In this week’s edition of Tuesday Tracks we take a look at a couple of side projects—two starkly different sounds, both with an inherent Canadiana about them. Both bands evoke the great expanse of the country in different ways, the first conveying that certain sense of isolation it instills, while the second feels like a tribute to the community built out of it, a singalong stuffed with words you can’t hear.

Oh and then there’s the Arcade Fire, because, well, they made one heck of a music video.

First up is Grey Kingdom, the side project of Attack in Black guitar player Spencer Burton. It’s an apt alias, well suited to the wistful, contemplative track-list on his self-titled EP, which is out today. They’re lonely, sad songs that can be hard to listen to if you aren’t ready for them, but if you are, a song like “Paintbrush Soul” feels like it could save your life:

Next is Baby Eagle, another side project, this time from Steven Lambke of the Constantines. Although, with recent news that the Constantines have essentially broken up, Baby Eagle might become his fulltime gig. The new album Dog Weather is certainly reminiscent of Lambke’s days as frontman, but twangier. Listen to “Haybale Song” here:

And finally, yesterday the Internet was all a buzz about Arcade Fire’s new video for “We Used to Wait.” What’s so special about it? It’s a unique little experiment that blends really well with the themes in the band’s latest album The Suburbs. Basically it takes some new features allowed by HTML 5, and combines it with data from Google Maps to create a personalized video that plays on the viewer’s nostalgia quite effectively. Unfortunately, a video like this can’t be embedded, and it only works in the Chrome and Safari browsers. Check it out at The Wilderness Downtown.

Computer model of a Bisphenol-A molecule.

Canadians – a bunch of walking, talking BPA vessels? Apparently so. Statistics Canada recently released results from their first nationwide look into bisphenol A, and the results aren’t pretty.

According to a Globe and Mail report on the stats, 91 per cent of Canadians tested show some sort of BPA exposure, and teenagers carry most of the brunt, with their bodies often containing up to 30 per cent more BPA than the rest of the population.

When the first round of BPA warnings surfaced years ago, it looked like Canada would take a stand that could lead to the ingredient being declared a toxic chemical. And since then, while that declaration has stalled, the levels of BPA found in our bodies continues to rise.

It can seem like fear mongering, but BPA really is in a shocking amount of everyday products. CDs, tin can liners, and plastic water bottles all contain BPA. Most people get a steady BPA diet through food packaging. The big deal is that the chemical mimics estrogen — the average level of BPA in our bodies is actually close to 1,000 times the normal level of naturally occurring estrogen.

Of course, some scientists, and those who are involved in the BPA industry, say that just because something is in our body, doesn’t mean it’s causing harm. And it’s true that while we can speculate on what this added BPA might mean for us, we don’t know for a fact if it causes health problems.

But it’s concerning the ease with which we let synthetic products become a part of our diet with very few restrictions. The argument that it’s probably not causing any harm to our bodies is ridiculous — seeing as how BPA’s not a naturally occurring ingredient in our food system, we shouldn’t be ingesting it.

It’s interesting that the media also recently wondered why puberty continues to hit our adolescents earlier and earlier. If what we’re putting into our bodies as fuel isn’t natural, our bodies won’t act that way either. (Of course it hasn’t been proved if there are any links between chemicals like BPA and early puberty, though the New York Times article linked above does mention it briefly.)

The pessimist in me wonders if it’s too little too late now. We’ve been exposed to products with BPA so long that all the studies are doing is proving that our bodies are at the whim of packaging manufacturers. This is testing that shoud have been done years ago, but it’s only now that we’ll get a peek at what’s happening to us.

Elizabeth Powell, lead singer for Land of Talk

In this week’s edition of Tuesday Tracks we’ll take a look at a group of modern new wavers, one of the country’s best kept secrets and a wild video from a true eccentric. Sometimes sifting through the web for new music can be an arduous task. There’s just so much, but other times the songs really find you. Such is the case this week. Here’s three songs that has been on pretty constant play in my iPod this week.

First up is Bishop Morocco, a neo-new wave group that pays it’s respects to Manchester, but in the most elegant of ways. Their video for “Last Years Disco Guitars” uses the nostalgic quality of the music and pairs it with dreamy scenes of made up memories.

