A 19-year-old Canadian fiddler continues to make waves on the national folk scene, with Irish Millie earning a Canadian Folk Music Award nomination for Single of the Year and recognition as a nominee for Folk Music Ontario’s 2025 Performing Artist of the Year.

SWOMP caught up with Millie to discuss the recognition.

Millie received the Single of the Year nomination for “You Were There,” a standout track from her EP Between Then and Now. The honour marks her seventh Canadian Folk Music Award nomination and her fifth consecutive nod for Young Performer of the Year, a category in which she has been recognized every year since releasing her debut album Thirteen in 2021.

The Peterborough native released Between Then and Now on July 6, 2025, via LaunchPad Records. The four-track EP highlights her continued artistic growth, blending East Coast fiddle drive, bluegrass energy, and contemporary traditional influences. “You Were There,” co-written with Matthew Cicciarella, features Millie on fiddle and vocals alongside Cicciarella on guitar, with additional electric guitar and string arrangements by producer Tyler Martin.

Produced by Martin at Electric Alchemy and mastered by Gregory Pastic, the single showcases Millie’s ability to craft emotionally resonant songs that respect folk traditions while exploring new textures. Other tracks on the EP, including “Allison,” “Mystery to Me,” and “WASTED,” further demonstrate her range, from stripped-down fiddle-and-guitar arrangements to fuller productions incorporating piano and drums.

A multi-instrumentalist who performs on fiddle, vocals, piano, guitar, and foot percussion, Millie has built a distinctive sound that has resonated with audiences across Canada, the United States, and Europe. Her previous album GRACE drew praise from Celtic music standouts Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy, who described it as “fresh, lively… cool tunes and great playing.” FolkWorld Magazine’s Alex Monaghan has highlighted the passion and energy at the heart of her music, citing its sense of fun, fire, and feeling.

Millie recently wrapped up her second East Coast Holiday Tour with long-time collaborator Luka Hall, performing a series of intimate Ontario shows between late December and early January. The annual holiday run has become a growing tradition, pairing Millie’s Celtic folk fiddle style with Hall’s acoustic songwriting and emphasizing storytelling, collaboration, and audience participation.

A past Peterborough Folk Festival Emerging Artist of the Year and recipient of the Peterborough Civic Award for Community Betterment for her “Fiddling for Fox” campaign, Millie is currently studying Music Industry and Technology at the University of Toronto while continuing to tour and record. She is supported on stage by her father, Murray Shadgett, on guitar. Planning is underway for a broader tour in July 2026, with dates expected across Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic Canada.

Follow her at https://irishmillie.ca/.

Photo credit: Mary Payne

CMAOntario-nominated duo Amanda & James are set to return on Feb. 6 with their new single “Comeback,” a playful, harmony-driven release arriving via Symphonic Music.

The track follows a breakout year for the fast-rising Canadian country act and continues to build momentum as they emerge as one of the genre’s most talked-about new duos.

SWOMP caught up with the duo for an interview.

“Comeback” is described as a definitive breakup anthem, centred on closing the door for good rather than reopening old chapters. Written by Sam Daviau, Ali Dutton and Joey DePaiva, the song immediately resonated with the duo, who were drawn to its cheeky confidence and nostalgic edge. Amanda & James bring the track to life with their signature blend of bluesy melodies, bouncy grooves and the tight, soaring harmonies that have become a hallmark of their sound.

The single was produced by Matt Koebel, a CMAOntario and CCMA nominee, with mixing and mastering handled by seven-time JUNO nominee Brandon Unis. Sonically, the song leans into hook-heavy country-pop energy while lyrically celebrating the freedom that comes with walking away for good, firmly shutting the door on any idea of a reunion.

The new release follows a standout year for the pair, who were recently nominated for Group or Duo of the Year at the 2025 CMAOntario Awards.

Amanda Kind, from White Rock, B.C., and James Downham, originally from Pembroke with ties to Picton and Stratford, Ont., have built a reputation for dynamic live performances and strong audience connection. Their ongoing success includes the fan-favourite show Time of My Life: The Greatest Duets in Concert, which has helped grow their national profile.

“Comeback” is available Feb. 6. More information about Amanda & James can be found at amandaandjamesmusic.com.

Canadian-born, Nashville-based country artist Drew Taylor is continuing his steady rise with the release of the music video for his latest single “MAKERS,” unveiled via All Country News.

The song leans into the slow burn of unexpected chemistry, drawing a vivid parallel between falling in love and savoring a good whiskey, where each moment lingers and deepens with time.

