Lido Pimienta is a multidisciplinary visual artist, art critic, and curator. She is a composer and musical producer of Afro-Indigenous (Wayuu) Ancestry from Colombia. Pimienta resides in Toronto Canada, and has been performing live and exhibiting her work worldwide since 2010. She was the first female of colour to ever compose and original score for the New York City Ballet Orchestra and is also the first ever black and Indigenous woman to be debuting as a TV host, writer and creator of a network show in Canada, LIDO TV; a variety show that explores themes like Feminism, Colonialism and Success, with a hilarious twist and the help of puppets. Pimienta’s music and visual work navigates politics of gender, race, motherhood and the construct of the Canadian Landscape in the South American diaspora and vernacular.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lidopimienta

Bandcamp: https://lidopimienta.bandcamp.com

Website: https://lidopimienta.com/

Mama’s Broke have spent the past eight years in a near-constant state of transience, pounding the transatlantic tour trail. They've brought their dark, fiery folk-without-borders sound to major festivals and DIY punk houses alike, absorbing traditions from their maritime home in Eastern Canada all the way to Ireland and Indonesia. Nowhere is the duo's art-in-motion approach more apparent than on their long-awaited sophomore record Narrow Line (May 13, 2022 on Free Dirt Records); it's the sound of nowhere in particular, yet woven with a rich synthesis of influences that knows no borders. It earned them a JUNO nomination for Traditional Roots Album of the Year 2022. The eleven songs on Narrow Line burrow deeply, with close harmony duets, commanding vocals, and poignant contemplations on cycles of life, including birth and death. Tinges of Americana stand side-by-side with the ghosts of Eastern European fiddle tunes and ancient a cappella ballad singing, melding into an unusually accessible dark-folk sound. A careful listen of Narrow Line invokes an ephemeral sense of place—whether real or imagined—inviting us to take comfort in the infinite possibilities of life, whether or not we ever choose to settle down. 

For a group defined by constant touring, it’s not surprising that the two artists that make up Mama’s Broke, Lisa Maria and Amy Lou Keeler, met on the road. As Lisa remembers it, “Amy was driving her old Mercedes from Montreal to Nova Scotia and I was looking for a ride. We spent the 17 hours in the car talking almost exclusively about music. By the time we reached Halifax we started playing together, and within a week or two became a band.” Both coming out of traveling communities that are focused on music and protest, the two owe the way in which they move through the world to the integrated and self-sustaining nature of DIY culture and activism. It was a busy life that took them on a roundabout annual touring schedule running between Canada, the United States, Ireland, the UK, and Europe. In each country, they built grassroots DIY communities to support their music or moved along the pathways of communal organizing that sustained other touring artists. 

The driving force behind this band is – and has always been – the commitment to challenge borders between people, places, and traditions; while encouraging freedom of expression and community through music.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mamasbroke/?hl=en

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Mamasbroke/

Website: https://mamasbroke.ca/

Tiny Desk Concert: https://youtu.be/yeFcUbGW1gA?si=o1IXCiXhRQSxe2C_

Alan Syliboy was born and raised in Truro and lives at Millbrook First Nation. He looks to the Indigenous Mi’kmaq petroglyph (stone etchings) tradition for inspiration, and developed his own artistic vocabulary out of those forms.

Alan Syliboy and The Thundermakers is Alan Syliboy – Group Leader, Spoken Word and Percussionist; Evan Syliboy – Lead Guitar; Lukas Pearse – Bassist, Sound Designer, and Video Mapping; Hubert Francis – Vocals and Guitar; Joanne Hatfield – Vocals, Guitar, Flute, Piano and Percussionist; Aaron Prosper – Vocals and Percussionist; Matt Gallant – drums.

Alan frequently calls upon other musicians and dancers to enhance his live performances.

Bandcamp: https://alansyliboyandthethundermakers.bandcamp.com

Thanya Iyer is an enigmatic songwriter who crafts sparkling, experimental pop music. Her live band features Pompey, Emilie Kahn, and Daniel Gélinas, whose acoustic and electronic contributions enliven serene, spiritual compositions. Thanya and the band’s arrangements empower listeners to embrace mindfulness, aesthetic beauty, and the interconnectedness of all things. The group has performed all over Turtle Island, supporting acts like Julia Holter, Land of Talk, Kimya Dawson, Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter, Jeff Parker, and Kevin Drew. Following their 2020 Polaris long-listed, sophomore visual album KIND, the band's new record, TIDE/TIED, navigates the rhythms of communal identity, healing, and loving, within a dissonant world.

