Mother Tongues: Love in a Vicious Way

“Guess it’s getting to me / all this time spent on my own,” begins psych-pop outfit Mother Tongues’ debut album, a collection of dense and immense songs from Lukas Cheung and Charise Aragoza. Across ten tracks, Love in a Vicious Way (Wavy Haze) buzzes and swirls, electronic textures filling the spaces between Aragoza’s sleek vocals and Cheung’s intricate guitar riffs. Cheung, Aragoza and co-producer Asher Gould-Murtagh combine immersive and detailed production with sincere writing to create a record that soars.

Cheung and Aragoza understand how to juxtapose and intertwine their styles for maximum effect. Livelier tracks like “Only You (Reprise)” borrow from dance and breakbeat, while the sweet lilt of “Drip Drip” sees the band relaxing into themselves. Album standout “Dance in the Dark” whacks you over the head with a thick hook before Aragoza’s staccato vocal comes in: “Why can’t we just be / two lone souls floating side by side?” Her cool tone balances the power of the opening riff, the intensity of desire pulled back into a measured meditation. Love in a Vicious Way is full of these calm declarations of longing. Here, love is both a massive whirl of sound and a simple request, a call waiting to be answered.

Shane Ghostkeeper: Songs for My People

Best known for the indie rock band that bears his last name, Shane Ghostkeeper goes for a ride down country backroads on the solo album Songs for My People (Victory Pool). Ghostkeeper describes the record as inspired by the music he grew up with in Métis communities in Alberta. But despite its expert twang and shining slide guitar, Songs for My People can’t be reduced to a straightforward country record. Ghostkeeper’s vocals have a distant feel; rather than punching through the mix, they hang within it. He plays with his breath, inhaling and exhaling into the mic, casting a mist over the sound. The record has a ghostly quality, but that doesn’t mean it’s a sombre affair. “Hunger Strike” tells the story of Ghostkeeper’s grandfather, who refused food in order to join his wife years after she passed. With lively drums and a catchy chorus, Ghostkeeper turns this narrative into a spirited celebration. “Sunbeam,” meanwhile, is an experiment in psych-country; drones hum under a meandering guitar as Ghostkeeper wanders toward a horizon. “I’ll stick around here and haunt you / you don’t mind, do you?” he sings. Who would mind, when the haunting sounds like this?

Laurence-Anne: Oniromancie

The third record from Laurence-Anne dwells in the night. On Oniromancie (Bonsound), the Montreal-based dream pop artist crafts a nocturnal sonic world made up of warbling synths, soft vocals and eclectic production details. Laurence-Anne sings about uncertainty and what we struggle to recognize: “I gazed at the night for a long time / I think it saw me, too” she sings in French on “Polymorphe.” Though a couple tracks threaten to get lost in the haze, most are vibrant and alive. “Préserver le coeur” propels with its rumbling tom drums and frantic synths, while “Vitesse” sounds like a high-speed chase. On the beautiful and spectral “Ombre sur toi,” Laurence-Anne’s narrator asks someone to stay with her in the night, where they can see each other more clearly. This speaker seems to exist between the real and the imagined, an idea on the verge of coming true. The night is a world unto itself, where anything can emerge.

myst milano.: Beyond the Uncanny Valley

One of Canada’s most exciting artists, myst milano., offers up a new host of energizing sounds and indelible lines with Beyond the Uncanny Valley (Halocline Trance/Phantom Limb). The Toronto-based musician and producer describes their second album as a “working anthology of Black electronic music across generational, geographical and genre lines,” inspired by Detroit techno, West Coast funk, Chicago footwork and more. The record opens with a digitized voice telling the listener “Welcome,” before a classic four-on-the-floor beat introduces milano.’s inexhaustible vocals and inventive lyrics. “Your man think I’m pretty / bet your wifey think I’m handsome,” they rap on “I’m On” over a droning bass that sounds like a slow-motion alarm.

milano.’s production takes the familiar and renders it slightly strange: electronics beep like distorted dial-up tones, while bells seem to melt underneath their voice. UK jungle-inspired track “Pressure” feels like an explosion: “You know I’m an expert / have you banging your head until your neck hurt,” milano. exclaims, their voice carrying as if through a megaphone at a protest. On Beyond the Uncanny Valley, milano. takes back Black styles that have been heavily co-opted, reworking them through their own affinities for intensity and surprise. The final track features a stuttering sample of warped keys, before they tell us: “Welcome to uncanny valley / where we do shit differently,” implying that even at the end, they are just getting started.