The first adjective on singer-songwriter Vitalia Khmil's biography is "Ukrainian-Canadian." But the Montreal-based pop singer, who performs as simply "Vitalia," is truly hard to define with a single descriptor. She recently graduated from Concordia University with a bachelor's degree in Jazz Vocal Performance, and that squares with most of the songs she recorded and released a few years ago - jazz-tinged pop songs, or maybe even pop-tinged jazz songs.

Vitalia says that while her jazz education still informs her approach to songwriting, her career has taken a more straight-ahead pop turn with the release of her new EP, "alone in a crowd." The EP includes two versions of a song, "Molly," that's won her fans and gained some traction on Canadian radio. And while the songs are personal to Vitalia, her hope is that listeners will take their own messages from them.

It's also early enough in her career that Vitalia is still exploring where music will take her. She is working on songs that she says will take her from her current "sad girl" phase to a more cathartic, liberated house pop project - with a more rock-influenced EP to follow next year.

Through it all, Vitalia maintains her Ukrainian ethnic identity. She grew up singing Ukrainian folk songs and performing at Montreal's Ukrainian festival, and wrote a song, "Land of Black," in support of her country when it was invaded by Russia.

On this episode of North Words, Vitalia chats with North Words host Mitch Teich about all the various parts that contribute to her emerging music career. Vitalia's music is streaming on all major music platforms.

Mitch and producer Ethan Shantie also wax poetic on the ways their names have been mispronounced, misspelled, and butchered, and talk about some of their favorite musicians who are pushing the boundaries of genre.