SWOMP caught up with Taylor for an interview to discuss the track.

“MAKERS” arrives at a pivotal moment for Taylor, who recently signed with independent label T&L Records Nashville and is building momentum off a growing catalog of streaming and chart success. The single is positioned as the start of a new chapter, with more music on the way and an audience that continues to expand on both sides of the border.

Born in Waterloo, Ont., Taylor’s path to country music was anything but typical. Raised around music through his father, who played alongside country icons such as George Strait and Kenny Rogers, Taylor still found himself fronting a screamo band in Canada, sharing stages with acts like Underoath and Atreyu. For years, music competed with other responsibilities, including work as a firefighter and entrepreneur, before he committed fully to songwriting and performing.

That commitment has translated into tangible results. In 2022, Taylor earned wildcard winner honours at the Boots & Hearts Emerging Artist Showcase, performing on the festival’s Front Porch stage. The following year, his single “Wish I Didn’t” reached No. 1 on SiriusXM’s Top of the Country. In early 2025, “Nobody I Know” continued the upward trajectory, surpassing a quarter-million streams on Spotify and cementing his place among Canada’s most promising country exports.

Songs such as “Music To My Beers” and “Get The Truck Outta Here” have further showcased Taylor’s blend of modern country production and sharp, relatable lyrics, with several tracks finding a home on the Music Row Country Breakout Chart. Along the way, he has shared the stage with artists including Tanya Tucker, Kane Brown, Paul Brandt and Cory Marks, gaining experience that has shaped his confident, road-tested sound.

Despite the accolades and growing profile, Taylor remains grounded in his approach to songwriting. Connecting with listeners has always been the priority. “If a song touches somebody, then I’ve done my job,” he said, a philosophy that continues to guide his work.

With “MAKERS,” Drew Taylor reinforces that his rise has been built patiently and deliberately, honoring the traditions of country music while pushing its edges forward. As new music looms, the proof, as the song suggests, is in the pour.

Follow https://www.drewtaylorofficial.com/ for all the latest updates.

Photo credit: Allen Clark

Canadian Roots and Soul vocal collective AV & the Inner City are turning inward on their new single, “Dinner With the Lord,” an acapella track that reflects on where people seek comfort during times of uncertainty.

Released Nov. 21, the song is a stripped-down acapella interpretation of a composition by fellow Edmonton porch-concert musician Alin Rogoz. It marks the first recording by the group that was not written by founder Ann Vriend, known professionally as AV.

SWOMP caught up with AV for an interview.

Recorded live around a single microphone, “Dinner With the Lord” features no edits, isolation or studio enhancements. The approach places the focus squarely on vocal blend, trust and shared intuition, drawing on gospel, soul and roots influences without leaning into traditional religious framing.

The song explores themes of faith, memory, community and connection, inviting listeners to consider what they reach for when familiar sources of support feel out of reach. Rather than offering resolution, the track creates space for reflection and shared experience.

AV & the Inner City formed during the COVID-19 pandemic on a front porch in Edmonton’s McCauley neighbourhood, where weekly outdoor singalongs were held to maintain connection during lockdowns. Those gatherings evolved into an all-female vocal ensemble representing Indigenous, Black, Filipino, LGBTQ, immigrant and working-class voices.

The group’s self-titled debut EP, released in October, has gained national attention and is currently ranked No. 7 on the CKUA Radio Top 30. The release has also received support from CBC, SiriusXM, Edify and Porter Airlines Magazine.

“Dinner With the Lord” serves as the closing track on the EP, bringing the project full circle by echoing the communal porch-singing roots that first brought the ensemble together.

In just three years, AV & the Inner City have completed a summer tour and appeared at major festivals including the Calgary Folk Festival, Vancouver Island Music Festival and Edmonton Folk Festival, where they received an Emerging Artist Award.

Follow the group at https://www.avandtheinnercity.ca/.

Photo credit: Lulubee Photography

Canadian folk-country band School House will release their new single, Live While I’m Alive, on Jan. 16 across all major streaming platforms, marking the next chapter for the fast-rising group as they prepare for a national tour and their second full-length album.

Band member Joel Ryan says the song reflects the tension of modern adulthood, touching on financial stress, self-doubt and the uncertainty that often defines a quarter-life period. Rather than offering easy solutions, Live While I’m Alive leans into imperfection, encouraging listeners to let go of constant comparison and focus on living in the present.

The single arrives ahead of School House’s highly anticipated sophomore album, Homeland, scheduled for release on Feb. 27, 2026.

