A soulful rock singer/songwriter whose rugged vocals and moody approach recall a mixture of Jeff Buckley, Joe Cocker, and Bruce Springsteen, Ontario native Billy Raffoul spent the latter part of the 2010s delivering a succession of increasingly popular EPs and singles like "Acoustic" and "Dark Four Door," which were streamed in the millions. He made his full-length debut in 2020 with the stripped-down International Hotel. Raffoul was schooled in music from a young age. The son of respected regional solo artist Jody Raffoul, Billy spent his childhood immersed in the finer points of rock history, watching his father perform and learning to play guitar himself. By his late teens, he'd begun performing around his hometown of Leamington, Ontario and nearby, writing songs and honing his stagecraft. A session vocal gig in nearby Detroit proved to be his first real break, leading first to a management deal, then to a record deal with Interscope. Splitting his time between Nashville and Los Angeles, Raffoul released his debut single, "Driver," in the spring of 2017, with the 1975 EP arriving the following year. A prolific 2019 saw him issuing the single "Hell or Highwater," written for the PlayStation game Days Gone, followed by the Running Wild EP, a live release, and additional singles like "Easy Tiger" and "When We Were Young." Moving from support slots to his own U.S. headlining tour, Raffoul kicked off 2020 with the uplifting "It's a Beautiful Life" in advance of his next EP, A Few More Hours at YYZ. Although his various EPs dabbled in a variety of styles, for his first long-player, Raffoul opted for a starker approach. Essentially recorded live with just a pair of mics, an acoustic guitar, and harmonica, International Hotel was released in mid-2020 and marked a new direction for the young artist.

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IMC Features:

September 07, 2022: Better

Blending authentic songwriting with modern indie flare, Braden Lam is forging the path to a new 21st century folk. The young artist from Halifax, Nova Scotia sounds like The Lumineers and Phoebe Bridgers met at a campfire in Canada. He has been described as “Nova Scotia’s emerging songwriting sensation” by Grid City Magazine.

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IMC Features:

April 17, 2023: Second Wind

 

Cypress is a five-piece indie-pop band from Edmonton, Alberta (Canada).

Their first single, "All Said and Done" has been streamed 24,000 times on Spotify alone.

Cypress has played in the opening lineup for Mother Mother this past year and has been featured in 2020's CBC Searchlight's Top 100.

Their last single "Swells" was released on May 15, 2020. 

"Swells" brings together new ambient sounds and dynamic ranges while continuing to capture the up-beat pop they are known for.

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IMC Features: 

May 15, 2020: Swells

Dhrubo is a Bangladeshi-born singer-songwriter based in Ottawa, Canada. He was born in 1993 in Bangladesh and moved to Canada with his parents in 2012. He's a self-taught singer and guitarist and never had any formal training.

Although Bengali is his first language and he writes mostly in Bengali, he wrote a few songs in English as well. The songs and teachings of philosophers and songwriters like Fakir Lalon Shah and Rabindranath Tagore have significantly influenced his music, his thought process, and his life in general.

Hence, most of his songs are about spirituality, the nature of time, existence, and human conditions.

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IMC Features:

August 08, 2022: Awake

For the millions of people who have already been introduced to Gabrielle Shonk via ‘Habit’ –her instantly arresting first single -the immediate impression is of a new voice arriving so fully formed, so polished and powerful, one can only ask ‘where has she come from?’

Raised in Quebec City, Gabrielle Shonk is the natural product of a creative household, with a blues-musician father and artist mother. Shonk has been singing since anyone can remember and started writing her own songs as a teenager, Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye providing soulful guidance, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan,and Tracy Chapman teaching subject matter, and The Beatles impressing melody. The craft took hold and she went on to studying Jazz and earning a degree in music.

Putting her education to practical application, Shonk honed these skills paying her dues on the club circuit around Quebec City. “Jazz works with a palette of colours which heighten the emotional content of a song,” she observes. Billie Holiday and Chet Baker have in particular influenced much of Shonk’s thinking on the technical aspects of music and, while performing the standards elevated her vocal chops, writing her own, original material brought her into sync with her muse –a heady blend of soul-infused folk where melody shines atop a lively groove.

“Music inspires me to make music...sometimes the sound of a guitar on a recording inspires me to write a song,” declares Shonk, who views herself primarily as a composer of melodies.

