ifitbeyourwill Podcast #186 • Widemouth

Chicago's Widemouth joins the podcast to explore the friendships at the heart of their remarkable debut, No Gasoline. Mak Carnahan and Jamie Eder reflect on finding collaborators through a simple flyer, writing songs rooted in memory and community, recording with trust instead of perfection, and why the quiet moments between people often make the most enduring music. It's a thoughtful conversation about growing up, staying grounded, and building a band that feels like home.

https://bfan.link/no-gasoline-album

Ostrea Lake • Wild Flowers • 2014

Django Django • Cameos • 2026

 

"Cameos" captures themes of grief, isolation, memory and the fleeting nature of human connections present in the record. "Like a lot of the album, the lyrics are much more inward looking and about journeying through grief and how important people are only there for part of your story,” says Jim Dixon of the band and the single’s lyric writer.

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ifitbeyourwill Podcast #185 • Knife in the Water

Some records don't age—they deepen. Nearly thirty years after Knife in the Water quietly reshaped the edges of alt-country and slowcore, Aaron Blount joins ifitbeyourwill to revisit the landscapes that first inspired the band and the memories that still echo through its songs. It's a conversation about Austin before it changed, music that refuses easy categories, and the strange privilege of watching old songs find new lives in new listeners.

https://www.knifeinthewater.net/

Ada Lea • copycat • 2026

https://adalea.scfm.me/theendisawave

 

For this EP, I wanted to combine songs that were cut from when i paint my masterpiece, as well as the ones I’d recorded a million years ago when I was just a child. It was to test their fragility. How would they behave next to the other? The old and the new? The brave and the haunted? The impression and the finely sculpted. I also decided to mix three of the songs myself (was it a mistake? you tell me…I says). I’ve been thinking of the kind of artist I’d like to be, and how I’d like to see all artists treated. I am most at home when I am creating and performing, it is what I was born to do. These worlds are opposites. 12th house and 6th, 4th & 10th, the story goes on. I can imagine a future where artists are supported by UBI and they do what they want. A kind of welfare for the serious artists that are not afraid to play. It serves the betterment of society to support artists this way. I know there are others out there, like me, that feel little purpose in their life when they’re not working toward making things. But it’s also near to impossible to make things when you are fighting to protect your energy at every turn, feeling burnt out. stereogum

Utopia PKWY • I Knew You Were Trouble • 2026

"Beckmann’s latest project favors hooks and immediacy while remaining delightfully strange and somewhat damaged" 
-Magnet

"‘I Knew You Would Be Trouble’ introduces the project as something melodic and immediate, but still carrying Beckmann’s taste for warped detail and cinematic atmosphere."
-Psychedelic Baby Mag

linktr.ee/mortalprophets

Fuses • Drive It Into The Ground • 2026

Born out of a long-distance correspondence, Sweden/New York-based transatlantic duo Fuses craft songs that feel like signals sent across oceans. Their debut album ,Sawdust in the Transmission out June 26 via Having Fun Records, the rock imprint of Toronto’s We Are Busy Bodies, bridges geography and emotion with a sound steeped in 60s folk rock and classic country. Echoing the timeless jangle of The Byrds, the pastoral storytelling of Fairport Convention, and the bittersweet warmth of artists like Gram Parsons and Jason Molina, the record connects the Swedish urskog with the Canadian muskeg. Lush vocal harmonies and reverb-soaked steel guitar create a sound that is both melancholic and hopeful, timeless yet uncommon.

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Taxi Girls • Midnight Mixtape • 2026

Montreal's TAXI GIRLS arrive with Static, their debut full-length album, out June 26 on Stomp Records. If the first two singles introduced the band, Static is where the full picture develops. Across ten tracks, TAXI GIRLS pull together giant hooks, sharp songwriting, dual-vocal chemistry, and a deep appreciation for the women who made rock and roll dangerous, stylish, and impossible to ignore. There are flashes of The Runaways, Girlschool, Nikki Corvette, The No Talents, and the melodic punch of classic power pop throughout the record, but never as imitation. These songs feel less like homage and more like continuation.

