Toronto

Singer-songwriter Basia Bulat is back with chamber folk new album The Garden

Nick Krewen Special to the Star February 25, 2022 Toronto-born, Montreal-based one-time Polaris Music Prize finalist used source material from her first five studio albums for album out Feb. 25. There are some strings attached to the new Basia Bulat album that’s dropped. The Toronto-born, Montreal-based, one-time Polaris Music Prize finalist has hired three arrangers — Owen Pallett, Paul Frith and cellist Zou Zou Robidoux — to wrap the 16…


Brampton singer/songwriter AHI talks influences and the winding path that led him to music

His third album, Prospect, released late last year, with singles “Danger” and “Coldest Fire,” is an extraordinary folk-rooted effort. By Nick Krewen Special to the Star February 23, 2022 From a stranger outside Thunder Bay to Prospect Cemetery, to Bob Marley: Ahkinoah Habah Izarh — AHI for short — finds inspiration in all kinds of places and people. The Brampton-born singer and songwriter’s third album Prospect displays 10 songs of…


Blue Rodeo on the making of new album Many A Mile: ‘Everybody was willing to let go of how everything was before and it was really great’

By Nick Krewen Special to the Star Sometimes fate intervenes in mysterious ways. For example, take Blue Rodeo: the creation of the Toronto collective’s new album Many A Mile, released Friday, was as much a surprise to the band’s co-founding songwriters Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor as anyone. Even though it’s been five years since their last studio effort, 1000 Arms, it seemed it would be another little while before…


Genesis: Nostalgia Is The Balm That Heals At Scotiabank Arena Finales

By Nick Krewen Special to the Star For what was potentially its second last performance ever in Canada, Genesis turned it on again for the Toronto crowd for the first of two shows at Scotiabank Arena on Thursday night. It was a bittersweet event.  On one hand, the core trio of singer and ex-drummer Phil Collins, bassist Mike Rutherford and keyboardist Tony Banks – in their first local appearance since…


Gordon Lightfoot, 82, thrilled to be reopening Toronto’s Massey Hall

The 13-time Juno Award winner who has entertained more than 165 audiences at the venue says he would have been in the building for the reopening regardless of whether he was performing. By Nick Krewen Special to the Star Well, we almost had a Massey Hall reopening without a Gordon Lightfoot concert. Reached at home by phone on Monday, Lightfoot admits that  even though his Nov 25-27 dates to welcome patrons…