Fawns

Mercedes Fawns and Richard Charlton started fawns in 2016. The five-piece band invokes deep and layered alt rock songwriting, inspired by the ebbs and flows of mental health, complicated relationships, and nostalgic memories of Western Canada. Intricate drum loops from Chris Morden, accented keys from Cliff Westcott, and pulsing bass grooves from Gabi de Luna come together to create a lush amalgamation of 90s-tinged alt rock one minute and Vancouver indie-inspired dance pop the next. https://fawnsyql.bandcamp.com/

GENRE Indie rock / New wave / Synth-pop. PAIRS NICELY WITH: Metric, Mother Mother, The Beaches.

Cold Water

At times sitting at a noir-ish simmer, at others boiling over into Crazy Horse-esque country rock, Cold Water’s versatility at making roots rock should come as no surprise. Founding member Kevin Stebner has worked in genres ranging all the way from hardcore to chiptune. More like whiskey than wine, Cold Water is a band that gets stronger the dustier they become. https://coldwater.bandcamp.com/

GENRE Rock / Folk / Confessional Alt-Country. PAIRS NICELY WITH: Cake, The Doobie Brothers, Kansas, Steely Dan, XTC.

CHAD VANGAALEN

Hailing from Calgary, singer/songwriter Chad VanGaalen creates delightfully soothing indie rock soundscapes. Chad's airy falsetto is part Christopher Cross and part Thom Yorke, and fans of Arcade Fire, Radiohead, Broken Social Scene, Band of Horses, and Destroyer will find charm in VanGaalen's wild imagination.

Since 1998, the quirky VanGaalen has drafted hundreds of songs well-tailored for indie rock fans old and new. In 2004, the Calgary label Flemish Eye gathered some of these songs together for VanGaalen's first album, Infiniheart. Sub Pop inked VanGaalen to an American deal a year later and reissued a reassembled version of Infiniheart. Skelliconnection arrived in August 2006. Soft Airplane, his second album for Sub Pop, was released in September 2008, and featured a cartoon video for "Molten Light" that he illustrated and animated himself.

In 2009, VanGaalen released the largely instrumental and electronic-oriented experimental album Snow Blindness Is Crystal Antz under the name Black Mold. After producing two albums for Flemish Eye labelmates Women, VanGaalen returned with Diaper Island in 2011. A year later, he began working on an animated science fiction feature called Translated Log of Inhabitants. Preceding its release, he issued his fifth album, Shrink Dust, in April 2014, which was partially a soundtrack to the film. VanGaalen returned in 2017 with his sixth album, Light Information, which explores themes of alienation and anxiety.