By Whitney Light

“My songs are sad to the point where we joke about it all the time,” Amelia Curran says only half in jest. At the Winnipeg Folk Festival, where this interview happened, the Newfoundland native and Halifax-based singer-songwriter performed in a workshop called “Woe is Me” with some kindred musicians strumming tunes about heartbreak and hard luck. Whether she’s playing alone or with a five-piece band, Curran’s songs compellingly mix a comfy guitar with her seasoned and deliberate voice. A talented and practised creative writer, she released her first album, Barricade, in 2000 and her most recent, War Brides, received wide critical acclaim. Now Hunter Hunter, her second album with Six Shooter Records, is ready for release this September. Continue Reading »

By Jonathan Dyck

“I’ve always thought of Winnipeg as a place that has distinct boundaries, like you get with the Perimeter Highway,” Del Barber says, sipping a drink at popular Wolseley watering hole Cousin’s. Last May, Barber sold out his album release party for his debut, Where the City Ends, at the Park Theatre. Since its release, Barber and his backing band have been playing local gigs and, most recently, Barber set out on his own for his first tour north of the border. Continue Reading »

By Michael Elves

Released this spring, Points of View is a collaboration between Winnipeg singer-songwriters Chris Neufeld and Donovan Giesbrecht, who together are the Other Brothers. It’s a subtle, gorgeous collection of folk tunes in the vein of Simon & Garfunkel. Unlike that famous duo, however, Neufeld and Giesbrecht are happy to talk to each other. But to really capture their points of view, Stylus asked each musician the exact same questions, separately, and the results, while not quite Rashomonesque, reveal some key differences between them, including the fact that one brother is a little more verbose than the other. Continue Reading »

By Jenny Henkelman


Ingrid Gatin’s got a piano, an accordion, and a tear-jerkingly beautiful voice. All of these things are perfectly suited to the average living room recital or concert at the café down the street. But something in Ingrid Gatin keeps pulling her out of her comfy Wolseley environs. To a cabin in the Saskatchewan woods; to a train crossing the lonely stretches of Northern Ontario; to a transformed gallery space in the Exchange.
Gatin’s first migration took place when her family moved from small-town Saskatchewan to Brandon, where  started up in the musical way early. She’s studied piano since age four, and says she’s always benefited from a “hugely musical” family. “There’s always singing and music playing going on on both sides of my family,” she says. “I was always involved with choirs. A good, wholesome music upbringing.”
With that groundwork laid, Gatin was soon sucked into the music scene in Winnipeg when she moved here after high school two and a half years ago. Her friend Ida Sawabe played stand-up bass in a bluegrass band, and soon dragged Gatin along to practice. “They gave me a mandolin and they said, ‘Here’s how you play C and G and D. There, you know every bluegrass song!’ Ting, ting, ting! And then I was in a bluegrass band, the Magnificent Sevens.” Continue Reading »

By Curran Faris

crys cole wants you to listen. Carefully.
She’s the artistic director for Winnipeg’s annual sound art festival, send + receive, but she also has her own art practise and has been sculpting sounds and challenging eardrums for ten years. In June, cole embarked on a two-week European tour, playing in biggest scenes in experimental music—Paris, Brussels and Berlin. She said the response to her work was overwhelmingly positive, offering her the opportunity to perform and network with the massive experimental music communities in Europe.

“It’s just a different dynamic out there. There’s a different appreciation for the arts in general and a different appreciation for this type of music. It has a history,” said cole.
Continue Reading »