Toronto's Tasseomancy weren't always known as Tasseomancy—before, they were Ghost Bees, and though that group was also made up of twin sisters Sari and Romy Lightman, at that time they were living in Halifax (where they went to school and started the burrito delivery service they eventually brought home). On the east coast, they were playing a style of folk much more barren and unsophisticated than the subtle and stirring stuff we hear on their full-length debut, Ulalume. Sharing a name with an Edgar Allan Poe poem, the album's darkness and mystery aren't a surprise, but neither are its whimsical mythologies and imagery.

Two years after local singer/songwriter Tamara Lindeman shocked us into feeling with The Line, the stark debut of her project the Weather Station, she returns with an album that isn't as instantly devastating—but it's just as moving. It turns out that's the most immediate thing about this, and so far, all Weather Station releases: Lindeman possesses something special, something never quite tangible, something quite gentle, in fact, and you can hear it in her music loud and clear.

Every Tuesday, Torontoist scours record store shelves in search of the city’s most notable new releases and brings you the best—or sometimes just the biggest—of what we’ve heard in Sound Advice. Recording and performing up until now under the moniker Castlemusic, Toronto’s Jennifer Castle released her new LP, called, fittingly, Castlemusic, under her own name. [...]

Every Tuesday, Torontoist scours record store shelves in search of the city’s most notable new releases and brings you the best—or sometimes just the biggest—of what we’ve heard in Sound Advice. On their new album Departing, the Rural Alberta Advantage haven’t actually done much of that at all. Instead, the sophomore full length sounds like [...]

Every Tuesday, Torontoist scours record store shelves in search of the city’s most notable new releases and brings you the best—or sometimes just the biggest—of what we’ve heard in Sound Advice. The sparse folk of Snowblink‘s first album is well suited for the sunny breeze of singer Daniela Gesundheit’s California home, but there’s an icy [...]

Every Tuesday, Torontoist scours record store shelves in search of the city’s most notable new releases and brings you the best—or sometimes just the biggest—of what we’ve heard in Sound Advice. Not unlike Zeus did with their breakout EP in 2009, the members of New Country Rehab are stepping out from their primary roles as [...]

Courtesy of Feist. It’s been easy, as it often is in these cases, to lose touch with Feist as she ascended from beloved, quirky Canadian crooner into an international star over the past few years. At Sunday night’s screening of her excellent new documentary, Look at What the Light Did Now, the room (eagerly addressed [...]

It has been five years since his breakthrough full-length album, and about one year since he last toured. Outside Massey Hall last night, fans were almost giddy with anticipation as they prepared themselves to hear the Illinoise one more time. After less than a decade in the music business, instrumental-folk-indie-pop icon Sufjan Stevens gave his [...]

Every Tuesday, Torontoist scours record store shelves in search of the city’s most notable new releases and brings you the best—or sometimes just the biggest—of what we’ve heard in Sound Advice. After last year’s well-received debut, the Hymns of Love and Spirit EP, The Wilderness of Manitoba made their way back to their home basement [...]

Every Tuesday, Torontoist scours record store shelves in search of the city’s most notable new releases and brings you the best—or sometimes just the biggest—of what we’ve heard in Sound Advice. For those who were taken with Forest City Lovers‘ folk-pop complexity on the 2008 attention-earning sophomore album Haunting Moon Sinking, it’s felt like a [...]

Every Tuesday, Torontoist scours record store shelves in search of the city’s most notable new releases and brings you the best—or sometimes just the biggest—of what we’ve heard in Sound Advice. It’s always interesting to watch a band slowly creep its way into music fans’ radar; not through heavy community hype or big dollars or [...]

Every Tuesday, Torontoist scours record store shelves in search of the city’s most notable new releases and brings you the best—or sometimes just the biggest—of what we’ve heard in Sound Advice. After nearly five years of constant obligations brought on by the blockbuster success of his band Bedouin Soundclash, singer Jay Malinowski found himself exhausted, [...]