Actual Water have emerged a pop monstrosity from the mirth of fidelic ruin; their debut LP exists within an echo-chamber of guitar-laced jangle and humoured rhythm, making each stab more destructively addicting. With bludgeoned flare, The Paisley Orchard‘s euphoric clamour induces a slurred frenzy of popular distaste. The entire package is some top of the line wine for the ruinous at heart. Top 10 of the year for sure. YEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

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.

Moments pass; Each Other persists. The Nova Scotian wunderkinds have traversed twisted trails to arrive at these amber-encased oscillations, cramming a Rundgren-esque treasure trove of hooks into two new insta-classics. Paradigmatic pop moves that transcend an already-flawless discography.

With insatiable pop addiction, Expwy forge wondrous anomalies between classic riffery and a future primitive brimming with mutant fuzz and choralic melancholy. Bag of Waters enslaves with every sonic ritual, finding wikked balance between jangled nuance and blasted harmonies; without warning, it’ll radiate cultic catchiness to every stalwart remover within the spectral radius of your dual blaster. Its ambitious existence remains a beacon to the brilliant creative energies exploding within our tundradic paradise. Totally and unabashedly awesome.

With just enough slacker isolation to eschew the waning spring, Beach Velvet’s warbled shimmer slips unseen into the eternal heat of summer noons. It’s an easy sound that hits all the right vibes and osmose into your mind to the rhythm of swirling jangle and warm riffs. Relish in the simplicity of tape jammers and log cabin chillin’, mentally free-basing off these tape waves.

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.

The boys of Long have taken another extravagant excursion into progressive pop. Their lysergic sequencing of addictive time signatures reaches an all-time high on Taking Trips, as their heroin leads throw us deep into their opium sanctuary. While we dream along their subtle-island vibes, the slow churning fabric of our pop reality begins to fragment, buckling under weight of Each Other’s glorious clamour. Crucial grip.

If the world was right, all teenage girls would be listening to Rattail. Sonically, this clutch of Torontonian dreamers bears passing resemblance to certain excellent dream-poppers and shoegaze babes. All three bands excel at ethereal darkish rock, making songs that explode in the body like cloudy, pretty bubbles of viscera. Rattail’s sound is distinguished by Jasmyn Burke, whose voice falls somewhere in the ether between between Ruth Brown and Exene Cervenka. She keens, she wails, she snarls, she sounds like a baby or an regal dame or a monster. She observes her world with a detachment that is equally cynical and curious and it sounds great. To me, Rattail embodies the contradictions of growing older – the coolness, the calmness, the swirling confusion, the fucked-up sense of wondering.