Bio

Calgary, AB

It’s all in the voice. Calgary’s singular musical amazoness is a voice you have heard, even if you don’t recognize the name yet. Perhaps you heard her towering vocal performance fronting her fabulous funk fellowship Kate and the Comets during their performances at the Big Four during the Calgary Stampede, or her vibrant trio set at Folk Fest’s Summer Serenades. It’s almost certain that her laugh has weakened the clasp on your wallet during CKUA’s most recent funding efforts as the host of The Upload among many other audio appearances on the airwaves. You probably also heard her emceeing from the mainstage at Calgary Folk Fest as you sipped that sweet, sweet, sangria.

Her vocal is versatile, but eminently musical in all contexts. From a lilting lullaby accompanied by her tenor ukulele or adorable four-string Gretsch guitar, to a room-deadening roar, Kate’s festive flavour of R&B is as pretty as it is powerful, as Nina Simone as it is Aretha Franklin. A 7-time YYC Music award winner all while she is barely old enough to be considered mid-20s, Kate Stevens is a force for Calgary music, and a voice we guarantee you will want to hear again.

-Liam Prost

Bio

Calgary

Calgary’s introduction to this active, prolific audio/visual purveyor of psych-laden songcraft was his 2010 album Supermodern World of Beauty, produced with Jay Crocker, who introduced him to psych band Dead Horse. His utterance “I just bought a bass, I could fill in until you find someone else” set the stage for over a decade of collaboration and multi-instrumental session work with them, Ghostkeeper, Labcoast, Chad VanGaalen, Matt Swann and others, which ranged from multi-disciplinary experimental folk to post-disco.

The chemistry in Chad VanGaalen’s band, under the moniker The Bleach Wipes, lent itself to 2023’s Plant City collaboration with drummer Chris Dadge. Bourne played most other instruments and VanGaalen lent melody, synth, backing vocals. Other pals added violin, hurdy-gurdy, flute, bowed saw and saxophone. Recorded low-fi on voice memo and a 4-track tape machine, the sound evokes an enchanting futuristic, utopian/dystopian, peaceful post-apocalyptic vibe with ‘60s rock-and-roll, psychedelic and baroque pop sensibilities, a few field recordings and musique concrete nods woven in.

KC

Bio

Montreal, QC

Some bands can be described in terms of their influences. An attempt to list all the artists and genres that feed into TEKE::TEKE’s distinctive sound would blow through a word count within a single song. Surf rock and psychedelia are touchstones, as are punk-rock attitude and metal bombast—but none of those quite prepare you for a trombone solo bursting through the feedback, or a soaring flute doubling Maya Kuroki’s gorgeous vocal melodies. Toss your preconceptions aside; TEKE::TEKE isn’t interested in being remotely predictable.

Initially intended as a one-off tribute to Japanese guitar hero Takeshi Terauchi, TEKE::TEKE started in 2019 playing mostly instrumental surf-rock covers. Kuroki’s introduction to the band soon pushed them into unknown territory, her expressive voice stitching together the tangle of seemingly incompatible musical ideas. An actress and performance artist, she keeps the songs emotionally grounded, even as she veers from spoken word and soft balladry to outright howls, all in her native Japanese.

Now touring behind their sophomore album, 2023’s Hagata, TEKE::TEKE have somehow become tighter and more chaotic, more eclectic and yet more defined. Bouncing between dual-guitar riffs, hushed interludes, and cosmic jams, it’s as if the septet shares a single mind—they’ve tapped into one weird wavelength, but there’s no doubt they’re all tuned in to the same frequency.

PH