This year, Met Radio is taking part in the time-honoured tradition of the year-end top ten list. Throughout the month of December, Met Radio staff and volunteers will be sharing their personal pop culture favourites from the year gone by. Visit the website every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to check out our best of 2023!
I’m Patch, a musicologist, music manager, post-secondary educator, and volunteer with MetRadio. With an outsized, heterogeneous wealth of music percolating in this city, so many songs get buried in the shuffle. Here’s a sampling of under-recognized ear gems from artists repping the richness of The 6ix.
“Crown” by TLO and pHoenix Pagliacci – golden laurels go to this team-up of a champion turntablist-producer and a heavy-spittin’ raptress, showing us that old-school spirit-rousing conscious rap still reigns.
“Dream of Touch” by Anda Zeng – the harp-strumming singer-songwriter slips into a cosmic reverie, shimmering from the starry above despite TO’s obscuring light pollution.
“Tough Kid” by Skye Wallace – an endearing alternative rockstar–that Tkaronto’s been sleeping on–gave us a moody nostalgic twist in her latest release.
“One More Latch (Give It To ‘Ya)” by Pantayo – with a hooky refrain and radiating metallic instrumentals, this band of “queer Filipinx kulintang gong punks” once again amps up the city’s sonic flavour.
“Heroes (Last Words)” by Ziibiwan – a delicate, melancholic soulfulness meets impressionistic electronica as this Anishnaabe artist-producer plucks through the ether.
“Spit” by Featurette and Kataem – the band’s genre-mashing of industrial rock, jagged electronic and dark pop get expanded with a Scarborian flow.
“what are you waiting for” by Cam Kahin – emerge from your $1500/month basement bachelor with this grungy, riff-laden kick-in-the-pants.
“My First Mistake” by Kirstyn Johnson – a tender, faultless piano ballad from half of red-hot songwriting duo Good Grief, a debut (of sorts) and certainly not the last.
“Dancing With Chaos” by Alex Exists – whether a nod to the construction and congested snarls of the “raccoon capital of the world’ or an obstacle course of the mind, this musician adds some wavy, brain-melting effects to punchy indie rock.
“Rush Dem” by Omega Mighty, Haviah Mighty and 4Korners – what would we be without The 6ix’s hefty gyal power–plus a Raptor-feeding DJ–sprinklin’ spice across the globe.
