The Halluci Nation's amped-up nod to wrestling, and 3 more songs you need to hear this week
Scroll down to discover the songs our producers are loving right now.
Canadian Destroyer, the Halluci Nation feat. Northern Cree
Wrestling and the Halluci Nation have often gone hand in hand: in 2015, the electronic duo dropped a wrestling-inspired EP, Suplex, with songs like Bodyslam and The People's Champ. They returned to that theme on their vibrant 2023 EP, The Path of the Heel, and now, they expertly continue the through-line of combat sport on their latest EP, Path of the Baby Face. This time around, Tim "2oolman" Hill and Ehren "Bear Witness" Thomas are rumbling with more energy, as if gearing up to pull off the iconic wrestling flip from which the track takes its name. The Canadian destroyer is a crushing, part-somersault move used to flip an opponent and on the supercharged track, they team up with frequent collaborators Northern Cree to blend powwow music with throbbing dubstep for a heart-racing anthem. Beginning with the singing group's vocals, the track contains thundering drumming that revs up before each drop, adding some bite to moody synths. Northern Cree's vocals dip in and out, wobbling over the glitchy, rapid beats as the fast-paced song swirls around that heartbeat-like drumming. As it all comes together, it's clear to see that the pressure-building, riveting track would make a perfect walk-out song for the ring. — Natalie Harmsen
Telenovela, Isabella Lovestory
Isabella Lovestory's latest peek into her forthcoming sophomore album is a feast for the ears and eyes. The single, Telenovela, is accompanied by a larger-than-life music video directed by Charlotte Rutherford, that devolves into chaos as she's taken through many melodramatic telenovela skits, which end with a coital experience between her and her television (you have to see it to believe it). The neoperreo (reggaeton's baby cousin) track is all brash synths, dembow rhythms, headknocking drums and outlandish lyrics. A personal fave comes on the chorus when Isabella Lovestory warns that she and her "Barbarella bitches" aren't afraid to back down from a fight: "Si no te meto el tacón de cristal," which translates to "I'll stick my crystal stiletto in you." — Kelsey Adams
Pool Party, Penny & the Pits
Get your water shoes and goggles ready — it's time for a surf-rock swim with New Brunswick's Penny & the Pits. The new offshoot from Penelope Stevens, one-third of avant-rock trio Motherhood, Penny & the Pits is here to make you move, with irresistible riffs and feminist lyrics that lend a deliciously dark undertone to a fun time. "I spent a lot of time making challenging work that would test both myself and the listener," Stevens said, of their time with Motherhood. "Now, I'm trying to make music that feels good; music that connects the heart to the body." While Penny & the Pits is a Penelope Stevens project, the band's live iteration also features beloved local names: Megumi Yoshida (Century Egg, Dog Day, Not You), Colleen Collins (Construction & Destruction) and Grace Stratton (Nightbummerz, Glitterclit). Don't let yourself miss their live shows this pool season. — Holly Gordon
Future Emma, Billianne
Billianne's been on a killer run lately. The singles she's released since 2024 have showcased such a beautiful blossoming for the emerging artist. Her latest, Future Emma, really highlights the full breadth of her potential. It's been clear since the Milton, Ont. singer's cover of Tina Turner's Simply the Best in 2022 that she has an exemplary voice — full and robust — but on Future Emma, she's flexing all new vocal chops. In an interview with The Luna Collective at SXSW she said "out of all the songs in my musical hard drives and catalogs, I think I'm most proud of my voice on this song." The way she soars and soars some more on the chorus is goosebump-inducing. In the same interview, Billianne delved into writing the song for her friend who was going through some "really hard life circumstances" that she "shouldn't have to deal with at such a young age." Future Emma is tinged with hope, articulating that no matter what the world drops at your feet, you can make it through: "It's not how it's supposed to be/ The smoke's gonna clear eventually." — KA
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Winnipeg Free Press
9 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Orchestral expressions
