Kathleen Edwards
Essential tracks
Four new songs worth a listen
BRAD WHEELER
Globe and Mail Update
Published
Last updated
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FOLK
Wapusk
By Kathleen Edwards, featuring Bon Iver; streaming here.
Originally recorded for the National Parks Project celebration, the songstress Edwards teams with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon for an ethereal, evocative new version, with Vernon’s high vocals hovering in the background of the thoughtful ode to the peace of the north. There’s an outdoorsy quality to it, the act of strumming a guitar and paddling a canoe seemingly one and the same.

Kathleen Edwards
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ELECTRO-POP
What Do You Expect
By El Perro Del Mar; streaming here.
An icy reaction to recent rioting in London, from the Swedish pop siren Sarah Assbring, who ventures stylistically with tense, moody club music that departs radically from the sad-sack retro-singing for which she’s known.

El Perro Del Mar
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POP
Cherry Season
By the DoneFors, from Award Winning Album (independent); streaming here.
“Pretty, naughty things/ Just watch ’em dangling/ It’s cherry season boys.” The sultry Sade-sounding singer Janine Stoll is one smooth operator, using the fruit orchard metaphor deliciously.
The DoneFors play Toronto’s Dakota, Sept. 22; Ottawa’s Elmdale House, Sept. 23.

The DoneFors— Emma-Lee Photography
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RAP/CLASSICAL
Leck Mich Im Arsch
By Jack White and Insane Clown Posse; streaming here.
Roll over Mozart, tell Beethoven the news. Wolfgang Amadeus’s cheeky canon in B-flat major is hilariously hijacked by the former White Striper Jack White and a pair of evil grease-paint wearers. “Arsch” is German for “arse,” and, well, we think you know where this is going.

Jack White— Getty Images
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JAZZ/POP VIDEO
Body and Soul
By Amy Winehouse and Tony Bennett, from the forthcoming Duets II (Columbia).
“Are you pretending? Looks like the ending.” The late Amy Winehouse signed off with one last song, the languid longing of a pop standard from the 1930s. Winehouse enunciates uniquely and purrs stylishly, Bennett is warm and tender, and the classic arrangement welcomes like a warm bath. Captured in black and white in a recording studio, this is how both singers should be remembered. Brad Wheeler