Thanya Iyer; auteure-compositrice-interprète énigmatique au son effervescent avec des accents expérimentaux et pop.  Son trio en spectacle tisse une toile sonore au teintes autant électroniques qu'acoustiques de façon à entrainer le public dans un état de sérénité où la compassion et un sentiment spirituel semblent se manifester d'eux-mêmes. La groupe a joué toute autour Turtle Island en première partie d'artistes tels que Julia Holter, Land of Talk, Kimya Dawson, Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter, Jeff Parker, et Kevin Drew. Suite à leur deuxième album visuel, "KIND" (2020), qui figurait sur la longue liste du Prix Polaris, le nouveau disque du groupe, TIDE/TIED, explore les rythmes de l'identité communautaire, de la guérison et de l'amour dans un monde dissonant.

Website: www.thanyaiyer.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/thanyaiyer

Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thanyaiyer

Facebook: www.facebook.com/thanyaiyermusic

Bandcamp: www.thanyaiyer.bandcamp.com

Live video at PHI Nord: http://bit.ly/3FRMPw3

Mas Aya is the pseudonym of acclaimed Nicaraguan-Canadian composer, producer, and musician Brandon Miguel Valdivia. Over the past twenty years Valdivia has emerged as one of the most prolific and respected musicians in Canada. Until recently he was primarily known for his contributions to groups such as Not The Wind, Not The Flag, Picastro, The Cosmic Range, I Have Eaten The City, and alongside the GRAMMY Award-nominated Lido Pimienta. In addition to these projects Valdivia has also been heard alongside the likes of Laraaji, Bomba Estéreo, Tanya Tagaq, Sook-Yin Lee, U.S. Girls, Aidan Baker, Anthony Braxton, Michael Snow, John Oswald, and as remixer for Run The Jewels. He has toured widely as both an accompanist and soloist throughout Canada, the United States, Europe, Latin America, and China.

However, in 2021 Valdivia’s breakthrough LP as Mas Aya, Máscaras (Telephone Explosion Record), ushered in a new era. With warm reception from the likes of Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, the New York Times, and NPR it shed new and long-overdue light on his inventive compositional outlook.

Coming And Going is the follow-up to Máscaras and, much like its predecessor, it represents yet another colossal shift in Mas Aya’s creative journey. The fact that its title is so evocative of flux is no mistake; it’s an album that teems with subtle contradiction and restless intrigue, all the while carving pathways toward the reconciliation of these opposing sonic and thematic forces.

Bandcamp: https://masayamasaya.bandcamp.com/

Niko Stratis is a culture writer based in Toronto, Ontario by way of the Yukon where she spent close to two decades working as a journeyman glazier before coming out as a trans woman in her late 30s and being forced to abandon her previous line of work.

Now in her 40s, Niko provides a unique voice in cultural spaces seeking to work through lifelong traumas and emotional highs and lows through her work.

She has won a Digital Publishing Award for Best Personal Essay, and her work regularly appears in outlets like Spin magazine, Xtra, Paste Magazine and more. Her column in Catapult, Everyone Is Gay, was a widely read series that explored gender and sexuality in 90s music and music criticism, and its impact on her as a closeted queer and trans woman in her teen years. Her newsletter, Anxiety Shark, is a self-published weekly essay collection using music to explore her relationship to themes like gender and sobriety.

She lives in Toronto with her fiancé, their dog Bowie and two cats Winona and Ramona. She is a former smoker and a cancer.

Website: https://www.nikostratis.com/

Newsletter: https://www.anxietyshark.ca/

North Barn Theatre is a puppetry and design-led performance collective based out of Atlantic Canada. Formed by Laura Stinson and Ian McFarlane, North Barn Theatre creates playful community activations and poetic puppet shows that aim to provoke thought around critical social and ecological issues. McFarlane and Stinson are theatre makers, scenographers and puppeteers who have worked internationally across the United States, Canada and Europe with companies such as Bread and Puppet Theater, the Canadian Academy of Mask and Puppetry and The River Clyde Pageant. 

Bry Webb is a 47-year-old singer/songwriter from Southwestern Ontario. He was in a band called The Constantines, and he has released three studio albums and one live album under his own name on Ideé Fixe Records. His mom was an emergency department nurse and his dad was an elementary school teacher. He currently lives in Guelph, Ontario, where he works in community radio, fixing equipment and teaching people to record and share their voices. His most recent album, Run With Me, is a dynamic garage-folk thing featuring friends from over 25 years of music making, including Jennifer Castle, Julie Doiron, Daniel Romano, Michael Feuerstack, Ben Grossman, Rich Burnett and members of The Constantines. He is often accompanied live by his wonderful partner Steph Yates (Cots) on drums, percussion and vocals. They live in a red house with two cats named Max and Louise and two goldfish named Grizelda and Pope Jones the Second.

“…he looks at things from a perspective that sheds a deeper light… It’s more poetry than play-by-play, but at the same time, he’s telling us really evident stories. And it all culminates into something you feel more than think about, which is a feat… His voice has an authority to it and I’ve always believed that he believes in what he’s singing.” – Feist

Music: brywebb.bandcamp.com/album/run-with-me

Video: youtube.com/watch?v=dR_XZ3N5yoo

Website: brywebb.com

Instagram: instagram.com/mrbrywebb