Next is Land of Talk, a band that I think has remained under the radar for a lot of people, but I’m not totally sure why. They’ve released two stellar albums already: Applause, Cheer, Boo, Hiss and Some Are Lakes. They return again with their third album Cloak & Ciper today. “Quarry Hymns” is from that record:

Finally, we have Hawksley Workman. The song “Tokyo Bicycle” is off his latest album Meat and a simple, straight ahead burst of enegry initially, then as the song grows it becomes as eccentric as he is.

Oxfam Polar Bear demonstrates at the 2009 Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Photo courtesy of Oxfam International, Flickcreativecommons.

Negotiators are currently engaged in talks in Germany to discuss the agenda for the year-end environmental summit in Mexico. The Mexico meeting is intended to broker a new international agreement to replace the soon-to-be expired (but long since overshadowed) Kyoto Protocols.

Sounds promising; but before we get too ahead of ourselves, let’s try and understand what exactly is going on here: international decision makers are spending their time in meetings to discuss the agenda for upcoming meetings to replace an agreement that was the celebrated result of past meetings but has largely been ignored since. All the while, citizens of the world wait patiently like the oblivious frog in the slowly blowing pot of water as climate change ravages whole countries.

While UN delegates at the Bonn conference have taken off their jackets and ties in a fatuous stance against the abstract concept of heat, much of the rest of the world is being forced into the realization that climate change is not about weather getting warmer—it’s about the volatility and unpredictability of weather, and the storms, floods, droughts, and other natural disasters that come with that.

Leaving world leaders to their meetings, lets check in with the real world: Russia is literally burning as wildfires have sprung up across the tinder-dry land already ravaged by a record-setting heatwave and smog choking the capital. China and India-controlled Kashmir are still dealing with the aftermath of massive floods and mudslides following heavy rains that overflowed the Bailong River, leaving hundreds dead and chasing thousands from their homes. The Pakistani floods have affected more individuals than the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, 2005 Kashmiri earthquake and the recent earthquake in Haiti combined—the UN estimates that nearly 14 million people will be affected by the country’s worst flooding in 80 years. Seven million people in Niger face starvation as droughts have ravaged crops in the Sahel region of Africa, leaving an estimated 10 million people across the region with no food. A sheet of ice 260 square kilometers—more than four times the size of Manhattan—broke off the Petermann Glacier recently, making it the largest Arctic iceberg to split since 1962.

And yet while all of this is going on, Globe and Mail’s Neil Reynolds has the audacity to answer the cries for a solution to climate change with a single word, emblematic of the hubris that led us blindly into this crisis in the first place: “adapt.”  Sure! Humans undoubtedly can adapt to a 0.6 degree increase in our average temperature (especially those of us in the West, sitting comfortably in front of our air conditioners). But what of the environmental systems directly affected by our actions (the crisis in Russia, if nothing else, shows us exactly how sensitive the global food system can be to an increase of even a few degrees as drought, heat waves, and wildfires have created a perfect storm that’s decimated Russia’s wheat crops). Oceans, glaciers, forest and agricultural cycles are all intricately affected by the most minute changes in weather patterns, and while we may easily be able to adapt to the changing weather our pollution has created, the basic systems that sustain our life may not.

To recap, then: climate change talks in Bonn, aimed at establishing a working platform for the upcoming summit in Cancun, have back-slid as some leaders are walking away from even the most modest commitments they made in Copenhagen. China and the U.S. have clashed in the meetings, and rich countries have lined up against developing nations in a refusal to compromise on emission-reduction targets. This tit-for-tat maneuvering is endemic at the senior negotiating level, and threatens to derail the entire endeavour. All the while, the world burns.

The pot of water has been gradually getting hotter around us for some time.  While Reynolds and his kind turn up their air-conditioning and UN delegates loosen their ties and talk in circles, we’re begining to feel the heat.

Paul Murphy of Postdata

This week in Tuesday Tracks we’re going to slow it down a notch with three great songs sporting three great videos—perfect for listening to in the sweltering days of August.

I went through a long period of time where I avoided these kinds of songs—slow, sad, strums of an acoustic guitar paired with whispered poetry. I had spent most of my life withdrawn and introspective and didn’t need the help of the Nick Drakes of the world to help get me to that place. In fact, turning to music was the best antidote to a bout of crippling shyness. It is in part the swaggering arrogance of rock n’ roll that makes it so appealing: the bombast of frontmen like Mick Jagger or Freddie Mercury, the genre-bending posturing of Prince and Michael Jackson. Living legends with god complexes, true rockstars who aspired to be larger than life and perpetuated that image.

