Today was a surreal day!  It was neat to imagine so many folks all looking at the sky at the same time, with weird little cardboard glasses, whether it was a 98% coverage like it was for us in Guelph, or a total eclipse not so far away.  The sky dimmed, birds pause mildly confused, and if you were on my (Jenny)’s front lawn, the soundtrack was Wax Mannequin and the Burning Hell (of course).  We may be back to a regular sun by now, and we may have stopped staring at the sky but if you’re feeling nostaglic for just a few minutes ago, maybe this track will take you back.

Many LF! new releases are on the horizon – stay tuned!

Wax Mannequin & The Burning Hell SIDE B Total Eclipse Of The Heart

We are really really excited to get to be a part of this release.  Stormpath‘s Rebecca Simpson has been creating magical music for over two decades, but she hasn’t always been easy to find.  She was one of Jenny’s first musical heroes, recording the Barmitzvah Brother’s first record way back in the year 2000, and being an integral piece of the music scene that gave that band its first shows.  Beginning as a “Mudpuddle”, it truly feels perfect that Rebecca has elevated to a Stormpath.  This album is the culmination of nearly two decades of recording.  Welcome Stormpath, to Label Fantastic!  Check out the release on her bandcamp: stormpath.bandcamp.com and read more about her release on her artist page

It’s been a strange pandemic!  Lots of music paused, some folks shifting creative gears (SO MUCH visual art for Jenny!)  And Jenny here at Label Fantastic! has taken on a bit of a new venture.  Or she’s trying it.  At least this one time.  Jenny is helping Wax Mannequin with his radio mailouts!  Because Jenny LOVES community radio!  And even though she works in community radio, her radio job doesn’t actually cross over with the music library at all.  She’s just come to know so many magical radio workers out there, and is just a huge fan of all music things independent and Canadian and scrappy and DIY and incredible and under the radar and Community Radio just does right by all of these things in such a wonderful way.  So she‘s dug deep, collected info from friends and colleagues, dug even deeper, and is determined to make sure every one in community radio land knows how awesome this new Wax Mannequin album is.  So we’ll see how this goes!  Hopefully you all get to hear it and enjoy it as much as we do!  Call your local stations! Request Wax Mannequin’s Red Brain!  It will appear at a station near you around its release date on April 14th, coming out on Coax Records.  We can’t wait!

It’s been two years since Bird City has played in a venue!  So it felt fitting for the return to be one of our favourite places.  Join the delightful Guelph bands “Magpie” and Bird City for an early show in the Southern Cross room of the Tranzac – 7:30-9:30pm, on Saturday April 30th.  A beautiful bird-themed show to begin the re-entry to playing music in a people-filled space.  We hope to see you there.

Check out this delightful music video of the Jenny Omnichord and Kim Barlow song “Planet Zorn”!  We love it!  It was created by Conner Japikse,  a student studying at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZxqrh69Cm4

We’re so proud of our incredible Henry Adam Svec collecting his magical stories of folklore and Canadiana into his first novel, “Life is Like Canadian Football and Other Authentic Folk Songs”

Fans of Label Fantastic will recognize many of the artists mentioned in this book, including our own Jenny Omnichord.

Henry has put together a themed playlist to go with the book, and it is incredible.  Check it out!

http://www.largeheartedboy.com/blog/archive/2021/11/henry_adam_svec.html?fbclid=IwAR2dcBK0p1GKUT47ogvSK0ToBjnq8dvPxfKerzUdRPDV42yT_fNnOah65SU

It’s been eight months and Bird City is finally flying back to get their car.  Will everything go as planned?  We sure hope so!  But what’s a trip west without a tour?  A vacation?  We can’t have that!  We’ve set up some shows, in the hopes that we can fill up our gas tank along the way.  Hope to see you!.  And wish us luck!

Thursday June 27th: A House show, Vancouver BC w/ Ida Nilsen

Friday June 28th: Mile Zero Wine Bar, Penticton BC w/ Hot Ticket

Saturday June 29th: Jita’s Cafe, Golden BC w/ Ian Bain

Sunday June 30th: Songsmith Sundays at King Eddy, Calgary AB

Monday July 1st: The Aviary, Edmonton AB w/ Dylan Ella, Sam the Living, and Jewel Jennifer Dahlgren

Tuesday July 2nd: The Gazebo, Saskatoon SK w/ Juniperous

Wednesday July 3rd: tba in Winnipeg MB

Thursday July 4th: Serendipity Gardens, Rossport ON

Label Fantastic! is branching out!  And it’s weird and wonderful!  More on that soon – we want to keep you guessing

Bird City is working on a new album!  Hoping it may finds it way released as early as this fall, but in the meantime we have some magical shows coming up:

June 9th – “In the Soil”, St. Catherines ON – inthesoil.on.ca

June 19th – An exciting show in Uptown Waterloo – details soon

July – A REALLY exciting show – details coming soon too!

We’ve also got lots of exciting Golden Bus announcements coming – the bus will return in April, keep in the loop by following facebook.com/thegoldenbusstop