Songs you need to hear is CBC Music’s weekly list of hot new Canadian tracks.
This week, we’re focusing on new music from some of the artists longlisted and shortlisted for the 2025 Polaris Music Prize.
Scroll down to check out their latest releases ahead of the awards ceremony and concert on Tuesday, Sept. 16, at Toronto’s Massey Hall.
For even more new music, check out our SYNTH playlist on YouTube.
Jamais tout à fait, Lou-Adriane Cassidy
Just four months after releasing her now Polaris-shortlisted album, Journal d’un Loup-Garou, Lou-Adriane Cassidy dropped Triste Animal, an equally delightful antithesis to its meticulously planned predecessor. Recorded live-off-the-floor in just four days, Triste Animal is a return to spontaneity, more a sibling to Cassidy’s looser live shows than the January concept record that took 60 in-studio days to record. Album standout Jamais tout à fait, which directly translates to “never quite” takes its sweet time, Cassidy’s verses swaying over a bossa nova beat as she beautifully harmonizes with backing vocalists Odile Marmet-Rochefort, Ariane Roy and Lysandre Ménard. “Triste animal/ insatisfait/ (Jamais tout à fait),” she sings, a nod to the album’s title buried in a song about the connection between potential and dissatisfaction. But Jamais tout à fait has learned to let go, and you’ll feel lighter after having listened to it. — Holly Gordon
Furniture Killer, Nemahsis
On Furniture Killer, pop singer-songwriter Nemahsis switches between a playful and poignant vocal delivery, showcasing her chameleonic range. “You’re an appetite sinner! An appetite sinner,” she declares, before switching to singing softly on the pre-chorus: “I feel like a broken clock/ you say I’m wrong when I’m not.” The gentle piano playing is an unlikely precursor to the chorus, which builds and swells with triumphant strings: “Turn it up, but the volume’s ‘ready high,” she sings, her voice piercing the listener. It’s disjointed but intentionally so, as the drums rumble and clash against her voice. Traces of sharp lyricism in the vein of Japanese Breakfast and Fiona Apple peek through on what is perhaps the most underrated song on Verbathim, Nemahsis’s Juno-winning, Polaris-shortlisted debut album. — Natalie Harmsen
Un rêve, Klô Pelgag
Klô Pelgag’s most recent single came eight months after the release of her Polaris-longlisted album, Abracadraba, itself the followup to her 2021 shortlisted album, Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs. Un rêve is atmospheric and sparse, like wading through a dream world as she sings and transcendent woodwind instruments soar. It was written after she dreamed about her deceased father: “J’ai eu le bonheur de revoir mon père. Il était beau, il était en pleine forme (I had the great joy of seeing my father again. He was beautiful, he was in good shape),” as she told Le Canal Auditif. The song is a stirring imagining of a reunion that could only occur in the dream realm. Klô Pelgag’s music is often arresting, stopping listeners in their tracks and pulling them into the world she’s crafted, and Un rêve is no exception. — Kelsey Adams
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