Supported by the Canadian Consulate General

Headlining our annual celebration of Canadian music is Halifax, Nova Scotia’s own Sloan. Four guys obsessed with the Beatles and ‘70s glam rock, Sloan hit big in their native Canada during the early ‘90s with concise and melodic power pop. But it wasn’t until 1996’s One Chord To Another that they “broke” in America. Last year’s critically-acclaimed Never Hear The End Of It plays like the second side of The Beatles’ Abbey Road: 30 songs—some less than a minute long—that blend into each other to form a kind of epic rock ‘n roll suite.

Canada Day wouldn’t be Canada Day without at least one connection to Broken Social Scene, the Toronto-based indie-rock collective. This year, the connection comes from Apostle Of Hustle. Inspired by a two-month-long trip to Cuba, BSS lead guitarist Andrew Whiteman founded Apostle as a means of exploring his new found love for Spanish music, particularly the Cuban guitar, or tres. The band’s sophomore album, National Anthem Of Nowhere, marries electric guitar experimentation to flamenco strumming and Afro-Cuban beats. In March of this year, Spin magazine said that “Whiteman recombines mambo, Americana, and mesmerizing BSS-style rock with infectiously rambling results.”

Though they ended up losing to The Dixie Chicks, The Duhks’ recent Grammy® nomination for “Best Country Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal” was a sweet victory for the five-piece from Winnipeg. Neo-folkies with a decidedly contemporary bent, the young members of The Duhks combine gospel, folk, samba, Celtic, zydeco and country string band sounds into a kind of joyful Western hemispheric bop.