ON THE COVER

Maylee Todd
Maylee Todd has made a practice of embracing everything, especially when it comes to crafting a uniquely weird aesthetic-such as her busy digital avatar Maloo-out of manipulated technologies. Sara Constant traces the versatile singer-songwriter, producer, and multimedia artist's path through disparate genres, practices, and worlds. From earlier albums built on soul and funk to newer work that delves into the hopes and pitfalls of virtual reality, Todd reflects on how her creative practice has grown, and grown up, with her-and the ways in which her delight in the possibilities of strange has led her toward new musical forms, and new connections.

Joshua Van Tassel
In the late summer of 2024, writer-photographer Matt Horseman made a series of visits to producer, composer, and digital instrument maker Joshua Van Tassel's Dream Date Studios, a compact, active haven that has attracted an array of notable East Coast singer-songwriters and creative musicians. Van Tassel describes the evolution of his collaborative working methods as a go-to drummer-for-hire and simpatico producer, and how these experiences and encounters have influenced his own writing and pointed him in new creative and entrepreneurial directions.

Kaïa Kater
From a young age, Kaïa Kater found a refuge in songwriting. Her 2015 debut Sorrow Bound merged her Grenadian Canadian heritage with her immersion in the Appalachian clawhammer banjo tradition. After the 2024 release of Strange Medicine, Kater talks to Chaka V. Grier about the album's inspiration, Grenadian revolutionary hero Julian Fédon, as well as her successful foray into the world of film and her practice of nurturing the new sides of herself as a woman, artist, and business person.

Alexis Baro
Soon after moving to Toronto from Cuba, trumpeter Alexis Baro started playing with jazz drummer Archie Alleyne's Kollage, a hot jazz ensemble at the time. "It was like, 'Oh my God, this is heaven!'" he tells Gloria Blizzard. Baro riffs on the history of the Cuban trumpet and Afro-Cuban jazz, and his mission as a bandleader.

ALSO INSIDE
Trumpeter Chuck Copenace's unique jazz fusion is rooted in his explorational the electroacoustic studio's tools and his experiences learning about the songs of his culture in the lodge. Story by Michael Elves.

Composer Kalaisan Kalaichelvan's music ranges from film scores to concert pieces, and encompass real and imagined multiverses with artifacts of translation and transference. Story by Juro Kim Feliz.

The Burning Hell's DIY ethos flows through everything they do, with climate crisis both the reason for their sustainable practices and the theme of their buoyant songs. Story by Mary Dickie.

REVIEWED: The Music Gallery's X Avant festival (Toronto) and the Art Gallery of Ontario exhibition "The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century" (Toronto). New Recordings by: Manuella Blackburn; Yves Charuest; Sarah Davachi; Godspeed You! Black Emperor; Andile Khumalo; Emilie Cecilia LeBel; Peggy Lee & Cole Schmidt; Friendly Rich featuring Joan Smith & the Jane Does; Marsella Duncan; The Necks; Juliet Palmer; Scions; and Colin Stetson.