On Ev Christensen’s “Loose,” she tells the story of a woman wanting more for her life, as she builds resentment towards a man she’s bound to. “I’m playing with the trope of a woman being ‘wild’ and running off,” the rising New York-based artist tells PAPER. “And it’s tempting to set yourself free. It’s a stack of cash — or the old-world coin equivalent — right in front of you when you’re dead broke.”

This sense of yearning pulls from Christensen’s quiet upbringing on a North Dakota farm. “It’s a very beautiful place because it’s so, so plain,” she says, remembering how she could see neighbors’ homes miles away from the flat terrain. “It’s boring to a lot of people and, of course, I was bored at times too, but you have so much time and space to think. It’s no wonder I have fantasies of wanting to up and leave my fur-trading husband and rob a bank.”

The “Loose” video, premiering today, shows Christensen dancing solo in the woods and on rocks, singing longingly against an old wooden carriage. There’s one man, perhaps the one she sings about, fly fishing in the background. Despite her loneliness, though, Christensen still manages to capture her “lively imagination,” she notes. “By the end of the video, I’m in this gorgeous mine dancing and getting mud on my skirt train, but I’m still alone.”

Much like her previous release, “Spectacularity,” Christensen’s new single brings together an eclectic array of sounds. For this, she wanted to make a song using only strings and folk instruments that are synthesized. “Instruments that wouldn’t typically be put together from multiple continents,” she says, adding that the only real instrument featured is a pedal steel guitar played by Lea Jaffe.

Other collaborators on “Loose” include Christensen’s close friends Frankie Lipstick and Graham Tyler, who were both very involved in the project. “It took multiple nights at different diners to get it fully fleshed out,” she says. “I had a rough concept and I knew the locations, but they were so crucial to the final form.” Tyler made the saloon skirt featured in the video, while Lipstick styled her. This look was significant because “it portrayed the song and feelings I was trying to elicit so well,” Christensen says.

Fans of Ethel Cain or Lana Del Rey will comfortably find a home in the artist’s growing world, which often looks to the past and glamorizes a simpler way of living that no longer exists — especially in NYC. But striking the balance between old and new is a nuanced task, as Christensen explains. “I think it’s really important to dissect the eras that you take interest in and think about why it feels relevant to you now.”

Photo courtesy of Ev Christensen

I was surprised by Shaboozey — first in a theater tucked away in Nashville’s Soho House as his answers to my questions weren’t what I expected, and then later, as he took the stage to perform multiple hits on the Ascend Amphitheater stage as part of Music City’s inaugural Red Bull Jukebox, and his cool demeanor from earlier peeled back to reveal a superstar. A few weeks prior, he’d taken the stage for a two-night stand in Brooklyn, New York. Word on the street was that he’d put on a stellar performance in a city known more for it’s hip-hop roots and tough critique of sound more than its love for country music.

“Oh, it was amazing,” Shaboozey tells PAPER, leaning back into a velvet green lounge chair, signature ombré locks framing his face. “It was super cool doing two sold-out nights in New York, a place I feel like traditionally doesn’t have too much of a country scene that I know about. A lot of people connect country music with the South so to go the big city, and people are in their hats and boots and listening and feeling the music, it’s cool to see how far, like, the reach is. “

Speaking of reach, Shaboozey’s has been meteoric as of late. Yesterday, it was announced that his track “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” — which interpolates the track “Tipsy” by J-Kwon and has a chorus so contagious you’re probably accidentally humming it right now — had officially made it to 13 weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100 song chart, making it the longest-running No. 1 single of the year. He’s also the first Black male No. 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard Hot Country charts. But “Tipsy,” as I learn over my time in Nashville was no flash in the pan. Shaboozey came up in the ranks for country authentically, playing shows in dives and mainstays and getting attention from agents and labels the way you only can in Nashville.

