Over-sharer, good kisser, natural blonde. 2/3 ain’t bad. ♓️ 🎤 #altpop 
Treaty 6, Edmonton, Canada

Jesse and the Dandelions are a 4 piece art/space pop band based in Edmonton Alberta, led by Jesse Northey (Producer,Engineer)

After a short but successful figure skating career, Jesse retired and committed his life to music full time. The band has been active in Western Canada for the last 5 years with success on campus community radio, and great opening slots for bands like Attack In Black, Hollerado, and July Talk.With Jesse and the Dandelions’ production values maturing alongside the content, their album A Mutual Understanding (2013) is enriched with classic synth and drum machine textures that pays respect to the past, while forging their own unique path forward. String sections and heavily layered vocal harmonies push accessible pop hooks into more psychedelically complex and intriguing harmonic territory that rewards repeat listeners by continuing to engage them fully with each spin.

Other highlights have included showcases at Breakout West,Canadian Music Week, JUNOfest, a 3 piece performance of The Flaming Lips “The Soft Bulletin, and the release of a biographical comic book.

Their 3rd full length “True Blue” will be released in 2016 and aims to create a cacophonous blend of noise and meticulously layered melody and harmony. Extra features will include a figure skating music video, and 80’s themed infomercial and a Canada wide tour.

Jesse and the Dandelions consists of Jesse Northey(Guitar,Vox) Tasy Hudson (Drums) Dean Kheroufi(Bass), and Cayley Thomas(Keys/Vox).

“Holy wow! What a voice, what a performance.... She had a commanding stage presence and a control of dynamics that actually made my jaw drop making me grin like an idiot.... if you have not heard of her, get on that, because she was absolutely phenomenal!” The AU Review (Australia), selected as best 15 acts to see of 150 act international festival.

International touring artist Ann Vriend (AV), has not yet been home for 30 consecutive days this year, having performed in seven different countries since January, 2016. Her 2014 critically acclaimed, retro-soul album For The People In The Mean Time has kept her extremely busy. It was nominated for Pop Album of the Year at the Toronto Independent Music Awards (despite Vriend's residence in Edmonton), and songs from the album did well on Australian radio; getting into rotation on ABC and Triple J, where “A Need So Wide” made the nomination list for the Top 100 Songs of 2015. Accolades in Canada included song placements in commercials and short films, plus Vriend and her band “The Rooster Davis Group” won two blues awards – Best Self Produced Album, and Northern Alberta Regional Winners of the Memphis Blues Challenge 2016, were semi-finalists in the 2016 Memphis Blues Challenge, and spent June and July playing the Albertan blues and roots festival circuit.

Even with that frenzied schedule Vriend found time to get into the studio. Having recently signed with Toronto’s Aporia Records, she will release a new single “Anybody’s Different” on September 16, 2016. It will be the first of many soul/pop songs that will lead to an EP release in February, 2017 followed by a full album release. The songs are produced by Tino Zolfo – a soul bassist himself, back in the day – and like Vriend’s last collection of tunes, they have a retro ‘70s soul sound to them, while simultaneously belonging comfortably on any playlist alongside contemporary soul/pop artists such as Bruno Mars, Pharrell Williams, Amy Winehouse, Meghan Trainor or Adele.

“Anybody’s Different” is a powerful, epic, minor key soul/pop song, sonically reminiscent of Adele’s “Skyfall,” though faster-paced. Lyrically, it addresses current, globally relevant news regarding political division, the refugee crisis, gun violence, religious extremism. All this is achieved within a three-minute song, making strong use of rhyme, repetition, and simple, image-invoking words.

Vriend says she wrote the song “About as fast as it took to play it from start to finish.” But not until she’d first thrown out a lot of half-finished songs on the topic, that she wasn’t happy with. She found it a challenge though, to write about something so topical and politically charged without sounding “preachy, judgemental, or overly simplistic.” She continues, “All these issues have complicated histories, and I don’t pretend to be the one person on the planet who has figured out 10 easy steps to achieving world peace or something. Obviously if it was that easy it would have been done by now. But that doesn’t mean that I am not deeply saddened and angered by the devastating side effects of power struggles and greed, and how easily people are manipulated and sacrificed for that.”

