Polaris Music Prize x Supercrawl Present

SISTER RAY + ELIZA NIEMI
Friday September 12, 2025
7pm Doors, 8pm Show
Mills Hardware (95 King St. E., Hamilton, ON)
GA Standing | 19+ | $20 (+SC/HST) Advance<

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A special side-quest to both Supercrawl and the Polaris Concert & Award Ceremony, this intimate show featuring past nominees Sister Ray and Eliza Niemi will also feature a Polaris Poster Exhibition. This pop-up Polaris Poster show features posters from the prize’s poster archive, each one a unique visual tribute to Canada’s most creative albums. Part music history, part art show, and on display for one night only.

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Sister Ray is the project of Edmonton-born songwriter Ella Coyes. Armed with a voice that soars and scrapes in equal measure, Coyes converts first-person recollections of big, complicated love into universally potent allegories., Raised on the expansive prairies of Sturgeon County, their music is steeped in a wide range of cultural influences. With gospel bluegrass and ’90s country playing in the background of their youth, it was the traditional Métis music played at home that not only brought them closer to their heritage, but taught them a form of storytelling rooted in collective value, resilience, and safety. Their debut album, Communion, was longlisted for the 2022 Polaris Prize, and Pitchfork deemed it “a complex study of webs of interpersonal hurt, and a celebration of emotional survival.” They have been featured in Clash Magazine, NME, DIY Magazine, The Line of Best Fit, Audiotree, NPR, Paste, and many more tastemaker outlets. Their EP Teeth came from a need for space and the repercussions conditional to this desire. Its songs were written quickly and vigorously, mimicked through the recording process, crafted by Coyes over five days, recruiting Ginla (the Brooklyn-based duo behind Communion and early Adrianne Lenker) as collaborators and producers. Their yearning tone and staggering honesty trickles throughout and the erosion leads to an opening—vacant, unfamiliar, and with room to breathe. On Believer, Sister Ray’s sophomore album, they evaluate what it means to hold your center while continually reappraising how to make sense of the world. Conjuring the barbed alternative folk and sweeping Americana of Tom Waits, Smog, and Lucinda Williams, the album unfurls and claws towards a greater emotional precision. If the tracks on Communion were fueled with an intentional sense of urgency, for their songwriting to serve as a vehicle for excavating revelations in motion, Believer yearns in a different direction. It rings with the certainty that self-assurance is cultivated through the cracks of discomfort.

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Kneading dough is tricky. You should know how it’s supposed to feel, and if you try too hard, you could make it worse. It’s a beautiful practice–creation with a gentle touch. This is the same instinctual skill Toronto-based artist Eliza Niemi has cultivated in her songwriting over decades. Before she became a cellist and vocalist, her father taught her the basics of bass and guitar at home. They would play together by ear, which fostered her deep musicality and a creative ethic that prioritizes joyful collaboration. Collaboration has always been at the centre of her practice — whether it be in improvising, playing in bands, or running her label Vain Mina Records. Her critically acclaimed debut LP Staying Mellow Blows (2022) was long listed for the Polaris Prize and her scores and compositions have appeared on CBC, BBC, Radiotopia, No Budge, and the Tribeca and FIN Atlantic Film Festivals.

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