The work has paid off. The city embraces him tightly and country music culture has shown their admiration by handing him a People’s Choice Country Award for being 2024’s Artist of the Year — and he also received a nod from the year’s CMA’s for Best New Artist. Still, he’s pretty humble about the whole thing. When I asked how he felt about the uproar around the track and his new title as a “breakout” star, his answer wasn’t what I expected.

“It was a gradual thing,” he says when ask when he realized that “Tipsy” was going to not just be a hit, but a historic feat. “I don’t think it was that moment. I think it was just seeing how all these moments were connecting. From our first single we put out, ‘Let It Burn,’ and seeing how that was connecting to people to then finally getting a release cadence, and seeing the response to everything. I think ‘Let It Burn,’ then ‘Colors,’ and even ‘Annabelle,’ those singles we were releasing that were all cohesive. [We had a] good team, direction, consistency, authenticity. Getting out there doing shows, doing all the work is what’s going to get you that moment. It’s not just a lucky thing where you just wake up… No, we, we were working.”

I nod before bringing up how it sounds like dominoes, how one thing led to the next and the next. “Exactly. When we made the song, it was definitely like our team and people who were like, “I think you’ve done it. I think you’ve done something special with this song. But yeah, it’s never really a moment. If anything, all of it was just a blessing. I don’t think you plan for like that as an artist.”

His words rang true later that night as fans lined up to dance, tapped their heels, and sang along to every word long before his biggest hit played over the loudspeakers. It’s a juxtaposition to what so many outlets and Tweets and naysayers have said about the genre, who belongs there and how they’re received. But watching it play out in real-time, Nashville, Country, and Shaboozey sound like a perfect fit.

Later, as we talk about the “moment” Country is having right now, with big names like Beyoncé throwing their name in the cowboy hat for the Southern-bred sound, and his own hit sitting pretty on the charts, I get curious about what he sees next for the genre. “I think a reason why it’s such a big genre right now is because the moment is right now,” he says. “You know what I mean? I don’t think it’s a coming or a future thing. I think what I’d like to see is what’s happening currently. You have artists at every level embracing the genre of music. And then the people in Country there are so many different styles. There’s people that are keeping it super traditional, the old western sort of sound. There are people that are doing, you know, like Zach Top, who’s bringing in the ’90s kind of vibe. Everyone’s doing their own thing. It’s like there are subgenres in it now. I’m seeing a lot of people exploring the genre and that’s the thing about country music. It’s about honoring the past. I think a lot of other genres are about ‘How do we move forward’ and they forget the roots of it.”

He adds with a knowing grin: “It’s kind of punk, country. Country needs punk too, but their punk is trying to keep a tradition.”

Photos courtesy of Red Bull

“Hello friends,” began Canada-based composer and performer Beverly Glenn-Copeland on a recent Instagram post beside his wife and creative partner, Elizabeth Paddon. “[We’re] here today because we have some news to share with you.”

For the past decade, Glenn-Copeland has traversed the world, performing his singular music and experiencing a career-high in his 70s. His music — moving, operatic, ethereal — had sat dormant for decades until it was discovered by a Japanese vinyl collector and became a favorite of tastemakers like Four Tet, Caribou, Arca, Blood Orange and music connoisseurs alike. But, as he announced on Instagram, his current tour would be his last. He had been recently diagnosed with dementia and had been managing the condition alongside Paddon.

The news added a layer of gravity to Glenn-Copeland’s recent performance at Montreal’s Rialto Theatre. But even with that, the tone inside the historic performance space was not one of tragedy, but of (teary) celebration. Glenn-Copeland, a pioneering Black trans artist, had finally found a rapturous audience. “We want to challenge the mainstream image of this illness, which focuses on loss. We are actively asking the universe to show us where the life is,” said Glenn-Copeland. And indeed, there he was, vibrant, filled with energy, performing alongside Paddon with a choir of singers behind him and a packed crowd of admirers in front.