Source: Spotify

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IMC Features:

October 14, 2022: How We Used To Be

Genesis Ritchot is a Canadian indie-folk singer-songwriter who composes songs with impressive lyrical content and harmonious, catchy melodies, sometimes folky and tender, sometimes haunting, rocking and powerful.

Genesis. One immediately stumbles upon his name. His parents are avid fans of the music group Genesis and named their son after this world-famous band. Now, however, they’re even bigger fans and supporters of their son. With his numerous singles and his two successful albums, 2019's Simple Complications and 2020s Three Quiet Hands, he has proven that he has the stamina and ambition to consistently pursue his music, one of his most important goals in life, in addition to his professional work as a math high school teacher.

He grew up with two siblings. He shares a love for music with his younger brother Yanny Ritchot, who's also a songwriter and musician. On his latest album, they collaborated on the song Archer, which Yanny wrote and which also reveals Yanny’s talent and gives hope for more music from him.

Genesis' lyrics are tasteful arrangements and comprehensible emotional songwriting. He tells us in his diverse songs his life experiences and desires of his young life. Despite his consistently very positive and optimistic attitude towards life, he's also adept at blending in his doubts, insecurities, and fears in his songs when they arise. With the help of music, Genesis is able to process his emotions and be his best self.

Bio by Susbidi

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IMC Features:

August 25, 2020: Why Can't You Dive In

April 27, 2021: Kitchen Sink

February 22, 2022: She Could've Been Mine

April 1st, 2022: Robin

September 23, 2022: What My Parents Had

January 20, 2023: Broken Princess - Strings Acoustic

April 14, 2023: Twenty-Two Strings (Acoustic album)

August 18, 2023: I Lose Track of Time

Coming from an unfinished basement somewhere in Hamilton, Ontario. Ian Flare delivers an array of singles, filling out his new EP ‘Don’t Get Used To It”. Filled with dreamy guitars that bite, and hopeless lyricism. His latest single “Famous Last Words’ marks a stepping stone into finding his place in the music world. Ian began his music pilgrimage as a young drummer, and since then has spent a considerable amount of time learning multiple other instruments. Currently entirely self produced, this emerging artist is en route, with big goals to reach.

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IMC Features:

January 05, 2025: Famous Last Words

John Muirhead is a Toronto-based troubadour creating big-hearted indie-folk music. From fingerpicked folk confessionals to roaring full-band singalongs, John’s award-winning songs have touched audiences across the world. With a growing community of over 100,000 fans across his social media channels and hundreds of shows across Canada, Europe, and South America, John is building a vibrant community around his stories and songs. John has earned a Canadian Folk Music Award & Ontario Folk Music Award nomination and has graced the stages of the Winnipeg Folk Festival, Sawdust City Music Festival, and Philadelphia Folk Festival. John has also provided direct support for many of Canada’s best songwriters, including Whitehorse, Joel Plaskett Emergency, and Craig Cardiff. On festival stages or in living rooms, in backyards, or on moving trains, John’s unforgettable performance has solidified him as a must-see emerging Canadian performer.

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IMC Features:

April 12, 2018: Passenger's Side

June 19, 2018: in the 'Rising Star' column

March 04, 2023: artist of the month on Luna's podcast

November 06, 2023: Salt & Pepper

March 09, 2024: Cemetery Somewhere

July 06, 2024: Tides

September 07, 2024: Same Old Ways

February 05, 2025: Little Bit Lonely

Kane Miller is a singer-songwriter based in Lakefield, Ontario. His sound is intimate and organic, a combination of warm instrumentation and well-crafted lyrics that quickly hook the heart of the listener. With an extensive classically trained background that began at the age of 7, Kane’s entire life has been masterfully shaped by the emotional power of music, resulting in an artistic authenticity that is impossible to replicate. 

Kane’s music has been described by BeatRoute magazine as “sustenance you didn’t know you needed” and has received over 2 Million streams across platforms, with playlist placements on Apple Music’s Best of the Week, Breaking Singer-Songwriter, Acoustic Chill & Spotify's Folk & Friends. He is signed with Nashville Artist Development Label, LV Music, working with Grammy award winning producer, Femke Weidema (who's already been featured on IMC as well), to create music that is both simple and refined. 

Kane’s most recent release, “ The LV Cabin Sessions”, brought him to a cabin in the woods of middle Tennessee to collaborate with four Nashville musicians to fully write and record a six song EP in just four days. The release has been met with rave reviews, classified by Metalhead Community Blog as “natural, heartwarming and sincere” and “bullet-proof”.

