Hi Res Photos / Stage Plot / Bio / .WAV
BIO
Erik Bleich writes songs that grow with you. They bloom with dark, sour fruit that lasts deep into the coldest months of winter.
Sumac, his upcoming record, takes its name from a plant ubiquitous with the southern Ontario landscape of his adopted home. It grows along the highways and out of the sidewalks. You can pass it for years without noticing its pre-historic leaves and clusters of deep, crimson fruit. Then one day, you see it. You take notice. You begin to see it everywhere. You ask anyone if they know the name, and they do not. But they start to notice too. The more you learn, the more it seems to matter. For Bleich, that feeling connects to a late diagnosis of neurodivergence. The kind of recognition that changes the shape of the past. There’s relief in it. But it comes with a lot of grief too. Noticing patterns in yourself and those around you that don’t seem to line up with the expected, without ever knowing why. Looking back over his past work, from 2022’s More Than Anything You’ve Feared, back to 2010’s Invisible Vehicles, it’s all there. The patterns, the search for answers. Noticing without naming it.
This search for meaning became crucial after a car accident changed the course of his life. Years of chronic pain and a long, uneven recovery. Music became the one steady thing. Not a plan, but a way through. The songs that came out of that time are lived in and direct, offered to anyone who might need them, just as Bleich did when writing them. His work sits in a space not far from artists like Sufjan Stevens, John K. Samson, and Big Thief. Close writing. Attention to small details. A feeling that something larger is just out of frame. That tension sits at the center of the music. Things coming into focus while other things fall apart. Songs that stay open. Songs that change with you.
Live, Bleich performs solo or with a small group of collaborators. The arrangements are shaped, but not fixed. There is room to respond to the room, to follow what’s happening, to let something real take hold.
The result is music that doesn’t settle. It deepens over time, and keeps unfolding long after the first listen.
Live from the Canoe features dozens of Toronto-based musicians performing live while adrift on the Humber River.
Here, Erik Bleich performs a stripped down rendition of “A Place To Hide” from the forthcoming album Sumac.
Press Quotes
“Love in its deepest yearning beats alone in the heart of this wondrous music.”
— Great Dark Wonder“Curtains-drawn, skin-bare pieces delivered with such delicacy that they risk breaking up, like a radio signal.”
— Sam Boer (Lyrically Speaking)
“The five songs contained on More Than Anything You’ve Feared serve more like a five-act play, charting like a one-man movie through a landscape of broken dreams…”
— Great Dark Wonder
Live at the Mule Spinner (Hamilton, ON)
A series of intimate live performances filmed by Tim O’Reilly (Sound Still). Includes alternate trio arrangements of unreleased Sumac material, and a cover of A.A. Bondy’s “I Can See the Pines Are Dancing.”
Latest Release
More Than Anything You’ve Feared (EP – 2022)
Recorded in Kensington Market, Toronto, More Than Anything You’ve Feared is a stark, cinematic five-song EP. Structured like a five-act piece, it explores yearning, disorientation, and domestic stillness with quiet intensity. Described as “a one-man movie through a landscape of broken dreams” (Great Dark Wonder), the record marked a defining step in Bleich’s writing.
Upcoming Album
Sumac (Coming June 2026)
Sumac, produced by Sam Gleason, is Erik Bleich’s most fully realized work to date. Written in the wake of a life-altering accident and years of chronic pain, the record explores recognition, identity, and late-diagnosed neurodivergence. The songs trace a shift in perspective, as patterns once hard to name come into focus, bringing both clarity and grief. Expansive in scope but grounded in close, detailed writing, Sumac reveals more with each listen and lingers long after it ends.
Live Photos from the Toronto Folk Festival Launch Party 2025 @howlandsessions
Links
Official Website erikbleich.com
Bandcamp erikbleich.bandcamp.com
Instagram instagram.com/theerikbleich
Youtube youtube.com/theerikbleich
Contact
bookbleich@gmail.com
Discography
More Than Anything You’ve Feared (2022)
The Rehearsal Tapes (2017)
Painted Highways (2015)
Still Coming Down (2010)
Invisible Vehicles (2010)
It’s Coming Down (2009)
Album Appearances
The Young Novelists - *These Dark Canyons
Backing Vocals on “Break the Whole Thing Down” “All of My Friends Are Leaving” “Raise Our Voices” “Gimme Your Love”
* 2026 JUNO Nominee for “Contemporary Roots Album of the Year”
Shawn William Clarke - Ten Years Ago: A Companion
Bass
Mélanie Brulée - In Basements in Isolation: Vol. 2
Engineering / production / guitars on “Whiskey & Whine”
Carl Lorusso Jr - Murder Tools
Backing Vocals on “Six Ton Burden Blues” “Back to Her”
Max Metrault - Half-Life
Ebow on “Frequency” & “The Prairie In Your Mind”
Carl Lorusso Jr - 100 Broken Words
Ebow on “Last Night I Got Stoned”
Compilation Appearances
In Basements In Isolation: Vol. 2
Features a demo of Gas Machine from Sumac
Credited as “Armadillo, by Cosmic Jellyfish”
In Basements In Isolation: Vol 1.