 Order Taxi Girls’ Music and Merchandise

Max Subar • Anything Could Be • 2026

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On July 17, 2026, Chicago singer-songwriter Max Subar joins the Merge Records roster with his debut full-length album "Anything Could Be." Laid down on a mobile recording rig in a house on the shore of a frozen lake in Wisconsin, Max emerged after ten days of solitude with a record of neither fallow nor verdant earth, but, staggeringly, one that occupies the threshold between the two, a space that accommodates the potential for stagnation and growth: their hopes, their worries, the time it takes to arrive at an unknown destination, and the courage to accept what’s there, waiting to be realized.

ifitbeyourwill Podcast #184 • Mallory Hawk

Some debut albums arrive with the urgency of a first statement. Chinook feels different—it carries the weight of years spent listening, collaborating, and quietly becoming. On this episode, Mallory Hawk reflects on a childhood soundtracked by records and military helicopters, the winding road through New York's DIY underground, and the moment she stopped writing for everyone else and trusted her own instincts. It's a thoughtful conversation about memory, resilience, and the beautiful uncertainty that fuels great songs.

https://www.malloryhawk.art/

To produce Chinook, Hawk tapped like-mindedly omnivorous musician Sam Acchione (Alex G, Jessica Lea Mayfield), whom she’d befriended during her tenure in Customer. The two often spent hours trading liner notes minutiae, resulting in a collaboration that weaves songwriting idiosyncrasies with two lifetimes of radio scholarship. Hawk joined Acchione in Philadelphia to track at storied Headroom Studios (Hop Along, Algernon Cadwallader). There, she contributed tons of layers to Chinook—bass, drum machine, organ, rhythm and lead guitars—while Acchione encouraged unexpected overdubs like flugelhorn and djembe. 

Tele Novella • Paper Crown • 2026

With fable-like storytelling and thoughtfully crafted arrangements, Tele Novella's songs draw from folk fantasy, American Gothic imagery, and old-world traditions, often weaving together unexpected textures like chimes, dulcimers, toys, and vibraphones. The result is a sound that feels both wise and childlike, as though these stories have been passed down through generations before finding their way onto tape.

https://ffm.to/merlynnbelle.oyd

Wendy Eisenberg • 2026

Wendy Eisenberg has spent the past decade as a fixture of independent music and an artist of inspired multiplicity. As a singer-songwriter, improviser, and virtuoso guitarist, the coordinates of their artistry are ever-shifting, from art-rock to jazz to blistering free improv and eloquent folk. On catalog highlights including 2020’s 'Auto' and the 2024 free-jazz sprawler 'Viewfinder', they’ve made a signature of ambition. After spending the past five years experimenting in different bands, genres, and creative challenges, and following a period of self-confrontation that they liken to a personal exorcism, Eisenberg has arrived at a milestone. The poetic and formally daring folk songs of 'Wendy Eisenberg' comprise their most certain vision yet.

ifitbeyourwill Podcast #183 • Josaleigh Pollett

Josaleigh Pollett has quietly become one of indie music's most compelling voices, expanding from intimate folk confessionals into lush, emotionally charged songs where synths, noise, and vulnerability coexist. On this episode of ifitbeyourwill, we discuss the making of If I Let It Quiet, recording across continents with longtime collaborator Jordan Watko, the strange gift of physical distance, and why learning to be seen may be the hardest—and most rewarding—part of making art.

The work of Pollett and Watko has received a slow burn of recognition over the years. Following Pollett’s warm and rootsy solo debut ‘Strangers,’ the duo initially found acclaim together in 2020 with their ‘No Woman Is the Sea’ album. They reached a broader audience with 2023’s electronics-infused ‘In the Garden, By the Weeds,’ thanks to support from notable outlets, including NPR Music’s All Songs Considered, as well as awards and end-of-year lists.

 linktr.ee

ifitbeyourwill Podcast #182 • Andrew Sa

This week on ifitbeyourwill, Andrew Sa joins the podcast to talk about American Rough, his striking debut on Bloodshot Records. We trace a path from childhood karaoke nights and family musical roots to country music, identity, belonging, and the voices that shaped him along the way. It's a conversation about finding your place in a tradition while making room for something entirely your own.

https://www.andrewsamusic.com/

https://andrewsa.lnk.to/americanrough

Good Time Mystery Vision • Glimpse • 2026

Glimpse is caked in instrumental extravagance. The guitars are boisterous and riffy, with each track capstoned by a good ol’ fashioned face-melter of a solo that sweeps you up, spits you out, and leaves you drifting in its wake, craving more. The lyrics dance with Syd Barrett-style whimsy, carried by vocal harmonies that sparkle with the road-worn charm of The Grateful Dead. Underneath it all, an Allman Brothers-esque texture of keys glues the arrangements together, while a relentless rhythm section keeps you moving and swaying, grounding your body in the grass beneath your toes even as your mind floats far above. ST