Formed in 2021 after three best friends moved into a century-old schoolhouse together, the band quickly gained attention for its harmony-driven sound and songwriting rooted in late-night, campfire-style sessions.

Since then, School House has built steady national momentum, winning the 2025 Boots and Hearts Emerging Artist Showcase and earning Group of the Year at the 2024 Ottawa Music Awards. Their debut release was also named Album of the Year by Faces Magazine.

The band is signed to the Paquin Agency for live representation and has toured with the Strumbellas, opened for Alan Doyle, and continued to expand its presence on stages across the country.

To support the new single and upcoming album, School House will join Braden Lam on the “Freewheelin’ Field Trip” tour in March 2026, with stops throughout Atlantic Canada, Quebec and Ontario.

Tour dates include:

March 5 – Halifax, N.S. – Seahorse Tavern March 6 – Truro, N.S. – Marigold Cultural Centre March 7 – Miramichi, N.B. – New Maritime Beer March 8 – Charlottetown, P.E.I. – The Guild March 10 – Moncton, N.B. – Xeroz Arcade Bar March 11 – Fredericton, N.B. – The Cap March 13 – Quebec City, Que. – L’Anti March 14 – Ottawa, Ont. – Overflow Brewing March 15 – Kingston, Ont. – Broom Factory March 18 – St. Catharines, Ont. – Warehouse March 19 – Toronto, Ont. – Rivoli March 20 – Windsor, Ont. – Meteor March 21 – London, Ont. – London Brewing Company March 22 – Kitchener, Ont. – Boathouse

Follow the band at https://schoolhouseband.com/.

Photo credit: Cam Forrester

Multi award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter, pianist and broadcaster Laila Biali has earned her first Grammy nomination, landing in one of the ceremony’s most closely watched categories.

Biali is nominated for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album alongside Brandi Carlile, Elton John, Lady Gaga, Barbra Streisand, Jennifer Hudson and rising star Laufey, placing the Canadian artist in rarefied company and bringing new international attention to her latest work.

SWOMP caught up with Biali for an interview.

The nomination recognizes Wintersongs, an album inspired by and written at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Biali has a long-standing relationship with the Banff Centre, and that connection is woven deeply into the record. Much of the album was written during a winter residency in the Rocky Mountains, where she worked from a quiet cabin surrounded by snow-covered peaks. The setting shaped both the mood and scope of the music, which moves with a cinematic sense of space, reflecting winter light, drifting snow and the stillness of Banff’s landscape.

What makes the nomination particularly notable is how it came about.

The album was initially submitted in the jazz category, but the Recording Academy moved it into Traditional Pop, a decision that immediately placed Biali alongside global icons and significantly effected the album’s visibility. The category itself has recently been highlighted by Billboard for its growing influence, adding further weight to the nomination.

While Biali is a well-established and respected artist in Canada, her profile in the United States has been comparatively modest. For an independent Canadian artist to receive Grammy recognition for a project so closely tied to a Canadian winter landscape stands out, especially in a category often dominated by major international stars. The response suggests that the themes and atmosphere of Wintersongs have resonated beyond borders, connecting with American Grammy voters through its craft and emotional clarity.

The recognition also arrives at a busy moment for Biali. She is set to return to Banff in mid-December to begin work on a new project, Dreamland: The Canadian Songbook Reimagined, which explores iconic Canadian material through a contemporary lens. She has also released a new holiday single, an extended version of “Joy to the World,” adding a timely seasonal chapter to an already landmark year.

With her first Grammy nomination now secured, Biali’s Wintersongs stands as both a personal milestone and a broader moment for Canadian music, demonstrating how a project grounded in place and season can find an audience on the world’s biggest stage.

Follow her at https://lailabiali.com/.

Photo credit: Chris Nicholls

HEALTH have never been a band to sugarcoat the state of things, but their new album CONFLICT DLC—out today on Loma Vista Recordings—might be their most direct confrontation yet with the emotional fallout of living online, living overwhelmed, and living through a world that feels permanently tilted toward chaos.

The Los Angeles industrial trio have spent nearly two decades expanding, exploding, and mutating the boundaries of heavy music. With CONFLICT DLC, they deliver 12 tracks that feel like the next evolutionary jump in their ongoing descent: hyper-charged industrial metal, dense digital noise, bleakly funny lyricism, and a maximalist aesthetic that hits like a steel-toothed synthwave cyclone.

SWOMP caught up with bassist John Famiglietti for an interview to discuss the album.

