Snow is so pretty … until it isn’t. That’s why we need music to soundtrack our travails here in the Great White North. Whether you are shoveling or just trudging through it you can make your snowy place experiences a montage of sorts with these fab selections.

Stepping on the dreamy pedal, Real Estate tease their upcoming album #6 entitled Daniel with the release of an ever-so-carefully crafted pop single. “Water Underground” has the cadence and pacing of work from bands like The Shins or Sitcom Neighbor. It will get in your head and stay there, but you won’t mind. Super 8 is busy putting together the pieces for his special project Super 8 Presents The Plus 4 but in the meantime he’s released another single. “Keep Doing It” sounds like this tribute-to-the-beat-group-sound has moved from 1965 into 1966. There’s a bit of flower power in the mix, adding to the distinctive jangle and a heavy dose of some groovy organ work. Irish psych rockers Spearside return with another winning single, the moody, bass-heavy, yet still hooky “Passion Merchant.” There’s even a touch of Caribbean flavour to the instrumental bridges on my listening. On their latest LP The Flip Side Monogroove get into the 1960s right and proper with a few well-chosen covers and a vibe on the originals that is so in that decade’s pop sweet-spot. Right now “Let Me Know” is grabbing me with its jangly guitars and spot-on Beatles background vocals. Another teaser single comes our way from Flying Underground with the dissonantly wonderful “Mixtape.” This song rides a striking contrast between clean verses that shift down into darker yet still hooky choruses. More please.

Time to go all 1980s on you with a current artist that somehow conjures the atmosphere of that gel-drenched decade so effortlessly. Just listen to all the musical adornments on Jonny Couch’s “Sweet Charlene.” The guitar is almost southern fried rock-approved, the keyboards are so Hall and Oates, while the tune is 1980s melodic groovy. You can dip into his 2019 LP Mystery Man for more of the good same. Into these difficult times The Armoires offer us the refuge of “Musical and Animals,” sounding like a cross between the frosty folk stylings of Everything But the Girl and the sweet sentiments of The Happy Somethings. Just one of 20 fabulous cuts featured on their label Big Stir Records sampler The Cream Of 2023: Foam Your Consideration. Appearing to usher in a new era of folk rock The Sylvia Platters crank the jangle distortion on their new 45 “Kool Aid Blue” and the effect is most endearing. Somehow loud and dreamy at the same time. Another band preparing us for more are The Embryos. “Desiree” is the advance single from their new album Selling What You Want To Buy and once again they keep us guessing, striking a decidedly country Americana note on this release. Imagine the Eagles as an indie band and you’re in the ballpark. I stumbled across Desert Mambas as one of the bottom-of-the-page Bandcamp suggestions and immediately fell in love with the early 1960s camp tone on their “Notes from Chicago.” It’s a more stylized version of their usual low-key indie sound but no less fabulous for it.

Let me clear, Sad About Girls new 3 song EP Songs For My People is three songs strong, particularly the jangle-driven opener “You Are Here.” But I’m featuring their cover of the Beatles track “Baby’s In Black.” I mean, if you don’t want to pull focus from such great originals why do such a killer job on the cover? The jangly lead guitar work is Harrison-authentic but the twist is in the Tom Lucas’ superb vocal delivery, effectively adding a contemporary gloss to an otherwise classic-sounding rendition. Memphis quintet Your Academy follow up their debut LP riffing Big Star by cheekily titling their new release #2 Record. The two tracks currently playable sound like hits to me, especially the languid, somewhat loping “Just a Little Out of Tune.” Definitely a 1970s feel – a little bit Big Star, perhaps a whole lot more Wings. Shake Some dub themselves ‘Power Pop from Bordeaux, France’ but you could easily mistake them for a late 1970s CBGB’s act. “Not Even You” has a wonderfully muddy, almost live indie rock and roll sound that delivers a nice melodic hook. All the rock critics love The Lemon Twigs and what’s not to love? Their records are like lovingly syncretic syntheses of an amazing range of rock and roll motifs. The D’Addario brothers know the canons and how to selectively draw from them. Case in point, their most recent single “My Golden Years” combines the yearning vulnerability of 1970s singer-songwriters, with maybe a touch of Queen and 10cc thrown in here and there, buffeted by army of Beach Boys background vocals that seem to multiply as the song goes on. Breathtaking stuff indeed. From a more low-key direction, Sorry Monks focus our attention on guitars and compressed vocals on “Girlfriend.” It’s like they’ve taken the ambience from “I’m Only Sleeping” and channeled that into a whole new thing. And it works.

Indie super-group Orbis Max return with a new single “Here and Now” that sounds like it’s drawing from equal parts Dylan and 1970s Manfred Mann. It sounds vaguely familiar and somehow timeless at the same time with an attractive, sing-along-worthy chorus. Seems like The Deep Drags main man was hiding his rock and roll light under a bushel for most of his life but thankfully he’s recently put his recordings on display. There’s a 1960s garage fun element to his songs but also a considerable 1980s indie polish. “If You Want Me To” sounds pretty ready-for-rock-radio circa 1984 to me but I’m also partial to hooky jangle of “You Don’t Know Love.” Now grab onto something because the jangle intensity of The Jette Planes on their single “Tunnel” will have you involuntarily moving and grooving. The vibe in 1965 London nightclub, skinny ties not optional. Friends of Cesar Romero surprised us last year by releasing a full album instead of the usual litany of EPs. Queen Of All The Parliaments is solid collection of jangly garage-rock-stamped tunes but here we single out the relentlessly sibilant hooks of “Tomorrow’s Weather Girl.” This is movie-opener montage-worthy for sure. Now for something a bit different Austin Texas gives us The Infinites. There’s definitely something cinematic about their groove. “The Expats” is the advance single from their new album Archetypes and it strikes an ethereal, slightly ominous pose. You know something’s gonna happen to the protagonist here and it won’t be good. Stay tuned for the full album treatment to find out what.

We wrap things up on this first foray celebrating singles in 2024 with some heavy melody from one of my fave finds from this year past, Liquid Mike. “Mouse Trap” hits you hard with nineties grungy chords but never lets go of its melodic hook. That’s just one of 13 tunes to come on the soon-to-be-here Paul Bunyan’s Slingshot.

Who will triumph as the ‘theme from a snowy place’? As usual, you’ll decide. Hurry over to the artist websites and bandcamp pages to vote with your wallet.