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IMC Features: 

May 17, 2020: Something New

Only 19 years old with a world of ambition, Lucas Fournier has one goal: to spend his life making music that excites him, pushes boundaries, and connects with like-minded music lovers. Currently in his third year studying classical music at McGill University, the music that Fournier makes in his home studio is drastically different to what he studies. With a soft spot for the classic lush indie folk aesthetic of Novo Amor and early Bon Iver, but perhaps an equal influence from the genre-bending discography of Radiohead, and the outside-the-box production of Tony Berg on albums like Phoebe Bridgers’ Punisher, Fournier refuses to confine himself to a genre, and instead will go wherever a song takes him.

Fournier makes music with the goal of connecting with people who go through similar experiences to himself. For Fournier, music is an outlet that has a truly unique way of influencing his thoughts and emotions, and he has always felt that writing music is the most natural way of expressing himself. In the past two years, Fournier taught himself how to record and produce, and soon after released his debut album, Many Waters, in December 2021. Since then, Fournier has continued to develop his skills as a musician and, perhaps more importantly, has continued to grow as a person. Back bigger and better than before, Fournier will be releasing a strong, diverse, and expectation-defying collection of songs over the coming months.

The first of these songs is Lakeside, which is officially out in the world as of August 26th, 2022. Like many of Fournier’s songs, Lakeside began as a simple guitar sketch, but soon developed into an epic track featuring a calm, acoustic intro, an ambient break, and a massive orchestral-sounding finale. Collaborators Harley Eblen and Charles Henry-Volk were instrumental in helping Fournier achieve a sound that he had never attempted before. Harley Eblen provided a cello arrangement that gives the song a real sense of depth and movement, fluidly connecting its different sections and contributing to the massive orchestral sound that defines the final ninety seconds. Charles Henry-Volk was the song’s mixing engineer who was critical in making nearly a hundred different tracks work in unison, bringing newfound drive and energy that hasn’t been heard before in Fournier’s music.

Lakeside marks the beginning of a truly exciting new chapter in Lucas Fournier’s world of music.

Source: Lucas' EPK.

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IMC Features:

September 12, 2022: Lakeside

February 06, 2023: all i know

Leading-edge East Coast pop/folk trio The East Pointers have always been furiously energetic, musically complex, and technically brilliant and now a family grounding as the seventh generations of traditional Prince Edward Island and Ontario-based Celtic players and writers has effortlessly parlayed into the folk/pop arena. Fiddle tunes are grounded in irresistible EDM-style bass lines, a dirty Americana exploration that turns on a dime into a light-hearted guitar feature, playful keyboard tones that turn traditional solos into urgent dance-party journeys, and perfect pop songs weighted by undeniable musical chops. All live, all the time, and already internationally acknowledged as musical trailblazers, their latest album Yours To Break captures the furious energy of their live shows and push the boundaries of East Coast folk while lighting a path for a new generation of music lovers. The multi-award-winning East Pointers are back on the road with new music from their upcoming EP, as well as a back catalog of the off-the-hook tunes and anthemic songs that have made them festival favorites from Australia to Japan to North America.

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IMC Features:

August 31, 2022: Save Your Lonely

Coming from musical homes and improvised jam sessions, Top Lobby emerged in the GTA. With jazzy piano and groovy rhythms at the centerfold of their sound, and influences from rock, funk, jazz and more; this band blends and defies genres. The band members; Marcus Hoecht (keys, horns, vocals), Ian Lumsden (drums, guitar, vocals), and Sabine Hoecht (bass, vocals), have chemistry that you can see and hear on stage.

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IMC Features:

January 05, 2025: Simple Saturday

Musician since my teens, I have early on started to compose and record demos in my room in my parent's basement. I now work as a physiotherapist, since the last 23 years, but I always long to go into my studio and write music. I love recording and production just as much as I love to play. It's only since 2020 that I started to work on serious projects and releasing music out into the world. But really, I have been composing and recording since around 1998. And I hope to keep doing so for a long time. Almost every song you hear on my profile was entirely played, recorded, produced, mixed and mastered by me alone. I am no pro at this craft, so it's all just a work in progress, full of guess work, mistakes and imperfections. But that's where the fun is, not in the final product, but in the process! Enjoy!

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IMC Features:

December 03, 2021: Perfection

February 2023, 21: Destroyers

May 04, 2024: Celestia

November 2024, 05: Parallel 45

February 05, 2025: L'oubli