Who says songwriting has to be conventional? Sure, it’s all well and good to follow a displayed structure to prevent any alienation between fans, but in order to stand out among the crowd, why not stir the pot a little? Why is it that we tend to only remember a song’s chorus?

MODEL 86 is a new name for the film and commercial scoring artist Matthew James Wilcock. Under this alias, he is anonymous. His sparse Facebook info page describes his gender as neutral and his interactions as minimal. However, behind the seemingly empty cover, MODEL 86 has a lot written on his pages.

Beginner’s luck is a myth. Many people believe that the first attempt at something new and its obligatory fruitfulness are the stuff of legends. This is not the case with today’s music world. Marrow, Chi-town’s newest heroes, rope in all they can muster to spin a web of pure brilliance. Yes, The Gold Standard is their debut record but the phrase “beginner’s luck” is not the right sentence to utter.

Authenticity is a rare find in our world today, a world that shrinks everyday as we connect more than ever before, we compare and contrast cultural entities and seek out walls of influences or inspiration. Few artists have found their own niche of genuine identity and musical output. Zhala Rifat, a new artist from Sweden, offers a look into her own world, untarnished by label pressure and Western conventions.

Will Wiesenfeld is delightful. This is obvious after only a few minutes in his presence. Earlier in the day, he’d suggested via text that we meet at 4:30 at the venue in Toronto he was performing at that night as part of NXNE at The Phoenix Theatre. I texted back, “Make it 4:20 and we have a deal,” nervous about whether he would appreciate the joke.

In what sounds like a classic rock opus, PINS have done the unthinkable in 2015. The all-girl bunch have conquered the competition by turning their amps up to 11 and creating some good, old-fashioned rock and roll. While today’s music scene is drifting farther and farther away from Les Pauls and Gibsons, PINS proves that rock music is on the rise once again.