Miles Above 
Who: Miles Above
What: classic melodic rock
Where: St. Catharines, ON
To Contact: Corey Macfadyen, Lintbelly Productions, (905) 684-9874, www.milesabove.org.

Miles Above's promo package looks great (glossy paper, photo, bio, press), but is missing key details. Most importantly, the advance CD came with no track listing or contact number - vital if it gets separated from the kit. Sometimes you are too lazy to fish around on a Web site and will move on to another act. Anyway, the songs on Move Or Be Moved, including "Faith Unkind", "Little Miss Innocent" and power ballad "Close My Eyes", are fitting alongside anything a classic rock station would play. The band was conceived by singer Tim Hicks and producer Corey Macfadyen (Serial Joe, Ryan Dennis, Sue Foley, Brighton Rock, UYK). They write all the material then Macfadyen retreats. For 2003's Further, Hicks (vocals, guitar, bass, piano) was flanked by studio players to fulfill the sound. For the follow-up, Move Or Be Moved, brothers Anthony Mancini (guitar, banjo, back-up vocals) and Adam Mancini (drums, percussion, back-up vocals) came in and are now permanent members. The 13 songs were recorded at Fort Erie's Summit Studios, Niagara's Groundloop Studios, and Macfadyen's Lintbelly Productions in St. Catharines. It was mixed in Montreal at Planet Studios with Dan Cinelli. Both albums came out in Europe/UK on London label Escape, distributed by Sony. The band doesn't have a deal in Canada.

Shelley Buffitt
Who: Shelley Buffitt
What: country of many colours
Where: Orangeville, ON
To Contact: SNR Music And Dash Music, Box 174 Station A, Orangeville, ON L9W 2Z8, (519)-925-6065 .

Beyond This Woman marks country artist Shelly Buffitt's third CD, and contains 18 songs, most of which were co-written with her producer Randy Moore, with whom she worked on 2000's Bad Side Of Town. Recorded at several Ontario studios - Heritage in Burlington, ON, Sound Stage Niagara in Thorold, and Grant Ave. in Hamilton - more than two dozen musicians and singers helped out on the album, including sax, banjo, fiddle, and steel guitar players. From the honky-tonk opener "Ask Me To Dance" with its playful, forward lyric to the ballad "Home Made Happiness", a story about a poor, hard-working girl and the idea of simple charity (Buffitt herself is a paramedic and involved with various causes). Born in Sarnia, ON, Buffitt started singing at age two in church and by eight had won first place in numerous vocal competitions at the Kiwanis Music Fest in London, ON. In high school, she hit the road with a top 40 and country band. Later, with the encouragement of her family, she recorded her debut CD, My First Love, in 1999 and followed it up with Bad Side Of Town. Buffitt has received numerous award nominations by the Ontario Country Music Association and Ontario Country Performers And Fans Association Awards.

Tele 
Who: Tele
What: Teletoons
Where: Winnipeg, MB
To Contact: www.telemusic.ca; myspacem.com/tele, .

Managed by guitarist Glen Willows of legendary Canadian rockers Harlequin, Tele is a young band from Winnipeg clearly influenced by '80s synth acts the four members could've only heard in the womb or playpen. Produced by Dale Penner (Nickelback, Matthew Good, Holly McNarland) at Winnipeg's Unison Studios, the three-song demo is clean, big and catchy. "What I Am To You" is a synthy-rock track with aggressive chorus; "Choose" is an ultra saccharin-sounding ballad with lines like "falling in love/ like cocaine in my blood/with you." The third song, "Take", is more straight-ahead pop/rock, less entrenched in the past. Over the course of the three songs, singer/guitarist Matt Worobec's utilizes his wide vocal range from a strong, aggressive delivery to soaring and sweet. Worobec and songwriting partner keyboardist Zack Antel formed Tele in 2003 and finalized the line-up with bassist Brendan Berg and Reade Ollivier on drums by 2004. The band has kicked into high gear this year, having played for all the major record labels and temporarily uprooting to Toronto for the summer in order to play as much as possible and hone its live show. The songs, especially these, are radio-ready. Tele is now looking to do a full album, one way or another.

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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