🍁 Alexandra Streliski – Néo-Romance

Streliski composes solo piano pieces that are romantic in the historical sense, emphasizing emotion and imagination. Lovely and contemplative.

🍁 ALL HANDS_MAKE LIGHT – “Darling, The Dawn”

Droning experimental pop and shoegaze from Godspeed’s Efrim Manuel Menuck and La Force’s Ariel Engle; slow-moving walls of sound with surprising melody and much emotional heft.

Andrew Bird – Outside Problems
It’s always a treat to hear Bird indulge his more unstructured side. These looping, freewheeling takes may be less polished than his pop work, but they’re joyful, spontaneous, and immersive.

April March & Staplin – April March Meets Staplin
30 years on from Chick Habit, March is still a master of utterly charming French pop and psych rock. With Staplin, she’s created some wonderfully gritty textures and upbeat melodies.

Baby Cool – Earthling on the Road to Self Love
Breezy, coastal psychedelia, sometimes like a sunnier spin on the Brian Jonestown Massacre, others like the country side of the Byrds, all with an undercurrent of Aussie pop jangle.

Benoit Pioulard – Eidetic

Pioulard (AKA American musician and poet Thomas Meluch) is better known for his ambient works, but his folk-rock detours are always a highlight. Eidetic sees him at his most polished and structured, but still well served by his ear for atmosphere.

Blue Lake – Sun Arcs
Acoustic kosmische that verges on drone in parts, but is at its strongest when it coalesces into more structured sounds, like the jazzy “Bloom” and acoustic opener “Dallas”.

🍁 Blume – Inner Vision
A dense fog of hypnotic psychedelia and shoegaze, sprawling, droning, repetitive and engrossing in a way that only space-rock can pull off.

Brendan Eder Ensemble – Therapy
A set of healing neo-classical (neo-age?) sounds for woodwind and horn, with a pair of unexpected Aphex Twin covers thrown in for good measure.

The Brights – Oyster Rock!
Every year deserves a great laid-back jangle-pop record, and this year’s best comes courtesy of Sydney’s The Brights.

🍁 Bristol Manor – The Other Side
Downtempo and trip-hop from the foothills of the Rockies.

🍁 Bry Webb – Run With Me
A welcome return for the former Constantine, and one run through with melody and sensitivity.

🍁 Buildings and Food – Infinity Plus One
Electronic soundtracks for blank slates and infinite possibilities. The undercurrent of hope and optimism makes for a much-needed retreat.

The Clientele – I Am Not There Anymore
Alasdair Maclean & co. always manage to stay on the right side of consistency—instantly identifiable, but still finding ways to expand and experiment.

Contagious Yawns – Intramental

Building beautifully on 2020’s Dream of Consciousness, Intramental mixes intriguing spoken-word samples, deliberate drum loops, and simple synths into something deceptively existential and endless.

Decisive Pink – Ticket to Fame
Deradoorian and Kate NV teaming up to produce pop sounds that are quirky, mystical, satirical, and endlessly inventive

Early Fern – Perpetual Care
Gentle, melodic ambient music and field recordings, a pleasant ramble through creeks and lakeshores in audio form.

Edena Gardens – Dens
The latest permutation from the frighteningly prolific Jakob Skøtt and Martin Rude’s is a gentler spin on psych and space rock, nodding to the Durutti Column and Mark Hollis in its improvised odysseys.

Eluvium – (Whirring Marvels In) Consensus Reality
Ambitious, extravagant, and uplifting, Matthew Robert Cooper has outdone himself on his most recent effort—a “whirring marvel” of cascading strings and slow-drifting compositions.

Ensemble 0 – Jojoni (Made to Measure, Vol. 49)

This international trio has found a unique voice mixing acoustic guitars and metallic percussion, influenced by cult composers like Arthur Lee and Moondog, but finding their own thematic and musical obsessions to mine.

Fabiano do Nascimento – Das Nuvens
An immersive fusion of Brazilian guitar, beat-driven electronics and ambient jazz, on the always-excellent Leaving Records.

