The Great Escape Festival 2025 Lineup has been announced!
For the eleventh year running, MusicOntario is proud to present a stellar lineup of Ontario artists at Canada House during The Great Escape (TGE) 2025 in Brighton, UK!
As the third-largest recorded music market in the world, the UK is a key destination for emerging talent — and The Great Escape is its premiere festival for discovering new music. With 500 up-and-coming artists performing in over 30 walkable venues across Brighton, the city transforms into a global stage for fresh sounds.
Each year, industry professionals from around the world flock to TGE to scout new talent and attend its acclaimed conference, which runs alongside the showcases and features panels, keynote speeches, networking opportunities, and more. [Click here to learn more about The Great Escape.]
From May 15–17, MusicOntario will showcase five outstanding independent acts from Ontario at The Green Door Store, connecting them with international delegates and music fans alike. This year’s MusicOntario showcase features:
BILLIANE
Billianne captivated the internet in 2021 when her adaptation of Tina Turner’s ‘The Best’ went viral on TikTok, rocketing to more than 2 million views and spurring a spark of virality that redefined her life. Gaining a natural fanbase with nods from some of her idols (Taylor Swift, The Lumineers, Joe Jonas, Ryan Reynolds, P!nk, and Michael Bublé), Billianne took on the encouragement and set out to release her own original music.
Her debut EP, The Things We Talk About (2023) was a reflection of her tastes and an unveiling of her thoughts, quickly earning her the title of “music’s next big voice” by The Toronto Star. Gearing up for her debut full-length album, Billianne premiered her heartfelt, whimsical ‘Daydream’ (April 2024) live on NBC’s TODAY show and appeared on CBC’s Q to discuss the single with Tom Power. Her next single ‘Crush’ (August 2024) broke through the Top 10 at Canadian Top 40 radio.
BRIA SALMENA
Bria Salmena’s Big Dog chronicles a story of transformation–a deeply personal exploration of
resilience and a declaration of artistic independence forged through collaboration. Long celebrated as the frontwoman of Canadian post-punk outfit FRIGS and as a vocalist in Orville Peck’s live band, Salmena culminates her artistic evolution on her debut solo album. Anchored by her commanding voice—alternately tender, raw, and defiant—the album traverses the terrain of vulnerability and connection, marking the arrival of an artist boldly coming into her own.
Big Dog is a record of big emotions and big ambitions. Musically, the record takes elements of hypnotic krautrock and shimmery shoegaze, opulent goth, and pulsing darkwave, with a smearing of electronic textures for a sophisticated and often uncanny sound. Amidst this vast sonic landscape, Salmena’s potent lyrical imagery and gorgeous vocals stand dead center, perfectly in focus.
For Salmena, it is impossible to unlink the personal journey represented by Big Dog from the
collaborative relationships that went into its creation. Salmena worked with producer and multi-instrumentalist Duncan Hay Jennings in both FRIGS and Orville Peck’s band. Jennings, who is not only Salmena’s closest creative collaborator but also her closest friend, wrote Big Dog with Salmena over several years, during which Salmena was based in LA and Jennings in Toronto. Before Big Dog, the two gave classic and modern Americana songs a goth-y dream pop treatment on Salmena’s Cuntry Covers EPs.
Graham Walsh (Holy F**k, METZ, Debby Friday, Alvvays) helped the pair further refine their budding mix of rock and electronic music, while Meg Remy (of critically acclaimed experimental pop project U.S. Girls) focused primarily on Salmena’s vocals. Remy helped coax out the unforgettable performances that lie at the center of Big Dog through a series of cathartic meetings, pushing Salmena to dig even more deeply into the meaning of her lyrics and really think about different ways of using her voice. As Big Dog came together, it became apparent that Salmena’s songwriting had taken a raw and intimate turn, going well beyond her and Jennings’ work on their prior EPs.
Big Dog’s sound hovers between two worlds, gritty punk honesty always simmering below gleaming atmospherics, impossible to ignore. There are alternative rock touchstones—you’ll hear Live Through This, Kate Bush, Mazzy Star —and one genuine alternative rock icon in Lee Ranaldo, who contributes guitar to "See'er.” But there’s also a sleekness that’s just as much a callback to ‘80s coldwave as it is to ecstatic forms of dance music. Salmena’s rich voice is ever-present, a constant warm glow within a mesh of mechanical sounds. At its core, Big Dog is more than just a record about discovering who
you are by processing painful experiences. It’s a record about discovering that you are never really alone.
DOFLAME
For a solo artist, Mateo Naranjo, the mastermind behind DoFlame, is uniquely devoted to unlocking the potential of music scenes. The 21-year-old punk is fueled by a desire to bring people into a world and in turn bring them together, to find the real sense of community that can be attained by immersing yourself in an underground culture. DoFlame’s new album, BENT, bottles that feeling of discovery and camaraderie. Like a hardcore version of a coming-of-age movie, it captures all of the joy, confusion, and determination of being young and unsure of what’s next just as effectively as it blends the unbridled aggression of heavy music with the swagger of hip hop. With BENT, DoFlame is poised to expand his scene from the suburbs of Toronto to the entire globe.
GLOIN
Gloin “make driving, dark post-punk” (BrooklynVegan), adding noise rock and industrial elements to their music as they tackle themes of bewilderment, dread and anger. Using bombastic rhythmic constructs, savvy arrangements and fervid melodies, the Toronto outfit put forth solemn tracks about perseverance and self-determination that are cleverly subverted through sarcastic commentary, courtesy of their sense of humor. For things to come, the four-piece continue to refine their unique sound by way of All of your anger is actually shame (and I bet that makes you angry), a new raucous offering scheduled for March 28th, 2025 via Mothland.
STORRY
