Toronto-based singer-songwriter Julian Taylor has been part of the musical fabric and landscape in Canada for over two decades. Taylor enjoyed a breakthrough year in 2020, when his second solo album, The Ridge which earned praise from press worldwide, and airplay from America to Australia to the U.K. In addition to winning Taylor Solo Artist of the Year at the Canadian Folk Music Awards, The Ridge was also nominated for: two Juno Awards (Contemporary Folk Album of The Year, Indigenous Artist or Group of the Year), the Polaris Prize Long List, a Summer Solstice Indigenous Award (Contemporary Folk Album of the Year), a Canadian Music Week INDIES Award (Indigenous Artist of the Year), and an additional Canadian Folk Music Awards nomination in the English Songwriter of the Year category. The nominations and awards kept coming in 2022, with Taylor winning best male artist in the International Acoustic Music Awards, and scoring five Native American Music Award nominations. His latest full-length, Beyond the Reservoir, is an album that addresses identity, loss, sadness, hope, and redemption. The themes of resilience, courage, and strength are prevalent in every carefully-chosen lyric. It contains a gentle spiritual thread that runs throughout the album touching on each of the elements, like fire, water, air, and earth as they relate to humanity. It is a coming-of-age story and a beautifully-orchestrated successor to The Ridge. In 2024 Julian received a Juno nomination for Contemporary Roots Album of the Year for Beyond The Reservoir and sang with Alison Russell, Aysanabee, William Prince, Logan Staats, and Shawnee Kish in the In Memoriam performance of The Band's "The Weight". Julian's recent single “Weighing Down” made waves on CBC Music's Top 20.

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“A veteran singer-songwriter with more than two decades’ experience, this soft-spoken Canadian might be the best unlicensed therapist you’ll ever encounter, offering empathy and occasional hard truths as he strives to make a difficult world more bearable… Too honest to offer false hope, but too compassionate to look away, Julian Taylor is an insightful observer of humanity’s relentless drama.” – No Depression

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Bob Sumner believes that music is made to evolve. On latest work, Some Place to Rest Easy, you’ll hear countrypolitan strings alongside ambient sensibilities; tasteful synth tracks followed seamlessly by numbers with dobro and steel guitar. It's an album that takes as much inspiration from the audio production of Randy Travis as it does the lyrical soul of Big Thief’s Adrienne Lenker — a melding of eras, sounds, concepts, and stylings that’s informed by the past, but never bound by it. If an imaginary space exists somewhere between Austin,Bakersfield, and his hometown of Vancouver, Bob Sumner found it with his sophomore record, Some Place To Rest Easy. Sumner’s refusal to copy and paste from the greats of the past informs his every musical step. “All of my heroes, all the people that did it so well — whether it be George Jones or Willie, Waylon, whoever—they weren't these museum pieces,” he explains. “They were always creating something new, something different. ”This approach to taking old tried-and-true recipes and moving forward with them paid dividends with Sumner’s debut record Wasted Love Songs. “First-class Americana,” said No Depression. “Pure gold,” opined the Georgia Straight. “Has the heft and heart of an instant classic,” declared Broadway World. Audiences acrossN orth America agreed when Sumner lit out and provided opening duties for the likes of Colter Wall, Willie Watson, Kelsey Waldon, Corb Lund, and J.P. Harris. In Texas, while on a support tour he was invited onstage by new friend and admirer Hayes Carll, and at a showcase in Nashville, Sumner planted his flag at the world-famous Bluebird Cafe — fulfilling a lifelong dream in the process. Of Some Place To Rest Easy, friend and labelmate Jeffrey Martin states, “Bob Sumner writes a hell of a song and this album is a love letter to a country sound we don’t hear anymore. Lots of people are going to feel like someone out there understands them when they hear this record. Lots of couples will slow dance in the kitchen. Singles will slow dancewith their dogs. Dudes will get teary in the truck on the way home from work”. Some Place To Rest Easy was released September 6 on The North Country Collective (Canada) and Fluff & Gravy Records (worldwide). 

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"It takes a deft hand to put out a good, sad record. Go a little too far in one direction and it borders on the tragic. A little excess in the other way and it’s a self-pitying, woe-is-me tale no one wants to hear. But if you nail it, it’s a crying-in-your-beer sound to make Hank Williams or George Jones fans question their allegiance. Bob Sumner nails it on Someplace To Rest Easy." – Twangville