Finally, Vriend decided to base the song on her own observations as a world traveller, and her personal experiences with so many people from different cultures, races, religions, sexual orientations, etc. The song simply covers the many ways in which we are all fundamentally the same, and asks a few poignant questions such as, “Was there a time when killing was wrong, no matter what Book you read, no matter what side you were on?” It is a song that reminds us all that human rights are exactly that, stating, “I don’t believe you if you say anybody’s different.”

Out from the swirling synth fury that fills the first seconds of Boreal Sons’ sophomore album You & Everyone, comes the tangled, sonorous voice of Evan Acheson who sings, “I guess we just forgot this would happen to you and everyone / Here and then you’re not.” It’s an opening line that’s akin to a gasp and welcomes you to their new record by giving you a shake and making your heart beat fast.

Last year, Acheson attended six funerals, including his grandfather’s. Inevitably, death was on his mind when it came to write You & Everyone. He found a clearer direction for his writing when he turned to one of his favourite authors Annie Dillard, who, in The Writing Life, asks, “Why does death so catch us by surprise, and why love? We still and always want waking.” Her words became a central access point for Acheson as he grappled with death and came to recognize the similarly shocking effects that falling in love and the death of someone close can have on a person - a major theme of the record.

After they finished touring overseas in 2014, the Calgary-based band were at a sonic crossroads. Acheson (vocals, piano, synths), Reagan Cole McLean (bass, vocals, synths), and Zach Schultz (drums, percussion, vocals) had released two EPs (in 2010 and 2012 respectively) and their LP Threadbare (2013) but they had done so without the same guitar player for any two consecutive releases. Without a permanent guitar player moving forward, this lack of stability had once again caught up with them, and they began to doubt the direction of the band.

Their collective identity crisis did not mark the end of Boreal Sons but instead was a catalyst for change. They resolved to experiment and decided the three of them had developed enough experience together that they could forge ahead without a guitarist. The trio went on a getaway to a secluded cottage in Radium, British Columbia where the sonic and lyrical details for their new record came together.

Under the guidance of producer Jonathan Anderson, who also produced Threadbare, You & Everyone is a textured and emotive affair: a panoply of synths, keyboards, and percussion. The intricate “Strangers” twinkles like the lights of a cityscape, while Schultz’s commanding drum work in album opener “What Becomes” amplifies the song’s revelation, and “Midnight Mass,” cast in the dark shadow of McLean’s distorted bass notes, moves from somber to celebratory when the band becomes satisfied to resign to a higher power.

Activitiy-Ninja, Noise Bringer, Music Man

The $5.29 million PEAK Performance Project is designed to educate, promote, develop and hopefully launch the careers of some of British Columbia’s top emerging artists. It also hopes to foster the province’s music industry and create a sense of community amongst music professionals. In addition to the rigorous six month artist development program and the $315,000.00 in artist development funding, The Pattison Group of Companies will also contribute an annual media credit of $1,000,000.00 in support of the PEAK Performance Project by marketing, promoting and advertising the PEAK Performance Project and the participating artists making it the largest individual radio station project in Canada.


T. Buckley is a singer, songwriter, and guitarist who has become a staple in the Alberta roots music scene. Over his 10 year career he has released four albums, topped radio charts, sold out shows across western Canada, held down a 4-year weekly residency at one of Calgary’s best live music venues, and been recognized in songwriting competitions, most recently Kerrville International Songwriters Competition in Texas.

For Mark Times, the song reigns. With a writing process as equally influenced by Hemingway as Springsteen and a sound that is a half shot country and two shots folk, Times is pouring out musings on why heartbreak is the same in rural Alberta as it is in Rome and why you shouldn’t throw glass in stone houses. 2015 saw the songwriter dubbed the Calgary Folk Fest’s “Untapped Newcomer,” perform at Canadian Country Music Week in Halifax, and placed in the top ten in the CBC’s search for Canada’s best campus band. With the debut EP Long to Live slated for release in early 2016, keep an ear out for this songsmith; his tank is full and those Canadian highways are unraveling like that Neil Young cassette that got stuck in your grandma’s 1989 Chevy Celebrity.  

Mark Times is following