By Will McGuirk

Its time I think for all of us to take a breath. Its been one hell of a year. Although we collectively hit the pause button back in Spring its still been go go go, an incessant propulsive hammering of dread, and with the country opening up, schools back and bubbles enlarged that sense of dread is amplified. I miss festivals. I go annually to rejuvenate my soul. I need it, I need trees and water and dirt and campfires at dusk and sky, so much sky. But there are trees in my yard and sky between the buildings in my city and water a drive away so I have been getting my festival vibes in fragments but still getting them. So do yourself a favour, grab some campfire vibes, go small, go slow, choose time, choose tunes, where ever you can, however you can, find a moment; outside, away from it all, remove the mask and breathe in deeply. As deeply as you can, feel it as deeply as you can, fill your boots. . . , pause. . . , and then strap on the mask and get back in the fight.

“I kept trying to find ways of communicating this illusive feeling that seems to plague my generation. This access to everything, but the need for nothing – it manifests itself in all aspects of our lives, from relationships, to the internet.” - Sameer Cash

“As we took this journey without the noise, the people, and the parties in our warehouse apartment, along with the constant grind outside, I found beauty in the stillness of our block.” - LAL

"Essentially, in my mind, it comes back to the need for some light. A way forward. To shine some kind of bright light on the future, the path that we’re walking and not giving in to despair," - Sam Roberts

By Will McGuirk

To have hope but not faith. To continue although experience says other. To build, to make, to write, to sing, to continue. forward . . even as 2020 becomes a year of looking back and accepting we collectively took the wrong fork in the road. Will we ever learn? Look to the artist as they forge ahead, voyageurs on the stream which engulfs the rest of us.

“At the moment, living in a complicated quarantine surrounded by invisible (and not-so-invisible) plagues upon us, fragmentation is palpable: a splintering of social ties, of nature's capacity to regenerate, of something vague that once felt stable and now feels unreal...... All of these things hover between us and within us.” - Peter Burr, Austra art collaborator

“I have this idea in my head that our music generally feels out of place against the backdrop of summer, but the dynamic of the city in its current condition really captured the solitude and confusion behind the song in a way that feels compelling.” - James Thomson, Nation of Language

“‘The Swans’ is a present day, apocalypse-era reply to Springsteen's ‘Dancing In The Dark’ or Bowie’s ‘Modern Love’. I wrote it before the pandemic, but in anticipation of the need to live above and against the fire and brimstone, to forever fall in love with the natural world. “ - NYSSA

Scenic Route to Alaska · Closer

Low Float · Here Before

Slowcity.ca Open Mic with Arkells, Sameer Cash, summersets, Krief, Le Couleur, LAL, Sam Roberts Band, METZ, and the Happy Fits

Slowcity.ca Open Mic with Jerry Leger and Don Stevenson , Dana Gavanski, Austra, Nation of Language, NYSSA, PUP, Scenic Route to Alaska, Low Floats, All We Are, and the Happy Fits