Back in 2004, the front page of the Free Press Arts & Life section (then called Entertainment) ran a glowing tribute by Morley Walker to one of the most august careers in Manitoba's arts sector. Rita Menzies was retiring. Some expected she'd make more time for favourite pursuits — cooking, travel, family, opera, art— especially after such an eventful finale to a long career. The year before, Menzies — who'd been with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra for 24 years as its first general manager — had been tapped to take the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra's reins in an interim capacity. Jeannette Menzies photo Rita Menzies on a trip to Reykjavik, Iceland. On the face of it, the move may have seemed improbable. The WSO was 10 times the size of the MCO and had a $3-million deficit. But Menzies' reputation — her crack command of budgets and structures, coupled with a soft, deft touch for people and politics — preceded her. 'There were a lot of highfalutin people who came in and absolutely burned out within a month,' recalls violinist and WSO concertmaster Karl Stobbe. 'I really have to give (Rita) credit for saving the WSO in a time when people were not sure it could be saved.' Amazingly, the WSO finished its 2003-4 season with a considerable surplus. Walker playfully cast aspersions on her resolve to retire after this success: 'Oh, did she not tell you? She has accepted an honorarium to run the Agassiz Summer Chamber Music Festival in June … But in July, she plans to take it easy. Honest.' What's that saying about best-laid plans? Before long, the retiree was the annual fest's director, a role she held for a full 11 years. She also returned as the WSO's interim executive director in 2006 and served as Agassiz's board president until her death in June at 83, after a short battle with cancer. 'How fitting that Rita worked in the frontline of Winnipeg's arts community until a few weeks before her passing — she was always keen to contribute and to help others,' says Agassiz artistic director Paul Marleyn. 'She developed (Agassiz) and she worked every day — her famous and proudly Mennonite work ethic. Rita had extraordinary values, values about which she never preached.' Jennifer Menzies Photo At Ponemah Beach, Menzies and granddaughter Olivia work on art projects. Menzies took up drawing and watercolour painting in retirement. Rita Menzies' career charts the rise of a certain type of pillar in Manitoba's arts and cultural life. The late 1960s and early 1970s were a coming-of-age for Canadian culture, with the government using the Centennial to invest heavily in the sector. However, the path to the MCO's emergence was often far from smooth. For seven lively years, the MCO (founded in 1972) was administered as a volunteer-driven passion project, operating out of insurance manager Bill Stewart's office. 'Maybe I was paying more time to the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra than I was to my business,' says Stewart with a chuckle. 'It became apparent … that we would have to get some kind of administrative help.' MCO's early history is hard to separate from Westminster United Church — a stronghold of a broadly liberal Protestantism, known for its deep love of classical music. Its congregation criss-crossed with MCO's audience and with its beautiful acoustics and central location, the church eventually became the organization's primary venue. It had a celebrated organist in Don Menzies, who held the post from 1966 until 2022. Just down the road, his wife Rita — born in Kitchener, Ont., in 1942 — taught math and English at Kelvin High School. She was also an accomplished organist and her musical passion was about to make its way to the centre of things. Jeannette Menzies photo Menzies (right) with her husband Don in France. Though technically retired, Menzies ran the Agassiz Summer Chamber Music Festival for eleven years. By the late 1970s the MCO was operating out of another makeshift office. The hum of a typewriter — clattering out accounting reports, marketing plans and musician contracts — filled the basement. 'I have vivid memories of a filing cabinet and card table propped up in the laundry room,' recalls Jeannette Menzies, a Canadian diplomat, former ambassador to Iceland and Rita's daughter. 'We loved having her around when we were young and hearing the sounds of classical music at home.' But for Menzies, juggling a young family — which included daughters Tanis and Jennifer as well as Jeannette – was only half of it. As well having suddenly traded in English lit for budget sheets, Menzies had to learn and quickly master the art of balancing those budgets. 'She told me once that the first thing she did every morning was read the entire business section of the Winnipeg Free Press,' says Stobbe, who got to know Menzies in the 1990s while playing with the MCO. JOE BRYKSA/FREE PRESS In 2003, Menzies (right) moved from the MCO to the struggling WSO as Interim Director, seen here in 2004 with violinist Claudine St Arnauld. Potential funders, donors and board members — Menzies was, by all accounts, always on the hunt for allies and resources to better the organizations she led. With its footing now secure, the MCO could find a proper office and finally start delegating. By the 1990s, the orchestra had hired Elise Anderson as its office manager, Jon Snidal as its designer and systems manager and violinist Boyd MacKenzie as its concert manager. 