Tokyo Police Club 
Who: Tokyo Police Club
What: join the club
Where: Newmarket, ON
To Contact: Paper Bag, 455 Spadina Ave., #306, Toronto, ON M5S 2G8 (416) 260 1515, , www.paperbagrecords.com.

The Newmarket, ON-based teenagers, all 19 and 18 years of age, recorded seven songs in three days at Toronto's Signal To Noise Studio. With Jon Drew of Uncut at the production helm, the resulting EP, A Lesson In Crime, doesn't contain one song over two-minutes-and-something seconds. Vocalist/bassist David Monks; keyboardist-vocalist Graham Wright; guitarist Joshua Hook; and drummer Gregory Alsop started the band while in their last year of high school in February 2005 and two were in first-year university when MySpace friends Magneta Lane told the heads of its record label, Paper Bag, to check out their gig at Pop Montreal in October. Green but fun and enthusiastic, the quirky endearing band won over Paper Bag, which added it to its roster (Magneta Lane, Fembots, controller.controller, Deadly Snakes, Uncut, and others). Monks doesn't have the greatest voice, but it totally works in this alternative context; its weird spoken weariness has an intellectual air too. "Citizens Of Tomorrow" is a stand-out with its unpredictable turns - the claps, the shouts, the storyline (robot masters, spaceships, computers ruling the world), but the first single, "Nature Of The Experiment" is an angular, upbeat pop song featuring back-up vocals by Magneta Lane's Lexi Valentine. Universal Music Canada will distribute the album, and TCP will be able to expand its club membership.

How I Won The War
Who: How I Won The War
What: victory
Where: Toronto, ON
To Contact: Dylan White, 5 Sudbury St., #504, Toronto ON M6J 3W6 (416) 662-3455, .

Toronto-based Dylan White and Alex McKee have been writing together for six years, but this is the first time they've stepped out on stage and really made a go of it. All that woodshedding has paid off - the songs are full-realized harmony-driven pop gems, in the vein of an adult-contemporary early treble charger. While there still needs to be some more up-tempo numbers in their live repertoire, the four songs on this demo EP are perfectly crafted. The lead track, "The Highest Low" is the rockier, most catchy of the four, followed by "Further I Go," which has this odd ominous vibe. The beautiful "House On Fire" has a melancholy feel and "Everytime You Go" is another melodic mid-tempo number. How I Won The War was only solidified in October of 2005 with McKee (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), White (lead guitar, backing vocals), Michael Dilauro (bass, backing vocals) and Patrice Dion (drums). They recorded the EP at their rehearsal space in downtown Toronto, bringing in a Pro Tools rig owned by Dilauro, who calls his set up Crow's Nest Studios. He mixed it back at his home. How I Won The War played its first gig February 4, and only a few since then, but it has been drawing at least a 100 people each time.

Roxanne Potvin 
Who: Roxanne Potvin
What: feeling the feels
Where: Gatineau, PQ
To Contact: Alert Music Inc., (416) 364-4200, , www.roxannepotvin.com.

Let's drop some names ... Daniel Lanois, John Hiatt, Bruce Cockburn ... now let's drop them on this album by this 23-year-old bilingual singer, guitarist and songwriter. That's cool company for this relative unknown. Not only did her pop blend of blues, jazz, rock, folk and country impress Grammy-winning Canadian producer Colin Linden to produce the album, The Way It Feels, but the aforementioned three signed on to lend their talents as well. Hiatt's rough voice provides the perfect foil to her rich voice on the opening track, "A Love That's Simple". Lanois joins her on the gentle folk of "La Merveille," a purely francophone number and Cockburn plays electric guitar on the sultry jazz-pop of "While I Wait For You." The Regina-born Potvin is the daughter of musical parents (dad played guitar; mom sang) and cut her teeth as a performer at the Rainbow Club in Ottawa where she was raised. Her first recording in 2003, Careless Loving, was self-penned, self-produced and self-released. Linden produced the sophomore album, on Alert/Universal Music Canada, at various studios - Pinhead Recorders, Hennesey Bray Productions and Canterbury Sound, all in Toronto, and The Rendering Plant and Quad Recorders, both in Nashville. It was mixed and mastered by Joćo Carvalho in Toronto.

Credit: Toronto-based music journalist Karen Bliss is the Canadian news correspondent for Rollingstone.com, and operates a Canadian music industry news column, Lowdown, at http://jam.canoe.ca/Music/Lowdown. She also edits Gasoline, and contributes to Elle Canada, Audience, Tribute, Words & Music and others.

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