Erik Bleich

"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, celebrating hope where none exists, celebrating love when its shimmering allure has long since faded." - Great Dark Wonder

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.

Latest Release

More Than Anything You’ve Feared (EP – Released February 14, 2022)
A stark and vulnerable five-song EP, recorded in Kensington Market, Toronto. A quiet, cinematic meditation on yearning, disorientation, and the bittersweet ache of stillness.

Upcoming Album

Sumac (Coming 2025)
An expansive, textured full-length album featuring strings, flugelhorn, pedal steel, and interwoven voices. The live trio reinterprets these songs in stripped-back arrangements for piano, violin/cello, and voice.

Press Quotes

“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

“For love in its deepest yearning beats alone in the heart of this wondrous music.”
Great Dark Wonder

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

Shawn William Clarke - Ten Years Ago: A Companion - EP
Bass

Mélanie Brulée - In Basements in Isolation: Vol. 2
Engineering / production / guitars on “Whiskey & Whine”

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)

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

In case you need a lovable loser for your new romcom, I submit myself

Hi Res Photos / Stage Plot / Tech Rider / Bio / MP3s / WAVs

BIO


Erik Bleich is a Toronto-based songwriter and composer whose work blends indie folk, chamber pop, and experimental textures. Rooted in emotional sincerity and lyrical intimacy, his songs move through tenderness, tension, and the surreal, with layered instrumentation that feels both hand-built and otherworldly.

Raised in Northwestern Ontario and shaped by Toronto’s DIY scenes, Bleich’s music often reflects the contrast between natural stillness and urban friction. His upcoming album Sumac continues that exploration with kaleidoscopic production by Sam Gleason (Charlotte Cornfield, Tim Baker), and contributions from a small group of close collaborators.

He’s been consistently making and sporadically releasing music since the myspace days. From home demos & half-abandoned concept records to fully fleshed out studio albums with timpani and brass fanfare.

In addition to his solo work, Erik has performed as a side player and harmony singer with artists including Mélanie Brulée, Shawn William Clarke, and Peter Graham, contributing guitar, bass, vocals, and subtle textures to their live and recorded projects.


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.”

Performance Highlights

(selected shows & residencies)

  • Toronto Folk Festival Launch Party (Toronto)
    May 2025

  • “William” 10th Anniversary Live Recording
    with Shawn William Clarke* (Toronto)
    August 2024

  • Life Coaching residency at Whelan’s Gate (Toronto)
    August 2023-Dec 2024

  • SX Songwriter Series Tranzac Club
    June 2024

  • Jethro’s* Forth Saturday Residency with Peter Graham & The Voyageurs (Peterborough)
    October 2022 - present

  • Canadiana Night* residency at Whelan’s Gate with Peter Graham & the Voyageurs (Toronto)
    September 2022 - present

  • In 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 2020

  • Bar Cathedral with Basset (Toronto)
    September 2021

  • Rolling 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 2021

  • Folk Alliance International (New Orleans)
    January 2020

  • Sing Song Ping Pong, Vol. 1 in the round with José Contreras of By Divine Right (Toronto) SOLD OUT
    November 2019

  • Stories Behind The Song with Conor Gains & Sean Pinchin (Toronto)
    February 2019

  • Folk Alliance International (Montreal)
    February 2019

  • Folk Music Ontario (Mississauga)
    October 2018

  • Array Music (Toronto)
    January 2018

  • The Burdock Citizen Jane Album Release (Toronto)
    November 2017

  • Folk Music Ontario (Mississauga)
    October 2017

  • Big On Bloor Festival (Toronto)
    July 2017

  • The Burdock with Bells Larsen (Toronto)
    April 2017

  • Here 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 2016

  • Smallest Stage Music Festival (Toronto)
    May 2016

  • Folk Music Ontario (Mississauga)
    October 2015

  • Third Thursdays shared residency with Carl Lorusso Jr at Graffiti’s Kensington (Toronto)
    April 2014-Dec 2017

  • Winterfolk (Toronto)
    February 2013

  • Dryden Community Auditorium
    December 2012

  • Summer Tour Southern Ontario with Nick Sherman
    June 2012

  • Lorussopalooza a small, homegrown music festival some friends and I started (Magnetawan)
    2011-2019

  • Invisible Vehicles Album Release (Dryden)
    August 2010

  • Kenora Curling Club with The Wooden Sky
    April 2010

  • Olympic Torch Relay (Dryden)
    January 2010

  • It’s Coming Down EP Release (Wabigoon)
    October 2009

  • Trout Forest Music Festival (Ear Falls)
    August 2008


    * as side player / bandmember (guitar/bass)