'Find(ing) good people. That was a real strength of hers,' says Vicki Young, Menzies' successor at the MCO. 'To bring on people like Elise and Jon and Boyd — I think is pretty incredible.' All of them are still associated with the MCO in some way, while today a new generation of staff and musicians carries the torch, including Sean McManus, executive director since 2023. The original team supported the orchestra through a showing at the Winter Olympics in Calgary, tours across the world and countless commissions of new Canadian music. Supplied Menzies was an accomplished organist, which can be traced back to her early practice sessions at the family piano. The MCO was also earning a rep as a solid stop for famous touring soloists, with Joshua Bell, Marc-André Hamelin and Liona Boyd all sharing the stage with the orchestra in those years. When Young assumed the MCO's reins in 2003, she had a rarity in her hands: a classical ensemble with loyal employees and musicians, a consistent streak of balanced budgets and a deeply engaged, supportive audience base. '(Rita) was always thinking ahead and setting a really good foundation for what was to come,' says Young. Over the next 20 years, the MCO saw a continued streak of balanced budgets, more growth and further professionalization of its board, touring and movement towards more multicultural priorities. It benefited not just from Menzies' foundation but something more ineffable. Menzies was valedictorian at her Grade 12 graduation. Veteran staff will tell you about a cultural throughline at the MCO — a democratic ethos with a strong, trusted leader acting as first among equals — that they trace back to Menzies. 'She was described as kind of having a calming effect on an organization,' says her daughter Jeannette. 'I saw her as a trailblazer. But I think my mom would probably be mortified (to hear that) because she really would give equal credit to Jon, Elise and others.' Though Menzies' so-called retirement was packed with Agassiz commitments and volunteer work, her tireless sense of industry found rhythm in the pastimes she loved most. She was known as an extraordinary cook and a lifelong learner, picking up watercolour painting in retirement. As a consummate hostess and longtime member of the Westminster Concert Organ Series Committee (founded by her husband in 1989 and running until the pandemic), she prepared many dinners for guest organists and the receptions following concerts. The couple sometimes oriented their many trips across the world around performance opportunities for Don and made regular pilgrimages to the Ottawa area to see their granddaughters, Grace and Olivia Kennedy. 'Behind everything was Rita's love of life, her family, music, the arts, of people and of the Winnipeg community,' says Marleyn. Menzies with her daughters Tanis, Jeannette and Jennifer. 'She avoided the stage and public attention, yet somehow quietly lead her workplaces with elegance, industry, effectiveness … Rita gave us all such a magnificent example of what the qualities of honesty, kindness, hard work and love can achieve.' Conrad SweatmanReporter Conrad Sweatman is an arts reporter and feature writer. Before joining the Free Press full-time in 2024, he worked in the U.K. and Canadian cultural sectors, freelanced for outlets including The Walrus, VICE and Prairie Fire. Read more about Conrad. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Winnipeg Free Press
10 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Enchanting interludes
Somehow, Heather O'Neill has crafted a delightfully fleeting, 200-plus page epic. Valentine in Montreal has the principal features of the daunting form, but all in charming miniature. O'Neill, much and justly celebrated as a resoundingly successful Canadian poet, short-story writer, screenwriter, novelist and journalist, was able to fashion this riff on the traditional literary genre by adapting another conventional publication form: Valentine is not so much a modern novel as it is a compendium of a traditional serial. In 2023, a Montreal Gazette editor asked O'Neill to compose a serialized novel, very much in the Victorian mode. Suspecting failure would accompany the unusual effort, O'Neill nonetheless dove in, hoping it would not just challenge her chops but connect her with writing and writers past, especially Charles Dickens. More, it could help her realize her belief that good fiction ought to be democratized, something the archaic serial form had done — and perhaps could still do — so expediently. Elisa Harb photo Heather O'Neill (right) has enlisted