fanclubwallet — “What’s Up?”

fanclubwallet is a project fronted by Ottawa musician Hannah Judge (the band name is in honor of a Dennis the Menace wallet that belonged to her father). “What’s Up?” is one of the standout tracks from her debut EP “Hurt is Boring.” The album was created by Judge and her childhood best friend Michael Watson while Judge was bedridden following a Crohn’s disease flareup. That isolation resulted in a collection of fun jangly pop songs designed to free the spirt from reality. “I feel like a lot of people might have felt this way during the pandemic,” Judge recently said about the unfortunate relatability of her personal struggles during the pandemic.

Sam Evian — “Easy to Love”

New York singer/songwriter Sam Evian’s new single “Easy to Love” is an explosion of buoyant joy. “‘Easy To Love’ was the first song I wrote after moving to upstate NY,” Evian recalled in a recent statement. “It was springtime and it’s very much about peacing out of Brooklyn with my partner Hannah [Cohen] and falling in love with a new space, new life, and lightening the load coming out of grinding in the city for 10 years.” Full of euphoric sounds, and featuring sax from The War On Drugs’ Jon Natchez, this arrives just in time to carry us into the summer season.

Sharon Van Etten and Angel Olsen — “Like I Used To”

Sharon Van Etten and Angel Olsen are two of today’s most exciting artists. The singers have admired each other for years as performers making this collaboration as exciting for them to create as the result is for listeners to hear. “She has sent me inspirations and support in my high and lows along the way,” Van Etten said of Olsen. “I never thought I would get the courage to send her an unfinished song and ask her to do a duet with me and here we are.” Vocally, “Like I Used To” has all the beauty you’d expect from this duo, but hold your breathe when the harmony kicks in.