Faex Optim – Crystal Pleasures
You can still hear the Boards of Canada influence that dominated Faex Optim’s early releases, but it’s expanded here into something clean, crisp, and more uptempo.

Faten Kanaan – Afterpoem
Somehow sounds like it emerged from underground catacombs where strange creatures spend their days devoted to creating devotional music for unlikely cthonic gods. Haunting, possibly haunted, but also capturing something quite pure.

🍁 Freak Heat Waves – Mondo Tempo
“In a Moment Divine” is the unmissable highlight, with Cindy Lee’s vocals lending the perfect degree of swoon to FHW’s dubby dancefloor productions.

Futuropaco – Fortezza di Vetro, Vol. 1
Instrumental psychedelic grooves that are tight, propulsive, and unpredictable—a suitable soundtrack for a futuristic ’70s space thriller, if you happen to be making one.

Gilroy Mere – Gilden Gate

What begins as a meditative stroll gradually becomes something more mystical, as rolling hillsides descend to the abandoned streets of an underwater city in Mere’s moving instrumental journey through Dunwich’s sunken landscape.

Golden Brown – Weird Choices
An ambient-kosmische fusion of pedal steel and meandering keyboards, each channeling the cosmic in their own way.

Golden Ivy – Kammarn
Instrumental compositions that straddle the line between folk and neoclassical on a bed of electronic impulses, gentle strings and breathy winds, alien and earthy at once.

Green-House – A Host for All Kinds of Life
Joining the proud tradition of plant music that goes at least back to Mort Garson, Green-House’s ambient bliss reflects a search for joy and connection with the natural world.

🍁 Harrison – Birds, Bees, The Clouds & The Trees
Jazz-infused beats, beat-infused jazz, and moments of pure pop bliss.

🍁 High Five – Salad Balloon
Improvised kosmische epics with slacker-rock and MPB undercurrents; sprawling and unpredictable and alive with the joy of creation.

Hochzeitskapelie – The Orchestra In The Sky [Kobe + Tokyo Recordings]
Two hours of blissful, inventive orchestral pop from a quartet featuring members of the Notwist, in collaboration with Japanese indie legends including Tenniscoats and Eddie Macon.

🍁 Hollie Kenniff – We All Have Places That We Miss

Kenniff creates ambient music the old-fashioned way, with live instruments, heaps of reverb, and endless patience. Somewhere between dream-pop and drone, and among the most beautiful music of this type in recent memory.

Holy Wave – Five of Cups
Hazy Texas psych enhanced by a pair of strong guest spots from Lorelle Meets the Obsolete, Estrella del Sol.

Huw Marc Mennett – Days Like Now
An unplaceable and omnivorous instrumental blend of folk, jazz, and groovy psychedelia, global in range but filtered through traditional Welsh sounds.

Hynta – Hyperobjects
Modular synths, field recordings, and ambient drones aiming to evoke concepts too big and too complex to fully comprehend.

The Ironsides – Changing Light
Soundtrack soul with a cinematic sweep, a mix of library music, David Axelrod’s symphonic grandeur, and a bit of Daptone strut for good measure.

Ivan the Tolerable – Under Magnetic Mountain

It’s hard to pick a favourite of the five albums Ivan released in 2023 (four new, one reissued), but Under Magnetic Mountain is maybe the most impressive in its mix of psych, jazz, and radiophonic explorations, a deep heady stew of subterranean sound.

Jambal x Tristan De Liège – Enterprises of Great Pith and Moment
A heavy title for an album that seems to float on air, a nimble fusion of jazz vibes and downtempo beats building to string-soaked triumphs of catharsis.

Jilk – Syrup House
The strongest of three releases this year from a collective that prioritizes play and invention, creating more optimistic spin on early-2000s post-rock and electronics.

Josh Semans – To Will a Space Into Being
One for the Erased Tapes fans—neo-classical in the vein of Nils Frahm and Olafur Arnalds, composed for the otherworldy soundscape of the Ondes Martinet.

Kalia Vandever – We Fell in Turn
An ambient instrumental trombone album that has changed how I hear the instrument.

