Dylan White is an Ontario-based multi-instrumentalist and composer recognized for his groove-driven fusion of jazz, soul, and funk. In late 2025, he released his debut solo EP, Fronds, a project that explores the intricate, repeating patterns of love and fear across generations.
Rooted in a "nature boy" philosophy, White’s music features lush, communal arrangements recorded with collaborators across Guelph, Toronto, and Calgary. His standout single, "Rags," highlights his signature wit, using a funky, whole-tone bassline to dismantle the "rags to riches" myth. White’s artistry is defined by technical precision, soulful harmonies, and a fundamentally optimistic outlook
What non-musical thing (a book, a piece of art, a smell, a bizarre historical event) had the greatest unexpected influence on this new album/EP?
DYLAN WHITE: Ferns! Fronds are the wild, dual-function, proto-leaves found on ferns. They have 350M+ years of success on earth - with no signs of slowing down. This durability is coupled with a complex life cycle, and, intricate repeated structure. My songs on this EP explore the patterns that repeat themselves throughout a lifetime and across generations: fern fronds - to me - are among the most beautiful physical examples of this phenomenon.
What is the one sentence “moral of the story” or life lesson that you hope a listener takes away from this specific body of work?
DYLAN WHITE: Some people never get boots; therefore they can not pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
Which one track on your new release has a private, personal “liner note” or backstory that fundamentally defines the song for you?
DYLAN WHITE: On the title track (FRONDS), I refer to a lot of different locations (i.e. shrubs = coming out of the alpine, shells = arriving at the coast, fronds = getting deep into the forest). These are places where a few friends of mine have arrived after traumatic, scary, intense, disheartening, major events. The pain and fear from those incidents has stayed with them - in some form or another. However, their trauma changed, was softened, was forgiven or soothed, and the places I describe in the song are all fundamental to that relief.
In your personal or creative life, what is the one difficult truth you keep having to “be a goldfish” about - using a short memory to forgive yourself and move past a failure?
DYLAN WHITE: The difficult creative truth here is that this EP took 6 years to make, but only 21 minutes to listen to. I need to get a lot more efficient if I'm going to create all the music I want to make before I die.
What are you most genuinely and urgently curious about right now in life, and how is the pursuit of that curiosity currently driving your music?
DYLAN WHITE: I feel urgent curiosity about vaquitas - the worlds smallest cetacean (i.e. the whale & dolphin family). Extinction risk is always a source of intense drive in my life and my music.