Prairie Skyline “a tale of death and resilience, set in a post-apocalyptic spaghetti-western in rural Manitoba;”
Podcast Appearances
The Sound Cafe (2022)
Streams & Variations: Ep 2 - The Garden (2021)
Lyrically Speaking (unreleased)
Performance Highlights
(selected shows & residencies)
Jethro’s as Erik Bleich (Peterborough)
December 2025Cameron House with David Newberry (Toronto)
Oct 2025Hugh’s Room Live with The Young Novelists* (Toronto)
The Piston with David Newberry (Toronto)
June 2025Toronto Folk Festival Launch Party (Toronto)
May 2025“William” 10th Anniversary Live Recording
with Shawn William Clarke* (Toronto)
August 2024Life Coaching residency at Whelan’s Gate (Toronto)
August 2023-Dec 2024SX Songwriter Series Tranzac Club
June 2024Jethro’s* Forth Saturday Residency with Peter Graham & The Voyageurs (Peterborough)
October 2022 - 2026Canadiana Night* residency at Whelan’s Gate with Peter Graham & the Voyageurs (Toronto)
September 2022 - presentIn Basements on Sundays a much-beloved, weekly songwriter series at Wenona Lodge (Toronto). 150 shows over 6 years, culminating in March 2023. Organized and hosted by a small group of songwriters including founder David Newberry, Shawn William Clarke, Peter Graham & Erik Bleich.
Highlights Include:
Spontaneous Strings songwriters were paired with improvised string arrangements from a decet of wonderful players including: Laura Bates (Boxcar Boys, Völur), Sam Clark (Basset, Polky), Elise Boeur (Aerialists), Georgia Hathaway & Lea Kirstein (Medusa Quartet), etc
March 2023
Out of the Workshop - new tunes with old friends a preview of the material that would become Sumac
January 2023
More Than Anything You’ve Feared Album Release
March 2022
Erik Bleich & Mélanie Brulée* in the round
Nov 2021
Wenona Forever Fest livestream
November 2021
An International Tribute to John Prine livestream
April 2020
Rock Lottery singer-songwriters were paired into “bands” with 2 months to prepare a 3 song set - Erik fronted the droning, psychedelic indie rock outfit Cosmic Jellyfish, which featured Bryn Besse, Melanie Brulee, & Stan Simon decked out in fairy lights, sailor caps, welding googles and glitter
Groundhog Day 2020Bar Cathedral with Basset (Toronto)
September 2021Rolling Trout Review travelling solar-powered festival put on by the Trout Forest Music Festival (Ear Falls)
August 2021
Franco-Fête* with Mélanie Brulée (Toronto)
July 2021Folk Alliance International (New Orleans)
January 2020Sing Song Ping Pong, Vol. 1 in the round with José Contreras of By Divine Right (Toronto) SOLD OUT
November 2019Stories Behind The Song with Conor Gains & Sean Pinchin (Toronto)
February 2019Folk Alliance International (Montreal)
February 2019Folk Music Ontario (Mississauga)
October 2018Array Music (Toronto)
January 2018The Burdock Citizen Jane Album Release (Toronto)
November 2017Folk Music Ontario (Mississauga)
October 2017Big On Bloor Festival (Toronto)
July 2017The Burdock with Bells Larsen (Toronto)
April 2017Here Alone Together an immersive music / art installation at Gallery 26 (Toronto). This is where the album More Than Anything You’ve Feared originated, as a collaboration with the artist Stella Cade.
November 2016Smallest Stage Music Festival (Toronto)
May 2016Folk Music Ontario (Mississauga)
October 2015Third Thursdays shared residency with Carl Lorusso Jr at Graffiti’s Kensington (Toronto)
April 2014-Dec 2017Winterfolk (Toronto)
February 2013Dryden Community Auditorium
December 2012Summer Tour Southern Ontario with Nick Sherman
June 2012Lorussopalooza a small, homegrown music festival some friends and I started (Magnetawan)
2011-2019Invisible Vehicles Album Release (Dryden)
August 2010Kenora Curling Club with The Wooden Sky
April 2010Olympic Torch Relay (Dryden)
January 2010It’s Coming Down EP Release (Wabigoon)
October 2009Trout Forest Music Festival (Ear Falls)
August 2008
* as side player / bandmember (guitar/bass/vocals)