Anna McClellan • “Twirl” • 2026

On her latest output, Space, you big cloud, Anna McClellan documents a stretch of time where many musical parts clicked into place. Booking the session on a whim, traveling between Fort Worth, TX, where she was working, to New York City, where she currently lives, the songs came out fast, recorded in three dizzying days with unapologetic urgency at Atlanta, GA’s Mirror Mirror Recording (Sword II, Arbor Labor Union) with producer and engineer, Graham Tavel. You can hear it in the bright and unguarded guitar, a band that free-flows, not overworked or cleaned up. There’s no sense of strain or overhandling in these songs, just a quiet insistence that suggests they already knew what they were supposed to be. F/D

ifitbeyourwill Podcast #181 • Magic Castles

On this episode of ifitbeyourwill Podcast Jason Edmonds of Magic Castles joins us for a conversation that begins in a basement record collection filled with psychedelic treasures and winds its way to Realized, the band's latest album. Along the way, we talk about the enduring pull of 60s psych, building a musical universe outside the spotlight, recording in Minnesota, and why Magic Castles continue to make music that feels less like a collection of songs and more like a place to disappear into. A thoughtful, cosmic conversation with one of modern psych's most quietly compelling voices.

At a time when the world is in a shambles, we need music like this to sustain us, to help us escape from cold reality, at least for a short time. The band is well named, for they spin magical notes in every tune. The record opens with the majestic ‘Hey Alright’, which includes baroque elements, whether from programming or actual strings. Then the guitars and drums crash in like a rogue wave, amping up the energy. Vocals arrive around the 2 minute mark, joining the psyched out party. This is music for stretching out and enjoying the moment, maybe with a cat or two in tow. ‘Abandoned Mansions’ is lovely, a dappled slice of psych pop with sweet harmonies. ‘Samata’ is a personal favourite, with a strong melody and slightly hazy vocal lines. Just stellar! ‘Mary Anne’ is one of the singles, and it will draw you in and worm its way into your ears! Echoes and dust

Amy Millan & Martha Wainwright • Calling All Angels • 2026

 

“When I moved to Montreal as a young student with my first guitar, being in the orbit of the loft parties and folk houses is where I first heard Martha and her distinct, powerful and now iconic voice,” says Amy. “Grateful to call her a dear friend, I always wanted to find a way for us to sing together. This Canadian gem of a song by the great Jane Siberry (originally sung with k.d lang) was the perfect beginning for us to get this gentle chance to convene with angels.” EyoQBlfpYeJ

sundayclub • Sad Summer • 2026

Winnipeg dream-pop outfit sundayclub unpack the emotions tied to the warmer months on "Sad Summer", a wistful anthem about the struggle to live in the moment. bestfit

“...dramatically twinkling” - Exclaim!  “Camera Shy”

 

“With its swirl of warm synths and guitars, Camera Shy gently reminds us to just put down our devices and bask in the glow of the moment instead” - CBC MUSIC

 

“[‘Camera Shy’ is] bringing in the shoegaze vibes…with a ‘90s rock sparkle”  

- Guitar World (Editor's Picks) 

“Courtney Carmichael and Nikki St. Pierre’s forthcoming self-titled debut revels in the chaos of youth” - FLOOD 

https://ffm.to/sundayclub

ifitbeyourwill Podcast #180 • Charlotte Cornfield

For Canadians who came of age somewhere along the Montréal–Toronto corridor, Charlotte Cornfield’s music carries a particular resonance. On this episode of ifitbeyourwill, the Toronto songwriter reflects on the cities that shaped her, the Plateau music scene that made a life in music feel possible, and the long road from jazz drums at Concordia to releasing Hurts Like Hell on the legendary Merge Records.

What unfolds is a conversation about creative practice, parenthood, community, and the strange act of looking back at your younger self with equal parts tenderness and humour. Charlotte discusses recording the album live off the floor with a hand-picked band, collaborating with artists she deeply admires, and finding new freedom in songwriting by letting go of the need to always be the narrator of her own stories.

Part music conversation, part Canadian cultural geography, this is a thoughtful look at how places, people, and time shape the songs we carry with us long after they've been written.

charlottecornfield.com

The title track leans into that looseness. Mid-tempo, nothing pushed, guitars sitting just above a whisper. Then the vocal climbs, not dramatically, just enough to tighten everything around it. It changes the weight of the song without changing the volume. The harmonies follow, brushing up against the lead rather than stacking neatly behind it, like they’re part of the same thought instead of decoration. montreal rocks