Royal Mounta

Sister Ray: Communion [Vinyl LP]

Last summer a few friends from some of Canada's most notable bands - Dave Monks (Tokyo Police Club), Sam Roberts (Sam Roberts Band), Menno Versteeg (Hollerado), and Chris Murphy (Sloan) - got together to write some songs. They mostly made dad jokes but also jammed on a bunch of 3 chord songs they all had lying around. They recorded a bunch of stuff in a few days and over the year added some ideas here and there and all of a sudden a year had past and they realized they kinda had an album so they said let's name ourselves the first thing they thought of and release it. Anyway, they're called Anyway Gang

Wild Pink: A Billion Little Lights (Blue Jay) [Vinyl LP]

Calpurnia: Scout [Vinyl LP]

Going Through It is the debut album from LA-based pop culture icon, Eliza McLamb. Produced, engineered and mixed by Sarah Tudzin, (illuminati hotties, boygenius), the album is a plunge pool with a still surface that betrays it's staggering depth. A dive beneath reveals excerpts from McLamb's life, one that until recently could be described as "difficult" if not plainly "traumatic." On Going Through It, listeners get to know all angles of this mercurial and singular songwriter.

Over the course of ten groove-heavy songs, Islomania flits from the ridiculous to the sublime. On the surface, these songs are all blissful hedonism, tracing the reckless abandon of a progressively wild Friday night. But pick at the scab and there's a darkness. Themes of futility and repetition ("Closed Captioning"), a yearning for transcendence ("Natural Law Party"), a need for understanding ("A Passionate Age") and a deep desire for vulnerability and intimacy ("We Like to Do it With the Lights On") thread the album. "Tension and release exist throughout. Every song here begins bottled up, but there's always a cathartic release by the end. There's darkness and doubt in every crevice of this record, but there's always a release," Nick Thorburn says.

Wild Pink: A Billion Little Lights (Light Blue) [Vinyl LP]