Of course, none of today’s selections approach their music with those aspirations—and that’s Ok. Not everyone can be, nor should be, Axl Rose. Sometimes a whisper is more effective than a scream.

In the bio to Postdata’s self titled release, Paul Murphy talks about his grandparents’ death. He explains in their passing he was left with sad dreams that haunted him afterwards, dreams that later turned into songs with his brother and even later became this album.

It’s an album of hurt and acceptance, understated instrumentation and above all, spectacular beauty.

This is “Tobias Grey”:

The next band, Entire Cities, don’t spend all their time writing sparse piano music about regret, but when they do, it’s something special. “The Woods” is actually a pretty unconventional song for the band. Being seven members strong, along with a smattering of “long distance” and “occasional” contributors, Entire Cities doesn’t really do “sparse” very often. The only hint in the song is all the voices, all members who would normally be playing instruments.

Julie Fader is one of those musicians who made a name for herself in the music community well before the general public ever caught wind. She’s played on albums for Great Lake Swimmers, Chad VanGaalen, Blue Rodeo, and Sarah Harmer, among others. But it wasn’t until this past year that she released an album with her own name on it. Outside In is that album, and this is “Flights”:

James Cagney, Greenpeace, Syncrude, and other menaces to society.

Conservative provocateur Ezra Levant suggested in a Calgary Sun column last week that, according to Section 467.1 of the Criminal Code, Greenpeace should be prosecuted as a criminal organization.

That section of the Code defines a “criminal organization” as a group numbering more than three people in or outside Canada that “has as one of its main purposes or main activities the facilitation or commission of one or more serious offences that, if committed, would likely result in the direct or indirect receipt of a material benefit, including a financial benefit, by the group or by any of the persons who constitute the group.”

For the record, a serious offence is defined as that which carries a maximum punishment of imprisonment for five years or more.

Levant argues that Greenpeace, which is clearly composed of more than three people both in and outside Canada, financially benefits from repeated illegal activity—Greenpeace’s protests sometimes employ direct action and civil disobedience—through donations after the fact. And because break and enter—a common charge for protesters—is considered a “serious offence,” Greenpeace ought to be categorized as a criminal organization for encouraging it. Levant’s suggestion? Prosecute the bosses.

Now, let’s play along with him and accept for the sake of argument that Greenpeace leaders ought to be tossed behind bars. But as long as we’re cracking down, let’s take a look around for other nefarious criminal organizations hiding in plain sight. Who else was breaking the law in northern Alberta?

Oh, right. There was that consortium of oil giants, Syncrude, which was guilty of breaking two laws—the Alberta Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act, and the federal Migratory Birds Convention Act.

Now, we’re not sure yet what kinds of penalties Syncrude will face, as those won’t be handed down by the court until later this month. But more importantly, we do know what penalties Syncrude could have faced.

According to the Migratory Birds Convention Act, anyone who is convicted of an offence under that Act can be imprisoned “for a term not more than three years”. And if they are convicted a second time, that penalty can double to six years.

Let’s recall the definition of a serious offence: “an indictable offence under [the Criminal Code] or any other Act of Parliament for which the maximum punishment is imprisonment for five years or more.”

If my math is correct, a six-year prison term is longer than five years. So if Syncrude screws up again and a few thousand ducks pay the price, we might have a new criminal organization among our ranks.

Since the federal government is all about getting tough on organized crime these days, we thought they might like to know.

Child miners are forced to work the mines by the warring groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Photo courtesy: ENOUGH Project, Flickr Creative Commons.

As I type this, I am complicit in the funding of rape and war.  You probably are too–sitting on your laptop, listening to your mp3 player, texting on your smartphone–even if you don’t know it.

But that could all change with the passing of Barack Obama’s sweeping financial reform legislation by Congress in July. While the story made headlines across the United States and pundits and politicians debated its potential ability to clean up Wall Street, largely lost in the 2,300 page document was a landmark piece of U.S. legislation that is geared towards transforming a place as far removed from Wall Street as possible—the Democratic Republic of Congo, the rape capital of the world.

