Arts

Vancouver’s Jaclyn Guillou doesn’t hide away these days: the jazz vocalist is performing at this year’s Victoria International JazzFest, and she just released a new album, This Bitter Earth, a tribute to legendary jazz musician Dinah Washington. However, her singing began in a much more secretive fashion. “My piano teacher recognized that I had vocal […]

For lovers of the sea and dry land alike, Peter L. Gordon’s novel Stalking Salmon & Wrestling Drunks: Confessions of a Charter Boat Skipper provides a pleasing read about the complexities of people. Recalled in first person are true tales that took place aboard his charter fishing boat from 1978 to 1990. Born in Vietnam […]

Jennifer Manuel’s debut novel is a literary work of fiction based on the west coast of British Columbia, which inspired Manuel as she wrote the book. Manuel is very capable of sharing the fullness of what she writes about in The Heaviness of Things that Float. Using her experience from a lifetime dedicated to researching […]

Daniel Romano Mosey (New West Records) 4/5 Mosey is Daniel Romano’s fifth album, and it features 12 songs from the Ontario-based songwriter, all of which have different styles. Romano plays a lot of different genres on the album, such as pop, country, hip hop, modern classical, and a little jazz. Some parts are melodious and […]

Rachael Sage Choreographic (MPress Records) 3.5/5 Rachael Sage’s Choreographic is light and lofty and a welcome relief from the heavier sounds of today. Even if I put her lyrics aside, I have to say that Sage’s voice carries an inextinguishable hope, a melting of snow, a loved one telling you it will be all right […]

Hooded Fang Venus on Edge (Daps Records) 2.5/5 Toronto’s Hooded Fang continue to evolve on their fourth full-length. Leaving behind their previous identity as indie-surf-rockers, this electro-punk album moves them into deeper, heavier, and louder territory. From the first track, the listener is hit by the fast pace and high-pitched frequency over which the monotonous […]