🍁 Khotin – Release Spirit
Chill beats to transcend to—an optimistic set of mostly instrumentals (and one vocal from Tess Roby), best experienced with the sun on your face and fresh air all around.

🍁 L.T. Leif – Come Back To Me, But Lightly
A confidently inquisitive release from the Calgary ex-pat, lyrically rich and musically murky (in the best sort of way).

Lael Neale – Star Eaters Delight
Neale makes excellent use of mythic and mystical imagery, layering shimmering Omnichord over deliciously droney Velvets jams.

Landing – Motionless I-VI

With over two decades spent refining their sound, this Connecticut quartet has pretty much perfected its pioneering take on ambient psychedelia, shoegaze and drone. Immersive and atmospheric.

Large Plants – The Thorn
Rich, melodic prog-influenced psychedelia from the heart of the deepest woods. A folk-horror soundtrack in the making, albeit one with memorable riffs to spare.

Lonnie Holley – Oh Me Oh My
The blend of atmospheric soul, Eno ambience, and oddball flourishes would be intriguing enough, but that voice! Worn and warm, and wise, resilient, reassuring, and defiant.

Lord of the Isles & Ellen Renton – My Noise is Nothing
If the pairing of experimental synths and spoken-word poetry doesn’t sound immediately appealing, set your doubts aside for this one. An exploration of post-pandemic emotions, it’s as complex as it is comforting.

M. Sage – Paradise Crick
A multifaceted, contemplative ambient release layered through with the sounds of nature—or synthetic approximations, blurring them to such an extent that it almost doesn’t matter which is which.

🍁 Marker Starling – Diamond Violence
Masterful melodies, perfect pop instincts, and a cutting sense of playfulness from Canada’s answer to Gruff Rhys.

🍁 Markus Floats – Fourth Album

A noisy, unabashedly experimental, at times impenetrable mix of free jazz and electronic composition. It takes time to reveal itself, but when it does, the rewards are manifold.

Marlene Ribeiro – Toqui no Sol
Avant-electronics drift into dream-pop bliss, immersive throughout but finding its peak in the graceful seven-minute slow-build that is “You Do It.”

Mary Lattimore – Goodbye, Hotel Arkada
It’s undoubtedly a cliche to call harp-based music “shimmering” or “delicate,” but it’s still true of Lattimore’s gossamer sounds, so here we are.

🍁 Masahiro Takahashi – Humid Sun
Envisioned as “an auditory tool to cope with [Toronto’s] harsh winters,” Takahashi’s Telephone Explosion debut is a warm bath of meandering synths, rubbery bass, and gently chugging drum machines.

Maya Ongaku – Approach to Anima

Gentle, jazzy, laid-back psychedelia on Kikagaku Moyo’s Guruguru Brain record label. The songs rarely raise a fuss, preferring to let the cosmic vibes speak for themselves.

Mega Bog – End of Everything
Mega Bog abandon the winding guitars of 2021’s superb Life, And Another for a downright apocalyptic prog-pop album, an anxious, dour reflection on tragedies both personal and global.

Melenas – Ahora
Lead single “Bang” sets a high standard, but Melenas’ songwriting is up to the challenge. Nostalgic, synth-driven garage-pop with hooks aplenty.

🍁 Michael Peter Olsen – Narrative of a Nervous System
Multilayered electric cello that occasionally channels (and features) Owen Pallett, but the ambient impulses and noisy digressions are entirely Olsen’s.

Mike Reed – The Separatist Party
The glistening keys and warm trumpet melodies of “Floating With an Intimate Stranger” are a perfect entry point, but it’s the subtle Afrobeat pulse, exuberant spoken-word vocals, and voyages into spiritual skronk that keep me coming back.

Misha Panfilov – In Focus
Panfilov’s library jazz mastery is pure auditory sunshine. Unabashedly cheesy, but sophisticated enough to bear up to repeat listens.

ML Buch – Suntub
Performed on a seven-string guitar in open tunings, Buch’s experimental sound channels the spirit of ’80s art-pop heroes like Kate Bush and XTC without anything like direct reference.