her daughter Arizona (left) to illustrate her two most recent books. O'Neill is probably most famous as the unicorn double winner of CBC's Canada Reads: her own extraordinarily beautiful and moving novel, Lullabies for Little Criminals (2006), won the 2007 competition, and she last year was victorious in championing Catherine Leroux's 2020 L'Avenir (in English as The Future, 2023 translation by Susan Ouriou). O'Neill's credentials roster is long, wondrous and vigorous, including cherished novels in 2014, 2017, 2022 and 2024 (the most recent The Capital of Dreams), as well as collections of poems (1999) and short stories (2015). Throw in the scripts for a difficult-to-find but lovely-to-behold feature film, Saint Jude (2000), and the eight-minute short End of Pinky (which can be found on YouTube), and you have here an artist bursting with talent and skill at the absolute and sustained top of her astounding game. Our micro-epic voyageur here is Valentine Bennet, a young, shy, lone-but-not-lonely and humble heroine who is utterly content with her modest work at a dépanneur at the Berri-UQAM métro stop. Valentine lives to dwell in her métro beneath and amidst the city, and is therefore deeply disturbed when her entrenched patterns are upset. She is quickly thrown much outside her world — or at least much further into it. Valentine, orphan (Dickens!) and amateur poet, learns that she has a doppelganger, Yelena, a ballerina, an artist of a different stripe. Valentine must quest out into the urban world, more Yelena's than her own, using her métro as her steed. She must acquaint with eccentric strangers, she must dodge the dodgy and she must figure out who she really is. All this in 30 quite steadfastly short, serial chapters. These instalments are all discrete and intended to be read, as O'Neill herself announces, in a single, Saturday-morning-with-coffee-and-eggs sitting. To be sure, there are recaps of whence we've been and dangles of whither we go, but it is all done without inelegant intrusion. En route, there are cases of mistaken identity, there in an unearthing of an aged common ancestor who herself used to galivant across Europe in full bohemian but somehow lucrative mode. And there is a forbidding Montreal underbelly, something literally called 'the Mafia,' but barking more than biting. And there is also a very dear romance in this little Romance. The dalliance cannot and does not fully fruit, but it is there, and it brings with it, too, the requisite wisdom and sadness. Valentine in Montreal just abounds in interlude. There are moments in each of the 30 little pieces to make you grin, to make you chortle aloud; all gracefully connect and carefully construct. Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. More, the book is accompanied by delightful, childlike illustrations — a least one, and often several, per chapter. The artist, Arizona O'Neill (the author's daughter), typically poaches a moment of the text, usually a figurative one, and runs with it in an absolutely frolicsome way. Because one has to pause over the images to realize what is going on, the artwork is able, most delicately, to enhance the text. Throughout, Heather O'Neill's habitual mastery loiters. She is marvelously writes in a manner that briskly moves all things well along while peppering in, again and aptly again, turns of phrase that catch your breath and even command an immediate re-reading. Oddly, it is not so much the subtle, lurking metaphors as the more direct, almost-preening similes that achieve this: O'Neill is writing about and revelling in writing as she writes. 'Think about how I am telling this story as I tell it,' she seems to whisper. It could not be more enchanting. Laurence Broadhurst teaches English and religion at St. Paul's High School in Winnipeg.
Montreal Gazette
16 hours ago
- Montreal Gazette
Photos: Ryan Reynolds, Rob Mac and more at the Just For Laughs Awards in Montreal
Comedy stars gathered at M Telus in Montreal on Friday to present the annual Just For Laughs Awards. Canadian movie star Ryan Reynolds presented the Generation Award to fellow Wrexham AFC owner Rob Mac (formerly known as Rob McElhenney), star and co-creator of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Have I Got News for You host Roy Wood Jr. presented the Lifetime Achievement Award to veteran comedian George Wallace. Handsome, a podcast hosted by comedians Tig Notaro, Fortune Feimster and Mae Martin, was awarded Podcast of the Year. Two awards were also given to up-and-coming comedians. Benito Skinner, creator of the Amazon Prime Video series Overcompensating, was awarded Breakout Comedy Star of the Year. He celebrated by kissing presented Mary Beth Barone, his podcast co-host. And Hannah Berner, co-host of the Giggly Squad podcast, was named Rising Comedy Star of the Year.
