John Borra Band

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JOHN BORRA:

At age 16, John Borra played his first gig at the legendary Toronto punk bar The Turning Point, and since then he has been a part of nearly every significant musical movement in the city. These days he’s best known as a troubadour, albeit one with a rebellious storytelling streak that can be traced back to Hank Williams and other pioneering voices of folk and country music.

Before launching his solo career in the mid-1990s, Borra played bass in many other bands at the core of Toronto’s indie scene, including Groovy Religion, Scott B Sympathy, and most significantly Change Of Heart, appearing on their major-label debut album Tummysuckle, which was supported by a cross-Canada tour with The Tragically Hip.

Blue Wine is Borra’s first solo album since 2002, after three albums with his band Rattlesnake Choir, and it finds him at the peak of his writing and performing powers. On one hand, it’s exactly the kind of album you’d expect from one of the most influential figures within Toronto’s roots rock scene – raw, melodic, and bursting with heart and soul. On the other hand, Blue Wine displays maturity and lyrical sophistication only an artist as experienced as Borra could convey.

“The writing process for this one felt much like a first record – many sources and many years in the making,” Borra says. “When I started out in the early 1980s in post-punk bands, the goal was to try do something new and artistically important. That’s what everyone was going for at that time and I’ve tried to maintain that aesthetic through everything I’ve done since.”

As country music continues to evolve, a great song will always be a great song. John Borra’s Blue Wine is proof of that from start to finish.

DAVID PICCO:

St. John’s, Newfoundland singer/songwriter David Picco returns with Live It Down, his hypnotizing sixth full-length album, recorded in his hometown with Mark Feener and featuring an all-star cast of local players.

Live It Down finds Picco veering away from the gritty alt-country sound of his acclaimed 2019 album Out Of The Past, and experimenting with looser, Kurt Vile-esque vibes. The change is partly a reflection of Picco’s experience during pandemic restrictions, with the album’s nine songs written over a three-month span in 2020.

Live It Down embraces an exciting new world of sonic possibilities for Picco, an evolution that has been playing out since the mid-‘00s when he was a member of the roots rock band Jet Set Motel. From there, he became a familiar face within the Toronto roots rock scene, working closely with producer Don Kerr (Rheostatics, Ron Sexsmith) and cult hero songwriter Kyp Harness.

Following his move back to St. John’s in 2015, Picco released the album Start Again, which was warmly embraced by CBC Radio. Out Of The Past built on that success, being hailed by Americana UK as “a rock-infused country [album] with echoes of The Velvet Underground.”

“I guess you could say that Live It Down is about coming to terms with the fact that life never turns out as planned,” Picco says. “I would describe it as contemplative, but musically I was going after something more dream-like and ethereal.”

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