Tucked into the “Miscellaneous Provisions” section of the bill, the new U.S. law will require all publicly-traded and electronics companies to disclose the source of the minerals contained in their products and the steps they are taking to ensure that they are “conflict free.”

The DRC is a resource-rich nation with large deposits of tantalum, tin, tungsten, and gold, all of which can be found in every cell phone, laptop, iPod, digital camera and most other pieces of modern technology in the world. If it stores a charge, vibrates, or has gold-coated wiring, chances are it’s got these four minerals in it.  The provision, then, will affect thousands of U.S. companies, including technology giants Apple, Hewlett Packard and Dell.

Activists, U.N. experts and non-governmental organizations have become increasingly vocal about concern that armed Congolese groups—including the Congolese army, rebel militias, and groups from Uganda and Rwanda—are financing themselves with minerals from eastern Congo.  In what’s been called Africa’s World War, the DRC has been mired in violence for more then a decade.  The war began following the 1994 genocide in neighbouring Rwanda and has claimed the lives of roughly 5 million Congolese, displacing another 2 million from their homes. Hundreds of thousands of women and young girls have been raped, as soldiers on all sides of the conflict have utilized systematic sexual violence as a weapon.

As with conflict diamonds, the legislation recognizes the direct correlation between our consumer appetites and the violence plaguing the Congo. While it stops short of placing an embargo on the purchase and use of the minerals, American manufacturers must now be forthright if they do so, essentially saying: “this cell phone helped fund rape and war.”

One U.K.-based advocacy group is taking the initiative to distance our consumer goods from conflict minerals one step further. Global Witness filed suit against the British government last week for failing to recommend that U.K. companies face United Nations sanctions for purchasing conflict minerals from the DRC. UN Security Council Resolution 1857, passed in 2008, calls for a travel ban and asset freeze on all individuals and entities supporting illegal armed groups in the DRC through illicit trade in natural resources. Resolution 1896 strengthened this by calling on UN member states to bring individuals and corporations forward for sanctions.

While the British government has refused to recommend the companies accused by advocacy groups for sanctions and has disputed the evidence brought against them, it has affirmed their countries commitment to the UN resolutions and to ethical mining.

The U.S. and U.K.’s support for due diligence and ethical mining relations with the DRC—lip-service though it may turn out to be—is more then we can say for our country. Canada has not only opposed valuable mining reform but has worked to undermine the DRC itself.

Canada delayed the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s proposed $12.3 billion debt relief for the DRC, intended to mark the country’s jubilee anniversary of its independence. The decision was delayed following a request from Canada due to a legal dispute between Kinshasa and Vancouver-based mining company First Quantum Minerals Ltd. over mining rights. The proposed debt relief eventually went through, despite Canada’s tacit opposition as the lone abstaining vote.

While Harper claims that the DRC’s transfer of operating licenses violated international law and he used the podium of the G20 to frame the blocking of debt forgiveness as his stand for good governance, the actions of Canadian mining companies in the DRC has largely gone unquestioned by our government.  A UN Security Council report on the illegal exploitation of natural resources of the DRC found that First Quantum, along with several other Canadian corporations, were in violation of OECD guidelines of ethics and that their actions had led to an “economy of war”. That the Canadian government would stand alone on the world stage and hold Congo’s debt relief in limbo in defence of the mining rights of a company found to be acting illegally to pillage the natural wealth of the DRC makes it clear that our government is closer aligned with the mining sector then the international community.

Our government’s opposition to accountability within the mining sector is not without its own calculus—we are, more so then most other nations, particularly invested in global mining projects. The world’s largest source of equity capital for mining companies undertaking exploration and development can be found in the financial markets in Toronto and Vancouver; in 2008, exploration and mining companies based in Canada accounted for 43 percent of global exploration expenditures and 75 percent of the world’s mining companies were headquartered in Canada.

Canadian policy therefore has a vested interest in the mining sector, since Canadian companies play a major role in it globally.

But that doesn’t mean that Canada can’t follow the suit of our neighbours to the south and legislate for more ethical mining practices. When our MPs return to the House of Commons for the fall session, among the first bills on the agenda will be Private Member’s Bill C-300, the “Responsible Mining Bill.” Introduced by Liberal MP John McKay in 2009, the bill seeks to implement stricter guidelines for corporate social responsibility, to ensure that mining companies receiving funding from the federal government comply with internationally agreed-upon standards of human rights and environmental protection.

