Sam The Living, Grace Clark & Angela Begin @ The Burdock Music Hall

Why we picked it

Sam The Living:You’re baking cookies when the oven timer goes off. You reach in too fast, the oven mitt slipping short of your wrist, and burn yourself on the rack. The tray tilts, the cookies fall, and your favourite baking dish shatters on the kitchen floor. Andy Shauf - or maybe Paul Simon or Ray LaMontagne - is playing in the background, and despite the sting, you can’t help but laugh at how bitter a moment can be. Sam the Living lives inside that feeling. The self-proclaimed sad prince of the prairies, now based in Toronto, Sam is an eclectic singer-songwriter who turns small domestic disasters and dissociative episodes into thoughtful, affecting songs. Blending seventies soft rock with contemporary indie folk, his ethereal, brooding voice carries stories of almost-love, hunger, heartache, and absurd reflection, lifted by rich harmonies that would earn the approval of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. As melancholic as it is playful, Sam’s music invites listeners to sit wit