Modern Cosmology – What Will You Grow Now
Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier and Brasil’s Mombojó team up for an album of conceptual space-pop and psychedelia. Every bit as charming as you’d hope.

Modern Nature – No Fixed Point in Space
After two albums pointing in this direction, Jack Cooper’s post-Ultimate Painting project fully embraces its spare, minimal approach to songwriting. Conjuring free jazz and evoking Mark Hollis’ solo work, this is music that is deeply personal, intimate and exploratory.

🍁 N Nao – L’eau et les rêves

Folk and dream pop elevated by atmospheric production and an endless arsenal of effects pedals; L’eau et les rêves refuses to settle into a fixed form, ebbing and flowing from song to song with a remarkable fluidity.

Nabihah Iqbal – Dreamer
Nearly six years in the making (owing in part to a studio robbery in 2020), Iqbal’s latest was worth the wait, a confident fusion of dream pop’s moodiness and dancefloor euphoria.

Nashville Ambient Ensemble – Light and Space
Ambient country is having a moment lately, with excellent releases from SUSS and North Americans, not to mention essentially everything on Aural Canyon, but Light and Space is the finest of the bunch, a twilit haze of pedal steel, violin, and glacial guitars, smothered in reverb and drifting into eternity.

🍁 Netrvnner – Phantom
Calgary’s finest synth-wave artist embraces post-punk and the results are essentially perfection, atmospheric and energetic instrumentals that are at once retro-minded and full of vitality.

Nico Georis – Cloud Suites

Exactly what a concept album about clouds should sound like—impressionistic shapes briefly forming and drifting apart, weightless and immersive.

🍁 Ora Cogan – Formless
Another leap forward for the musically restless Cogan, moving effortlessly from haunted folk to post-punk edge to cosmic Americana.

Orange Crate Art – Cinema Exotica: The Imaginary Films of Ryan Simpson
This doc soundtrack ably showcases the softer side of OCA’s My Bloody Valentine-via-The Beach Boys aesthetic—equally kitschy and sophisticated, and always inviting.

🍁 The Organizing Committee – Communication in the Presence of Noise
High-concept art-pop from Montreal, with echoes of the Notwist and Octopus Project (high praise in these parts). Party music for intellectual cyborgs.

🍁 Peace Flag Ensemble – Astral Plains
Spiritual jazz improvisations from the Canadian prairies, anchored in gentle piano and electric bass, striking a rare balance of melody and experimentation.

Pearl & The Oysters – Coast 2 Coast
Sweet summer sounds from LA. Retrofuturistic indie-pop for fans of Stereolab (Laetitia Sadier makes an appearance), but replacing the motorik detours with crisp, concise pop hooks.

Pedro Ricardo – Soprem Bons Ventos
Released in February, Ricardo’s debut was an early favourite and hasn’t released its grasp. A brilliant, enthralling blend of Portuguese folk, latin jazz, and experimental electronics.

Penguin Cafe – Rain Before Seven
Joyous, infectious, and deceptively complex, Arthur Jeffes has hit his stride in his incarnation of his late father’s Penguin Cafe Orchestra project.

Rozi Plain – Prize
It’s hard to pin down exactly what makes Rozi Plain’s idiosyncratic folk-pop so hypnotic, but there’s no denying the magic. It’s hopeful, warm, and unpredictable, a difficult feat in any genre and one Plain makes look effortless.

🍁 Ryan Bourne – Plant City

Often a secret weapon for others in the Calgary psych-rock scene, serving in Chad VanGaalen’s band and in Ghostkeeper, among others, Bourne rarely steps out on his own—his last solo release under his own name was in 2010. Plant City shows the delay isn’t due to an absence of ideas; its glammy, hook-laden songs span genres, laced through with cynicism, humour, and classic songcraft.

Salami Rose Joe Louis – Akousmatikous
One of pop’s most inventive voices expands the conceptual worldbuilding of 2019’s Zdenka 2080 with more inimitable dream-jazz-soul-prog-psych bliss.

Saloli – Canyon
A day in the life of a bear, rendered solely through a modular synth—live, not programmed—and a delay pedal.

