Shortly after releasing a demo tape as Mercury Girls this past April, Grace Scott, Julie MacKinnon, Jonah Falco and Mike Grdosic rebranded under the name Pavilion. Specializing in gloomy, dramatic post-punk, they’ve kept busy since, and in March they’ll release another cassette, Vexation of Spirit. In the meantime, you can catch them at Long Winter tomorrow night, where Scott says the band may incorporate “performance elements” eluding to a project the group’s been working on since November, and in an appropriate departure from our regular seven-inch series we’ll also have a cassette featuring their track “Pale Shades of Green” and another from Pet Sun available free at the door (despite the format change, we had Scott fill out our monthly seven-inch survey anyway).

As diasporic Filipina-Canadians, Pantayo’s seven members pursue traditional kulintang (gong-chime music from the Philipinnes) as a means of (re-)accessing their culture and building community. In advance of their performance at Long Winter this Saturday (Jan. 16) and the release of their track “Binalig Bahala Na” on this month’s split with Indoor Voices, Pantayo collectively answered our seven-inch survey to explain their approach to the traditional form and discuss their experiences as diasporic people living in Toronto.

After Junetile called it quits and stopped making their sonic chicken soup dream pop in 2004, singer-guitarist Jonathan Relph couldn’t stop making music. Bedroom sketches quickly grew into more, and eventually, Relph formed Indoor Voices together with Owen Davies, Ryan Gassi and Kate Rogers. Markedly more propulsive, Indoor Voices steps further into the poppier end of shoegaze territory, their songs all blanketed with swirly guitar washes. Grab a copy of our January seven-inch this Saturday (Jan. 16) for as-of-yet unreleased Indoor Voices track “Indifferentiator” and another from Pantayo, and check out our seven-inch survey with Jonathan Relph below to get caught up to speed.

Josh Korody’s had a busy year. When he wasn’t producing and recording releases by artists like Dilly Dally and Fresh Snow at Candle Recording, gigging in support of WISH’s 2014 self-titled debut, or subbing in on drums with Vallens and Moon King, he and Jesse Crowe unveiled the sophomore follow-up to their 2013 debut as Beliefs in November, and he still found time to pump out Format, his first electronic record working under the solo moniker Nailbiter on Hand Drawn Dracula. Grab a copy of our December seven-inch this Saturday (Dec. 12) for an as-of-yet unreleased Nailbiter track and another from New Chance, and check out our seven-inch survey with Nailbiter himself to get caught up to speed.

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.