Secret City Vinilo y CD

Review: 18 months in the making, Canada's Braids have had plenty of time to refine their work and perfect their trade ahead of this return to the release schedule. And it certainly shows. Co-produced by Chris Walla of the iconic Death Cab For Cutie, the result of this patient approach and collaborative relationship is an album that's intimate and yet massive, heartbreaking but hopeful, for want of less cliched descriptions. Tracks like 'Eclipse' perfectly exemplify what's so good about this collection. Highly emotive stuff, piano work seems capable of finding its way into our dreams, with soaring string refrains and the powerful vocal cries of Raphaelle Standell-Preston boring routes directly into your soul. Tender and also rallying, much like the rest of this record, its impact stays with you long after the final notes fade.

Review: A tour de force of instrumentation, to say the least, Basia Bulat returns with another fine display of incredible talent, displaying deft handiwork (to say the least) on piano, organ, synths, harps and more to offer an album of stark contrasts - there are infinite highs and some low lows, reflecting two extremes from the gamut of human emotion. Jim James is again called in for production duties, and the neo-punk certainly delivers, not least on the two tracks he provides guitar work for. That doesn't detract from the sense of 'Are You In Love?' being a work entirely of Bulat's own - a sumptuous exploration of folk textures, from soaring and celebratory to more subdued and filled with yearning. Exquisite stuff you really do need to hear to fully grasp.

Review: 8 Tableaux finds modern classical artist Flore Laurentienne "attempting to give musical form to a painting." It's a count that yields great results as the pantry sounds are smeared and smudged across the airwaves with great beauty. It results in a new age record of rich ambient that answers questions the artist poses such as "painting is a freeze-frame at a precise moment in the painter's creative flow so how do you combine these two art forms? Do you have to stop time? How do you stop time in music?" Listen to this album and you will go some way to finding out.

Review: Graham Van Pelt has been making waves across the pond in Montreal for half a decade now, first in the much loved dance pop band Think About Life, then in his side project, Miracle Fortress. His 2007 debut album Five Roses earned him a Polaris Prize nomination (the Canadian equivalent of the Mercury Prize), and found him channelling the pop sensibility of Brian Wilson. Four years on, and Van Pelt has returned with Was I The Wave?, earning him a second nod from the Polaris judges, and showcasing a refined ear for production and his love for 80s inspired electro pop. Van Pelt wears all hats on this album (composer, arranger, producer, and engineer), and proves quite adept at soaring melodies - the perfect hook and infectious chorus seem to come naturally to him - matched with an assured display of vocals. Put simply, Was I The Wave? is the perfect album for the first days of autumn.