Where 2023’s RAT WARS leaned into corrosive hooks and “cum metal” absurdism, CONFLICT DLC sharpens everything, emotionally, sonically, and thematically. Produced again by STINT, with mixing from Drew Fulk (WZRD BLD) and Lars Stalfors, the album pushes the band’s cinematic heaviness into an even more concentrated blast radius. It’s an album built for a fanbase the band affectionately describes as “a coalition of subcultures”, memelords, heavy-music obsessives, digital weirdos, and everyone drawn to the catharsis of beautiful noise.

Jake Duzsik’s lyrics roam familiar territory, depression, compulsion, anxiety, but now framed in the hyper-digital exhaustion of 2025’s doomscroll culture. “No, it’s not just your imagination. The future is shit and the phone you are reading this on is making it worse,” he deadpans in the album’s announcement, capturing the tone of CONFLICT DLC perfectly: devastating truths delivered with a smirk, wrapped inside earth-splitting industrial arrangements.

Despite the emotional weight, this is one of the band’s most purely enjoyable albums—a slate of “sad bangers for the end times,” designed as much for release as it is for reflection.

Before the album’s arrival, HEALTH dropped “ORDINARY LOSS,” their heaviest opener yet. With serrated riffs, suffocating textures, and Duzsik’s grim mantra - “The dead are blessed with no dreams”- the track announced CONFLICT DLC as a ferocious new chapter. It’s an intimidating start, but undeniably gripping.

HEALTH are currently in South America on Pierce the Veil’s massive I Can’t Hear You World Tour, with dates across Bogota, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, and São Paulo. In the spring, they’ll return to North America with a run of mixed U.S. and Canadian stops.

Canadian dates include:

April 4 - Vancouver, BC - Vogue Theatre

April 14 - Toronto, ON - History

April 15 - Montreal, QC - MTelus

Full details and additional tour dates are available at youwillloveeachother.com.

Photo credit: Mynxii White

Canadian rock legends Lighthouse are revisiting one of their most celebrated works with the release of One Fine Morning (Anniversary Edition), arriving Nov. 7 through Anthem Records.

The release marks the first time the platinum-selling album has been fully remixed, remastered and expanded.

It will be available on limited-edition three-colour-splatter vinyl, sun/moon vinyl, double CD and digital formats.

SWOMP caught up with founding member Paul Hoffert for an interview to discuss the release.

Originally released in 1971, One Fine Morning helped establish Lighthouse as one of Canada’s most innovative and influential bands, known for fusing rock, jazz and classical elements into a distinctive sound. The title track became a radio staple and remains one of the country’s most recognizable rock anthems.

“When we chat with our new and younger audiences at concerts and on social media, they ask for records and streaming of Lighthouse’s classic hits along with ‘extras’ that provide personal and historical perspective,” said Hoffert. “This anniversary edition provides both. In 1970, producer Jimmy Ienner and lead singer Bob McBride helped focus our music, lyrics and orchestral rock into a more broadcast-friendly format that attracted a much wider fan base. We hope listeners enjoy hearing these songs and demos as much as we loved making them.”

The anniversary edition includes a remixed and remastered version of the original album, as well as unreleased material such as “All God’s Children,” a previously unheard song from the 1970 sessions co-written by Larry Smith and Academy Award-winning composer Howard Shore. Other highlights include demo versions of “One Fine Morning” and “Sing, Sing, Sing” with drummer Skip Prokop on lead vocals, a CBC live performance of “World’s Biggest Rock & Roll Band,” and several early takes of songs that would later define the Lighthouse sound.

Each track captures the band’s creative momentum at a time when Lighthouse was redefining the scope of progressive rock.

In recognition of their lasting impact on Canadian music, Skip Prokop, Paul Hoffert, Ralph Cole and Bob McBride were inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2022. The following year, Lighthouse was added to Canada’s Walk of Fame.

More than 50 years after their breakthrough, the band continues to tour across the country, with upcoming shows scheduled in Guelph on Feb. 5, Pickering on Feb. 21 alongside the Five Man Electrical Band, and St. Catharines on April 1.

Formed in 1969 by Prokop and Hoffert, Lighthouse became known as a “rock orchestra” for its fusion of genres and large ensemble performances. The multi-JUNO Award-winning group earned international acclaim with hits including “One Fine Morning,” “Sunny Days,” “Pretty Lady,” and “Hats Off (To the Stranger).”

With One Fine Morning (Anniversary Edition), Lighthouse continues to celebrate its enduring legacy and the timeless energy that first brought its music to audiences more than five decades ago.

Follow the band at https://www.lighthouserockson.com/.