has built a shoreline of song, a place of radical, perpetual collision of matter and form. Even as she leads us to the ever-eroding lip of the abyss, Curran’s music helps us make sense of the heart’s imperceptible, relentless attrition.
playlist_add
Apr 9, 2018
Alejandra Ribera
Alejandra Ribera has been writing about the unexpected places we find light since the release of her critically acclaimed debut album La boca. She cites some unlikely influences as inspiring her approach to her newest recording, THIS ISLAND: a speech by actress Tilda Swinton at the Rothko Chapel, a documentary about performance artist Marina Abramović and studying movement in Paris with one of Pina Bausch’s earliest devotees.
playlist_add
Mar 26, 2018
Jenn Grant
Jenn Grant is a three-time JUNO nominee, Polaris long listed artist and ECMA winner, now living in Nova Scotia, Canada. Most recently, Grant took home the ‘Solo Recording of the Year’ award at the 2016 East Coast Music Association for her two-time JUNO nominated album Compostela. Her newest album, Paradise, came out in March 2017 to critical and popular acclaim
playlist_add
Mar 15, 2018
The Once
A modern indie folk trio from Newfoundland, The Once has collected a trio of Canadian Folk Music Awards, numerous ECMA awards, was named Artist of the Year by the Newfoundland & Labrador Arts Council. They have earned not one, but two JUNO nominations for best Roots/Traditional album, the most recent in acknowledgement of Departures (2014). While originally known for its haunting interpretations of traditional music, The Once has at long last uncovered a sound that truly represents their inner artistry.
playlist_add