Best Songs Of 2023

 

Up at the top of the song chain, where inspiration and eloquence

entwine with chord changes and mate with melody, there is a rarefied

cosmos of bliss that streams down into our perceptions, our dancing

motions, into our interpersonal magnetic fields and feelings and

influences, delivered by messengers of great sensitivity who are often

even more overwhelmed than we are by the beauties and emotional

insights that they have ushered into our consciousnesses.

 

Canadians, famously, do this rather well.

 

This year, especially, with the loss of such song royalty as Gordon

Lightfoot and Robbie Robertson, and the retiring of our two Queens,

 Sylvia and Buffy, we have come to appreciate the need

for new waves of talent to shoal up our shores with wonder, and

initiate musical parties in our hearts. Fortunately, we have many

such champions close at hand.

 

Julian Taylor played the inaugural performance on Toronto’s

new Hugh’s Room Live stage last year, and he magnified the

 significance of the event by premiering a new song, Seeds, which he

 had just co-written with T.O. poet Robert Priest. The song is

 irrevocably provocative and confidently hopeful, and has, since then,

 flown like milkweed to conquer a world of ears, increasing its spread

 this year with the release of a more recent acoustic distillate.

 Click here

William Prince is another reliable wellspring of northern song. His

compositions are as beautiful as his gentle, deep voice. These

qualities have powers that can quiet a room full of Torontonians

and even darken their cell phones. His song When You Miss Someone

from the Stand In The Joy album is full of articulate imagery and

 faceted with tingling guitar and dynamic nuances. It “Tears you

 apart… and then some.”

Click Here:

Victoria’s Layla Zoe makes big notes and big emotions that flare up

 and scorch you with their power. Usually categorized as a blues

 singer, her major song-writing skills often go unnoticed in the shadow

 of her vicious guitar playing and blazing stage presence, which has

 been more visible in Europe than in Canada for the last few years.

Nevertheless, her outstanding tune The World Could Change sums

 up, with a tentative hesitancy, the activist’s challenge in attempting to

effect change by lighting a flame “to disable their plans”, equating

the sense of physical isolation with the feeling of political 

helplessness. Click here:

The fire metaphor is also put to good use by veteran musical

partisan Ken Whiteley on his So Glad I’m Here album. His song

There’s A Candle, deriving lyrically from the wisdom of Rumi, the

metaphysical poet, and surges with a complex undertow created by

bassist George Koller and gleaming flurries of instrumental filigree

 from the Persian tar, udu, and daf performed, respectively, by Davod

Azad and Al Qahwa’s Nagmeh Faramand. Ken’s voice rings with the

confident reassurance of a survivor to lift the song to greatness.  

Click Here:

 

Noah Zacharin has greatness down to a molecular level. He thinks

 about everything, he rounds his ideas up and, in performance and

conversation, edits like lightning, while keeping his listeners engaged

with a seemingly whimsical insouciance. The rewards of this

approach are abundant on his 2023 release, Points Of Light, where

his prodigious poetic sense and fleet fingers combine to produce a

flawless album of originals. The deepest cut, to my ear, is So Much

 Work To Be Done, a lament for Guy Clark, but take your pick. They

 are all unique little victories. Click here:

 

As Jerry Leger’s star has slowly risen, thanks to his industrious touring

schedule, his loyal maintenance of a well-integrated and muscular

band, and his labour-intensive recording projects (20 albums in 18

years), the charm and fury of his music has been gradually ramping up

to the rolling boil displayed on his most recent release, Donlands.

Once again, due to the uniform excellence of the music, it’s difficult to

pick out a tune with a gradient more explicit than the others, but Three

Hours Ahead Of Midnight, certainly bears all the hooks, lines and kinks

of a potential hit. Click here:

 

American songstress Annie Gallup’s The Sky At Night is the lead track

 on her Small Fortune album and it breathes with the breath of barbed

wisdom while it pulses throughout with measured vectors and drifting

bell tones. “Between beauty and truth no distance at all.” Perhaps the

most lusciously beautiful song on my list. Click here:

 

Sometimes I think that Delaney’s Dad is the most important song of

 the year. Because of the simplicity and honesty of Moira & Claire’s

 special vocal delivery, it just seems like an overdue eleventh

 commandment for inter- generational respect, kindness, and courage.

 The light-hearted Nova Scotians tickle your integrity bone with their

 lyrics and your ear bones with their candied, conversational 

harmonies. Click here:

 

The objective of producing a homegrown Jamaican / Canadian reggae

variant with a cultivated sturdiness and sense of equity all our own has

been a goal of Toronto’s musical community for decades. We hit the

mark this year with What Ah Joy, a song by The Memberz, enhanced

 by lyrical input from Juno champ Exco Levi.

 

Josh & Katie Pascoe are a roots couple making their way up out of the

underbrush of the old-growth Canadian music scene with truly new

ideas. Working as Fresh Breath, they are taking all the right trails and

 touring relentlessly in advance of their upcoming album, Through My

Window. The title track is a good way to close off this overly-short

overview of what has been a great year of abundant creativity in our

country. This song goes by so fast, but the vapours will linger with you,

and hopefully enfold your inner ear with a lively hope as we 

 anchor up to the near shore of 2024. Click here: