Charm is a singer and songwriter from Vancouver who came to music late but is making up for lost time. As a teenager she spent her days among classically trained musicians, and for decades afterwards she listened almost exclusively to CBC radio, back when it played classical, jazz, blues, opera and big band records by the likes of Earl Bostic and Tommy Dorsey. She wrote her first songs around thirty years ago, yet she had no formal musical training until January 2026; since then she has written 27 songs, started singing in public and put together a band. "The Anti-Blues" is the title track of her new four-song EP, released on September 26. The idea is right there in the name: the music keeps the shape of the blues and a jazzy swing, but instead of heartbreak and betrayal, every song on the record celebrates a happy, loving relationship.

Everyone in the band plays superbly, and the whole thing swings so hard that staying in your seat is out of the question. It is meant as an anti-blues and, as far as I can tell, an anti-dance song too, yet all you want is to get up and dance like mad. The lush backing vocals and the gorgeous saxophone lines stand out right away. But the center of gravity is the singer's own voice: earthy, yet deep and rich in overtones. Hearing it feels like a heart-to-heart talk, as if she were looking straight into your eyes and telling you a story that slips past every filter and settles right in your soul.

Listen to "The Anti-Blues" — the song itself and the rest of the EP — below.