Electric guitars. A drum kit. A punk band with a swearword name. Depending on who’s being asked, these are not the makings of a grandiose opera production. But for three nights in November, Toronto opera company Tapestry Opera is challenging that received wisdom by partnering with Fucked Up for a production of a new opera called Metallurgy.

Even though they’re set to release their Never Come Down 12-inch March 31 via One Big Silence, Elsa didn’t mind reaching into the archives to commit “In Waves” – a song from the same sessions as their 2013 I Do EP – to wax on the March instalment (LW-005) of Long Winter’s split 7-inch series, available free to the first 250 guests through the doors at the Great Hall on March 13. In this questionnaire, singer/guitarist Jonathan Rogers explains the origins of the song and tells us about a near-fatal winter experience.

Together with vocalist Alice Hansen, Charles Blazevic makes ruminative, nocturnal pop music in You’ll Never Get To Heaven. But on March 13, Blazevic brings his solo instrumental project Dreamsploitation to the final Long Winter of the season. In this questionnaire, Blazevic explains how “Accent Blue“ – available on our March split 7-inch with Elsa, free to the first 250 guests through the doors at the Great Hall – was inspired by solo piano music.

In the middle of a month-long residency at Hirut Ethiopian Restaurant, Toronto composer Brodie West’s avant-calypso ensemble Eucalyptus is set to take the stage in the Great Hall’s Conversation Room (11:00 p.m.) at the Long Winter Fair, where we’ll also be distributing a limited run of our February splits featuring Eucalyptus and Crosss. In this questionnaire, West explains how “Fascination In Sound” developed from a direct-to-phone melody recording to the track it has become – the namesake of Eucalyptus’s new 10-inch EP, released Feb. 9 on Healing Power Records.

While Toronto/Halifax/Montreal’s heavy riffing, shape shifting Crosss won’t release its follow-up to 2013’s Obsidian Spectre until later this year, the group has still managed to quietly discharge newer work into the ether via a couple of split releases over the course of the lull. In this questionnaire, singer/guitarist Andy March explains the evolution of Crosss’s “Bones Brigade” and lifts the veil on Crosss’ aesthetic reference points.

After releasing Faucet on Healing Power Records last February, Bile Sister – the swampy avant-pop band Julia Reich originally put together to perform her home recordings in live settings – has spent the past year germinating into a slightly mutated version of its former self. We asked Reich to fill out our 7” Survey and get us up to speed.

The voices of Toronto’s DIY music scene carried discordantly throughout 2014