From the Queen West corridor comes a jolt of synthesized punk fit to soundtrack your next trip into the Sprawl. Eardrum scraping drum machine snaps provide the accompaniment to guitars, bubbling electronic tones and swathes of fuzz-riddled bass. The skull-and-palm-trees cover finds its expression in vocals that dart from yelps to booming horror soundtrack chants, but Cellphone is also simply the sound of overheated asphalt.

Encased in a squeeze box of screen printed palms, Ocular Gymnastics’ debut transmission is as lavishly packaged as it is blissful. Pedal-jammed Casio meditations cast ripples across the mind-pond while the mountain of found-sound percussion clanks and rattles down the cortex. Only Moduli TV could provide suitable visual accompaniment for these C.H.U.D. ravers in a tropical time-warp à la Bamboo For Two.

Toronto’s storied six-string weakling and Winnipeg’s notorious nightmare machinist junk it up on this flesh-crawling collab. The plainspoken title does little to prepare for the onslaught of shreddery lost in the tempest of tape loops and R2-D2 squeals. Bill Orcutt getting down with Bernard Bonnier is a start, but this is more like Mutant Concrète.

Hey, you over there. Brazilian Money is back didn’t cha know? Led by bespectacled teen heartthrob Garrett Johnson and a new backing trio of friendly and familiar faces, these boys on the bus are back to what they do: making artfully warm and warbly pop wormholes. Their latest release Doug Nasty asks questions: “What do ya do when a guy comes and shits on your floor?” and ponders the simple things: “Nothing is free, some things are cheap.” Maybe it was the product of several late night acid parties; maybe it was just the people. Maybe it’s for the dance floor slackers, burned out, thinking about the incomprehensible. Either way, it’s fuuuuuuuuun! Glad to see Johnson still shuckin’ and jivin’ in yer minds, giving you reason to think.

The infinitely astonishing half of the Brothers Tonstartss has unleashed a prophetic tome of popular drone. Andy Boay’s disharmonic orchestra eschews a wondrous pop dialectic; streams of incredible catch coalesce within tempered vibrations and dense bowed riffery while swathes of warm, ecclesiastical timbers mellow with hypnotic ease. Evil Masters brings us mere nanometers towards understanding the creative behemoth that is Andy Boay; yet the face doth melt and the hand grippeth ever more.

Halifax’s most endearing/enduring art space, the Khyber, has once again been feted with a compilation of tape tunes from local artists and musicians, most of whom have played/jammed/come of age under the archways, the ballroom, the turret. As with last year’s comp, this is a love letter to something fragile and beautiful and important – moreover, it’s massive (27 songs!), thoughtfully curated and brilliant. There are so many meaty, gorgeous gems here – Monomyth‘s “Anytime” is soaring sweetgaze, while scene vets Scribbler reach achingly fuzzed-out heights with “No Curtains.” The winsome youngsters of ISBN donate a slice of grainy, brainy twang-pop and there are similarly tasty outings from the now-defunct Long Long Long and its ashes, Each Other, risen in Montreal to smile and destroy. There’s a ripper Dog Day track too, and a song from local supergroup Green and Darnelle that nods at the city’s 90′s ghosts and then gnashes them to shreds. Look, I could go on for fucking pages about this tape, I really could, but in the end, I’ll leave with some words from a particular standout, the haunting lament “Wind Came Through” by Former Roommates (who, I think, actually are former roommates): The Khyber needs your love, always, and these songs do too. Listen and linger: this is a sound of a scene piled with riches.

Down at the candlelit cabaret, Hey Mother Death are swaying onstage in spontaneous reverie. On their lavishly packaged debut cassette, this Granelli schooled duo hovers through an unclassifiable sound-cloud of spoken word, sleaze-guitar and haunted Hohner spectres. The aura of Isabella looms large. 50 copies. G.R.I.P.

Toronto’s finest trash heap trio returns with another quick fix for the pigfuck junkies. The gnarled guitar riffs squeal like an alley cat stretched through a meat grinder, while the fat-stripped rhythm section hits harder than Soda Popinski. Essential 2012 gripitude from the ever-swelling catalogue of Pleasence.

Calgary’s Cable-knits play summery skate jams for when you got dumped by your brace-faced teenage girlfriend and just want to bust a boneless into the pool. Knotty threads of guitar drive the duo’s junk-fi pop into a swift set of sugar rush head-boppers. Turns out Stalwart Sons plus Hunter Gatherer equals hook city.

Asäel Robitaille drifted listeners into an earthbound psych-pop lull on The Lemon Tape, but on this solo expedition he fires up the thrusters into uncharted space. Time-shifting arpeggios and soft comets of synth create a vessel for his sidelong explorations, seamlessly flowing from one zone to the next. Montreal main-stay Félix Morel contributes a perfectly tripped collage for the foldout, part Mati Klarwein and part Barbarella. A+ all around.