SaskMusic

Belle Plaine
Belle Plaine is a singer, a songwriter and an inventive musician who was raised on the Canadian prairies near the hamlet of Fosston Saskatchewan Canada, population 54. The ingenuity, lonesome yearning and collaborative work ethic of country life have infiltrated her songwriting, her sound and her methods. Belle’s reverence for artists who defy categorization has led her to create a brand of roots music that combines vintage blues and swing tones of the 1940s with classic country styles made popular in the heyday of the Grand Ole Opry.

Colter Wall 
Wall is a prairie-born songwriter/performing artist. His signature baritone vocal is paired with sparse, beautiful old-soul songwriting inspired by artists like Townes Van Zandt, Blaze Foley, Emmylou Harris & Waylon Jennings. Chosen to perform for the P&E Wing of the Grammys - as well as having earned his Ryman Auditorium debut opening for Lucinda Williams - Wall’s inaugural EP, “Imaginary Appalachia,” made him a non-stop, buzzed-about young artist. Now armed with a self-titled full-length produced by Dave Cobb (Sturgill Simpson, Chris Stapleton, Lindi Ortega, Corb Lund), the music is stripped to its bare bones, gritty and raw. Rolling Stone described his voice as “a boomy baritone pitched between Johnny Cash and a smoke-cured Kris Kristofferson,” and indeed his deep voice and beautiful guitar playing make for a dark narrative in a troubadour tradition across 11 tracks. “Throughout his spare, acoustic self-titled [album], Wall spins tales of murder, lost love and working class politics with all the pretension of a wannabe dust bowler and the unfettered confidence of the real deal” (Sony).

The Deep Dark Woods
Floods and plagues, ghosts and slaughter: woe to those who populate the songs of their forthcoming album, “Yarrow.” A gentle summer breeze swings the gallows ropes, flowers bloom callously on lovers' graves. These anthems are definitely not from Eden. The Deep Dark Woods’ newest album was borne in a fever - scarlet fever, to be medically specific. A disease of the last century is a fitting backdrop for songs that dig bare handed into the loam to unearth the corpses of old English folk and country blues. Yarrow is Deep Dark Woods reimagined by lead man Ryan Boldt, and accompanied by the same band that crafted prairie psychedelics and a “loose grungy folk sound” (Paste) for flannelites. For nearly ten years they developed an international following with particular success in the Americana realm, nominated alongside Alabama Shakes and Dawes for Emerging Artist of the Year at the 2012 Americana Music Awards. Now wrest out of the woods, their outlook is decidedly more macabre, tapping into a rich vein of gothic surrealism that aligns with some of the great murder balladeers of our time. With Appalachian soil under his fingernails, Boldt writes in a deep tradition of bleak and forlorn storytelling, drawing lines from Ireland to Tennessee, the Oxford Girl to Folsom Prison. In Yarrow, there's a juicy unease to frontman Boldt's presence, as if a new door has opened to let loose the weirdness. In place of the freewheelin' jammy vibe there's a darker, stranger tenor that sides with those modern mystics whose music exists in the creepier, freakier corners of existence.

Kacy & Clayton 
The music of Kacy and Clayton exists outside of time, and burgeons with beautiful contradictions. It’s psychedelic and traditional, contemporary and vintage, melancholic and joyous. All at once, it showcases a slightly psych-folk sound of Linda Perhacs, Fleet Foxes, and First Aid Kit; rare country blues records and English folk tunes; and 1920s disaster songs and murder ballads. Their songs often are sugar-coated pills, tales of murderous jealousy, dilapidated graveyards, and infanticide, all delivered with Kacy Anderson’s sweet, lithe voice, and Clayton Linthicum’s hypnotic fingerpicking.

Rosie & The Riveters
Rosie & the Riveters’ reinvention of vintage folk garnered much national attention for their debut album, “Good Clean Fun!” Their single, “Ain’t Gonna Bother,” reached the #5 spot on the CBC Radio 2’s National Top 20 countdown. In 2016 they won a Saskatchewan Arts Award (Emerging Artist Category); they also picked up nominations for a Canadian Folk Music Award (Vocal Group of the Year) and a Western Canadian Music Award (Roots Duo/Group of the Year).Ask these spirited femmes to spin a slinky melody, roll out glinting harmonies, or hammer down a swinging beat, and you can bet what the answer is going to be: “We can do it!” Their original songs feature sophisticated vocal arrangements, body percussion, humour, and just enough ooh-la-la to keep your toes tapping long after the show is over.
Photo: Matt Braden

The Dead South