Skyphone – Oscilla
Sparse electroacoustic post-rock that evokes decaying landscapes and impossible architecture, a journey through ancient, overgrown alien ruins.

Slowdive – Everything is Alive
The Slowdive comeback has no right to be this good. More than three decades after their debut, they’re in absolute top form on Everything is Alive, more vital, more inspired, and somehow less nostalgic than most shoegaze acts a quarter their age.

Spencer Cullum – Coin Collection 2
Cullum’s reedy voice and impeccable melodies recall Robert Wyatt, and so does his omnivorous musical taste. Coin Collection 2 is solidly grounded in pastoral ’60s-and-’70s folk-rock, but it’s the opposite of myopic, with tasteful flourishes and surprising moments around every corner.

Spencer Zhan – Statues II
Zhan’s three albums this year included a full-length cover of a Harry Styles album, and two sculptural ambient-jazz releases—all of them deserve an ear, but if you only have time for one, choose this.

🍁 Test Card – Channels
Canada’s answer to the pastoral electronics that UK labels Ghost Box and Clay Pipe specialize in. Consider that high praise.

Tommy Guerrero – Amber of Memory

Guerrero describes this collection as “surf goth,” but there’s nothing bleak about it. Just swoon-worthy dream-pop instrumentals beaming sunshine into your darkest days.

Ulrika Spacek – Compact Trauma
Leaning more towards post-punk than 2017’s shoegaze-influenced Modern English Decoration, and does it as well as anyone out there right now.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra – V
Just a flawless lo-fi pop record, with impeccable guitar, a low-key but irresistible sense of groove, and a melancholy that adds salt to the sweetness. Wins me over more with every listen.

Veryan – Reflections in a Wilderness
A chilly, crystalline ode to the beauty of frozen landscapes—which, in the middle of a Canadian winter, doubles as a reminder to find happiness where you are instead of wishing for escape.

Vic Mars – The Beacons
In some ways, Mars’ pastoral folktronics are worlds away from his early educational-video-inspired releases, but the through-lines are there: the appreciation of melody, the ability to create complete worlds in a few short minutes, and the commitment to an aesthetic have all remained, and all serve Mars beautifully on his latest for Clay Pipe Records.

Violetta Vicci – Cavaglia
A nostalgic, melancholy release from the UK composer, recollecting childhood summers and reflecting on the fragility of nature through swooning strings, ghostly vocals, and subtle analog synths.

Wax Machine – The Sky Unfurls, The Dance Goes On

Offering a more sophisticated spin on the tropical psychedelia of their earlier releases, Wax Machine’s latest is also by far its strongest. Spacious, dreamy, subtle and subdued.

Whatitdo Archive Group – Palace of a Thousand Sounds
Like the Ironsides, Whatitdo Archive Group specialize in library grooves creating the kinds of sounds that would get crate diggers salivating if they’d been recorded in the ’70s and still should today. Hints of exotica and global influences, but the beat is always front and centre.

🍁 White Poppy – Sound of Blue
Crystal Dorval specializes in the dreamiest of dream-pop songs. Her bio says it best: “Music for memory gardens and pastel horizons, dreaming of bliss and distance”

Y La Bamba – Lucha
Warbly, off-kilter, Latin-influenced indie folk that isn’t afraid to undercut a pop hook with an experimental digression, and vice versa.

Yo La Tengo – This Stupid World
Its got your noisy jams, your indie gems, your gentle ballads—YLT may be comfort food at this point, but who doesn’t need a bit of comfort? Especially in the face of all the everything thrown at us by, as the title says, this stupid world.

🍁 YOCTO – Zepta Supernova
Sci-fi space rock from a supergroup of Quebec psych-rockers. Punky and energetic, virtuosic when it wants to be, and cool in that way that only half-spoken French vocals can be.

🍁 YouYourself&I – L’Amour des Anoures
Intimate, intricate bedroom folk from Montreal, from an artist with 26 releases on bandcamp and shockingly little other info online.

Yussef Dayes – Black Classical Music

Strange how a first album can feel like a greatest hits. Dayes’ funk-soul-jazz debut is wide-ranging, soulful, accessible, and does not let up.