Rich Aucoin

United States

Rich Aucoin has been known to sync his albums to movies so they can be used as alternate soundtracks. This time, the story he has created a score for is particularly unsettling and, unfortunately, real: United States is the soundtrack to America over the past four years.

Electrical storms involve bodies of air clashing into each other; friction creating lightning and thunder. This is the sensation that comes from listening to United States, where the heavy influences of soul and electronica crash. The choir’s robust sound is juxtaposed with an electronic rhythm section. This points to the unignorable disparate solitudes within the United States — the music is not so much a fusion of genres as a collision.

On United States, beauty and sadness, hope and pain are shown not to be mutually exclusive — the album demonstrates a jolting acknowledge

Selections from our weekly all-Canadian Spotify playlist Partner

Big Gay Hands The duo’s signature wit gets rolled up in an authentic ’70ssounding rock anthem

Ruth B.

Dirty Nikes

These sultry soul-pop coos will make post-breakup loneliness a little less grim

Cartel Madras

WORKING To quote the rap duo, this

“queer party track…pulls from our experiences as bad bitches in the music scene”

Madisyn Whajne

Summer Love

Chiming guitars and sighing dream pop hooks will make you feel like summer never ended

Sylo Nozra

Citrus

This refreshing splash of electrosoul is more sweet than sour

Kerby’s drums pick up and Raphaelle Standell-Preston (of Braids) sets off with her signature coo. The girl with the golden voice bezels this record with heart-sundering sensuality, her soprano providing the sailing emotive counterpoint to Kerby’s Ableton chisel. However, the mixtape’s most titillating ear candies come thanks to saxophonist Adam Kinner, whose fleeting snatches of glorious tenor give most songs on this mixtape their golden trim.

Forgiving them their mixtape’s oneoff whiff, the Shazam bait whodunnit “No Drama,” Under 1 House is a surefire bet to get all hips on deck a-swingin’. With this collection, Blue Hawaii have climbed into the crow’s nest of Montreal’s dance music revival. (Arbutus)

EXPERIMENTAL medieval choral music, and electroacoustic drones, coming to craft a distinct hybrid of these forms. While she liberally employs all varieties of instruments, from analog synthesizers to violins, the organ is Davachi’s go-to, and she makes ample use of it on Cantus, Descant, which centres around all varieties of organ — pipe, reed and electric — with other instruments, most notably piano and strings, sailing in.

The sprawling double album balances celestial, atmospheric tracks such as “Hanging Gardens” and “Gold Upon White” with vulnerable, intimate songs like “Canyon Walls.” This play between the human and divine is especially evident when Davachi’s frail voice drifts onto the record. This is a new area for Davachi, who has never before sung on her recorded work. The fact that her voice only appears for two songs on this 17-track, 81-minute collection emphasizes its littleness; it’s refreshing and surprising when the record is brought back to Earth, and highlights its beauty when it takes off into soundscape. (Late Music)

— her music is rarely cheerful, but it finds joy, humour even, in rage. Renegade Breakdown, the astonishing follow-up to 2018’s Working Class Woman, is credited to Marie Davidson & L’OEil Nu, as Davidson invites fellow Montreal DIY stalwarts Pierre Guerineau and Asaël R. Robitaille along for the ride. Equal parts angry and playful, hopeful and heartbroken, it’s easily the best work any of them — individually or otherwise — have ever made.

The record opens with its outrageous manifesto of a title track and then explodes like a firecracker, chasing a dozen styles and moods to their ecstatic endpoint. From the prog-rock storm cloud of “Back to Rock,” to the metallic disco stomp of “Worst Comes to

Worst” and “C’est parce que j’m’en fous” or the slate grey dissonance of “Lead Sister,” the record is a delirious reconfiguring of ’70s and ’80s pop textures. The undeniable highlight is “Centre of the World (Kotti Blues),” a shimmering acoustic ballad that shifts and dives like a murmuration of starlings.

The thing that holds it all together is Davidson herself, the star at the centre of this strange universe. The icy chill that defined Working Class Woman has thawed, allowing deep yearning and nostalgia to colour her typically hard-edged presence.

Renegade Breakdown marks a thrilling deepening of Davidson’s artistic voice. In its breathless exploration, Davidson blows open a dozen new doors. From here, she could go anywhere. (Bonsound)

ELECTRONIC

for their 2020 edition. Though their in-person festival may not be taking place, attendees will still be able to experience all that Canada’s largest zine festival has to offer.

Visitors will be able to experience the 18 worlds of Canzine, including Librarian’s Lagoon, Punks Path, Sci-Fi

Shore, Riot Grrrl River and more. Special content can be unlocked in each world, like indie video games and special archives.

With a built-in transaction platform, attendees can purchase from all of their favourite vendors as usual. Plus, catch the annual Zine Awards and live panels. Canzine 2020 is taking place from October 24 to 26 at canzine.ca.

YUNG TRYBEZ OF SNOTTY NOSE REZ KIDS

This beaver design is my mom’s clan crest, which means it’s my clan crest. She adopted me at birth, and I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her and the old man. I wanted to get this tattoo to let her know how much she means to me.

This is my favourite tattoo done by Evan Miller (@ stillinthewind) in honour of my yiayia Beatrice. She was the matriarch of my family. She taught me how to cook and to speak my mind. I got the tree of life with a play on the kotinos leaves to remind me that everything comes from the roots and at my core is food, family and expression.

JULIAN TAYLOR

My tattoo is called “Dreams of a Modern Mohawk.” If you look closely, you can see three faces within one. It was a drawing that my late grandfather, John Thomas Skanks, sketched when he was alive. Most of my tattoos are sketched by him. I proudly wear them because it is a constant reminder that my ancestors are always with me.