It comes down to responsibility: holding companies responsible for the goods they produce and the way they produce them. Of course, this is simply one small step to end the violence in the DRC—the war did not begin over minerals and this will not bring about its end. Every dollar in our society is a vote, though, and the the idea behind initiatives like Bill C-300 and the legislation in the U.S. is that civilian purchasing power, combined with government pressure, can enforce corporate accountability to stop funding the militarization of the region. This action is merely one in the arsenal that is required to stabilize the DRC. But it is an important one.

A little while ago K-OS and Sebastien Grainger took a camera crew down to the Gulf Coast to shoot a documentary showcasing the devastation caused by the BP oil spill. The two were moved enough to write the song “BlackWater” about the experience. It will also be on K-OS’s mixtape, out Aug. 6.

It’s been three years since Chromeo impressed the musical masses with their sophomore release Fancy Footwork. The slick production and tongue-in-cheek delivery hit all the right notes, now they’re back with “Don’t turn the lights on” off their upcoming album Business Casual.

It’s finally arrived, Arcade Fire’s fiercely anticipated followup to Neon Bible came out in stores yesterday. The band first gave fans a taste a couple of months ago with a pair of mp3s, then they played a host of secret shows, but as of yesterday the secret it out. Here’s “We used to wait” off The Suburbs.

Millions around the world live without access to clean drinking water that plays a role in a host of easily preventable diseases. Photo courtesy: from a second story)Mike Bailey-Gates, FlickCreativeCommons.

UPDATE: Wednesday, July 28, 12:14 — The Council of Canadians reports that the United Nations general assembly has voted in favour of the resolution to recognize water and sanitation as basic human rights. The still-unofficial vote count was 124 votes in favour, zero votes against, and 42 abstentions. We’ll update with the official vote when it’s known. It is our presumption, and not reported fact, that Canada abstained, given its obstructionism on this issue to this point; but we’re willing (and hoping!) to be surprised. We will update with further details when we know officially.

UPDATE: 12:32 — Council of Canadians updated their report (viewable here) confirming that Canada did abstain on the vote.

Human rights: what are they? It should be a relatively straightforward question, but posed to any group of people, it’s bound to elicit a huge range of responses. To date the most successful attempt to articulate a workable standard is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted on December 10, 1948, by the United Nations and its constituent countries.

The document consists of 30 articles outlining our most basic and universal human rights, from all individuals’ inherent equality before the law (article 1) to the right to education (article 26) to the right to seek asylum from persecution (article 14).  Despite having the distinction of being the most widely translated document in the world—available in over 375 languages and dialects—it is only part of an ongoing struggle to entrench dignity as the cornerstone for all human interactions. Even a casual perusal of the days headlines reveals that this struggle is far from realized.

Today, the United Nations General Assembly will consider adding a 31st article to the Declaration: the human right to “available, safe, acceptable, accessible, and affordable water and sanitation.”  The political and environmental landscape of our day is far different then the postwar horror that birthed the original human rights declaration in 1948. Few then predicted a future when water would become a contested issue. But access to water now presents us with the most pressing human rights concern.

Article 25 of the Declaration reads:

Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

All human rights are interrelated, interdependent and indivisible; in this regard, guaranteeing a standard of living and health based on the availability of food, clothing, housing and medical care while making no provision for water calls into question the entire project.  What level of well-being can possibly be achieved when 884 million people in the world do not have access to safe water; what standard of living is provided for when 2.6 billion people in the world do not have access to basic sanitation; and what principle are we using to measure health when 1.4 million children die every year from preventable diarrhea caused by contaminated water and poor sanitation.

When we consider the tragic realities of those 3 billion people who do not have access to running water within a kilometre of their homes, the obvious oversight of water rights becomes startlingly clear; its absence is glaring.

Today’s UN vote is the culmination of several years of lobbying by international and community groups advocating for water justice.  These groups demand that the right to water, like the right to food and shelter, be protected by a binding UN convention guaranteeing that no individual can be denied water because of an inability to pay.