It’s fitting that the performance happened as part of POP Montreal, the multi-venue, multi-day, not-for-profit festival that takes over Montreal every September. Now in its 23rd year, the festival has a long history of honoring legends and newcomers alike. “The initial motivation for the festival was to do something that brings together a bunch of cool bands,” shares POP Montreal co-founder and creative director Dan Seligman. “[We thought that] the industry would come, but we wouldn’t make it about the industry.” Citing experiences at similar city-wide festivals where industry pros would sit in the back and survey bands like a “buyer’s market,” Seligman and his co-founder, Peter Rowan, sought to create an experience that had a true Montreal ethos. “Montreal’s not really like New York or LA where it’s industry-driven. It’s more about the community and the vibe of the city,” says Seligman. “[We wanted to] make it more about the fans, less pretentious, and more about that Montreal spirit.”

The festival started years before Montreal’s own Arcade Fire brought its brand of cinematic rock music to stages worldwide, and a decade before Grimes, who began making music as a student at McGill, shifted pop music forever through her early sonic experimentations. It was luck, then, according to Seligman, that the history of the festival aligned with a stretch of time when Montreal produced some of music’s most vital, irreplaceable stars. “Arcade Fire played the second edition of the festival and was the first of three on a bill,” remembers Seligman. “I remember Grimes’ first few shows.” Indeed, POP Montreal hosted Grimes’ album release party for her pre-Oblivion album, Halfaxa. “They were a train wreck in a way, but there was also something completely unique and captivating about her music and performance.”

This year, the festival leaned into that history, most notably through a celebration of the late singer Lhasa de Sela (known eponymously as Lhasa), who long resided in the Mile End neighborhood of Montreal. The American-born singer weaved together diverse musical traditions (American folk, Mexican ranchera, big band jazz) and sang in English, Spanish and French, making her at home in the uniquely bilingual city. In 2010, Lhasa died of breast cancer, but she is still revered as a central figure in Montreal’s musical history. The tribute concert, which also took place at the Rialto Theatre, was organized by Lhasa’s brother, Mischa Karam, and featured a prestigious lineup of artists such as Silvana Estrada, Juana Molina, Calexico and Feist. Similar to Glenn-Copeland’s performance, the space was dense with feeling, as fans, friends and Lhasa’s family members revived her spirit through word and song.

But even as Lhasa’s tribute and Glenn-Copeland’s performance provided moments to consider the long arc of musical history, the busy festival also had ample opportunity for concertgoers to lean into the new. PAPER fav and former Montreal resident Cecile Believe had a hometown hero moment in Rialto Theatre’s underground venue, Piccolo Rialto. A longtime SOPHIE collaborator, Cecile Believe performed her recently released collaboration with SOPHIE’s, “My Forever” to a dense throng of fans on the same day as SOPHIE’s posthumous album release.

Other standouts included Nabihah Iqbal, who served double duty as DJ and performer, offering fans a set of her solo musical work before jetting off to a joyous vinyl DJ set on another stage. And New York City’s own Cassandra Jenkins played a moving show to a crowd that sang along to her sleeper hit, the spoken word “Hard Drive.” Her inspired reception was a fitting end to a blessed trip for the artist. “I’m kind of mad because people always told me how much I’d love Montreal,” she said to the crowd. “I just didn’t realize how much I really would.”

In total, the festival featured 200 concerts in 20 venues over five days and consisted of both intimate affairs and packed theater shows. With the support of government funding, POP Montreal has found a healthy equilibrium between scale and community. “There were so many beautiful, amazing performances and moments,” reflects Seligman of 2024’s round of POP Montreal. “It’s about the connection you have to the people participating, whether they’re staff or the small group of friends and artists you’re close with,” he shares. “That’s the magic.” And though they’re a far ways away from their early days of the festival’s loft parties and general DIY mayhem, it still hums with a communal, can-do spirit. POP Montreal still pops.

Photography: Sarah ODriscoll