With Aladean Kheroufi
Julianna Riolino considers her own growth on her sophomore record, Echo In The Dust. By Riolino’s own admission, Echo In The Dust is different from her debut, All Blue. On these songs, the Southern Ontario musician is soft as she is tough; seeing the benefit of laying down armour and splitting her heart open so that we may get a glimpse of our own.
Out October 24, 2025 on Riolino’s own MoonWhistle Records, the songs on Echo In The Dust consider relationships of all sorts as the foundation for her awakening into a renewed creative self and person in this world; working through loss, grief, habits, and decisions she once made, seeking clarity in the past before leaving it to move forward. The adage “you don’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been” rings especially true on this album.
Echo In The Dust builds on the alt-country elements of All Blue. Yet, no algorithm can contain Riolino or what moved her this time around. She cites Roy Orbison, The Roches, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, John Lennon’s “Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy),” and doom metal bands like Om as influences on the album.
“It’s kind of punk, it’s rock n’ roll, it’s still kind of country. It’s more rocking than All Blue. It’s an amalgamation of everything going on in my mind.”
After non-stop touring for other projects she has since left, and wrapping up live promotion for All Blue, Riolino began recording for this new album in 2024 at Gold Standard Recorders in Toronto. While she played guitar, she also tapped her regular collaborators, Matthew “Roddy” Kuester to play bass and guitar, Peter Landi on drums, Thomas Hammerton on piano and synth, and producer of the album Aaron Goldstein on pedal steel. On top of that, a whole host of other instrumentalists rounded out the sound of the album including Alex Edkins (Weird Nightmare, Metz) on guitar for “Full Moon”, “Like a Rembrandt”, and “The Less I Know”, and Nashville’s Sean Thompson on guitar for “On A Bluebird’s Wing”.
Riolino needed to unravel before she could clarify who she is now and who she’ll be next, and the result is Echo In the Dust, a beautiful sonic result of what it’s like to stay out of one’s own way.
about Aladean Kheroufi:
If subtlety were currency Aladean Kheroufi would be swimming in wealth. Equal parts balladeer, crooner and pop star, Aladean is a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, arranger, producer, recordist and DJ. Canadian by way of Algeria. He writes songs that are idiosyncratic, soulful and devastating, with a glass half-full optimism that turns heartbreak into melancholy party anthems.
Aladean has been described as a veteran of “making it work’ accustomed to recording in improvised spaces with microphones either borrowed or purchased below market value. With a sound that tends to favour minimalism he holds bandwidth in various musical communities – neo-soul, retro R n’ B, vintage pop and even mailbox C & W. Yet somehow Aladean’s songs don’t sound old, they sound comfortably made today with respect to the music of the past. His last single “LOVE! … (is the answer) b/w Every Girl” was released February 2022 to critical acclaim while his much anticipated debut LP ‘Studies In A Dying Love’ arrived summer 2024 via Toronto label We Are Busy Body.