And yet, despite the obvious gravity of the situation, a small bloc of nations—with Canada (surprise, surprise) at the helm—have worked to curb even the most modest recognition of the right to water while they have worked behind the scene to quash any UN proposal. At the World Water Forum at the Hague in 2000, in Kyoto in 2003 and in Mexico City in 2006, Canada refused to recognize water as a human right.  Canada was the only country to vote against a 2002 UN resolution on the human right to water (baldly stating: “Canada does not accept that there is a right to drinking water and sanitation.”) and again in 2008, Canada played a pivotal role blocking the motion by Spain and Germany to officially recognize water as a human right at the UN Human Rights Council.

Our government (under both Liberal and Conservative leaderships) has offered little in the way of explanation for their stance on water rights.  Those opposing the concept would have us believe that, if passed, it would see Canadian lakes drained and Canadian water shipped off to hotel fountains and golf courses in water-parched Las Vegas and other U.S. states.

This is simply not the case, and our government—and anyone familiar with UN rights conventions—knows it.  Rights conventions oblige each country to uphold and enshrine the right within their borders and for their population and to report these steps to the UN (Canada, for example, despite having signed the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is under no obligation to provide Americans with the right to own property or the right to peacefully assemble. We would likewise be under no obligation to provide Americans with the right to water).

The reality is that NAFTA and the proposed EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement threaten Canadian water far more then the recognition (I’d say elevation but let’s be honest: for the majority of the world, the right to water is a no-brainer; it’s just us in Canada that are the holdouts) of water as an inalienable right. While NAFTA and the EU-Canada CETA provide windows for far greater privatization of our water, enshrining water as a human right would serve to temper corporate hegemonic control of our most basic necessity. And it would transform water from a resource to be exploited for profit, to a human right to be safeguarded for the public good. It would also provide legal recourse against those who would pollute our waters—tar sands, I’m looking at you. You can’t, after all, turn massive amounts of a human right into toxic tailing ponds that pollute groundwater and the Athabasca River.

Canada’s backward stance on water rights around the globe should, unfortunately, surprise no one; we have only to look in our own backyard and the availability of clean water in many indigenous communities across the country to see how little our government—the current Conservatives as well as the Liberals before them—values water access. The Ontario community of Kaschechewan gained national attention in 2005 when 1,000 of its residents were forced to evacuate because of poor water quality and unsanitary conditions. Kaschechewan, while an extreme example, is the rule and not the exception: over 80 First Nations communities are currently under “boil water advisories” (meaning they can’t drink their tap water), and 21 communities are deemed to be at high risk for contamination.

The UN vote has the potential to be at once both historic and self-congratulatory: if it passes today, it will see water enshrined alongside food, shelter and safety as an undeniable basic human right.  But, as we have seen with other human rights, there is a huge gap between the words written in the convention and the actions of our government.  At the risk of repeating myself from earlier posts: we are no longer “Canada the good.” We do, however, have the opportunity to lead this time—by ensuring that the resolution will pass, and by acting quickly to realize its goals, both at home and abroad.

Rich Aucoin

Summer festivals were once kingpins of the concert season, but in recent years their popularity has waned significantly. The recession has been blamed, and it certainly has had an effect, but the more likely cause for a drop in popularity has to do not with personal economics, but greed by the promoters. A great summer festival is about creating atmosphere: a parallel utopia that is built and demolished over the course of a few days. The problem with festivals lately is that feeling has mostly been abandoned in favour of commerce.

It’s not that people can’t afford to go to big behemoth events, it’s that they don’t want to afford it. Who wants to spend $200 to enter a fenced-in field where you’ll be searched as if you were crossing a border checkpoint, to ensure you’re not carrying contraband like bottled water or a picnic—forcing you to pay the inflated prices for Dasani and Pizza Pizza.

But let us not paint all festivals with one brush! Last weekend, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, hosted the Evolve festival. The three-day event promotes better living by example and tries to educate visitors about social issues. So, this week on Tuesday Tracks, we salute the Evolve festival for being just a little bit better than all the rest. Coming up: three performers from this year’s event.

First is experimental songsmith Rich Aucoin. Aucoin’s track “Push” is a laser-fulled, Daft Punk dance number that goes from robotic dissonance to a very human, inclusive anthem about accomplishment.

Finally we have Hey Rosetta, a band who has been steadily gaining steam since they formed in 2005. These Newfoundlanders make the kind of music you hear and wonder why they aren’t on the radio. Their songs are accessible, but at the same time, unique and intriguing. Here’s “Red Heart”: