Rock and roll has a habit of attracting people who want to talk about it more than play it. Pennan Brae, a Vancouver singer-songwriter who writes his own songs and scores independent films, belongs to the other camp. *Studio*, his latest album, is a record made by someone who has spent a great deal of time in a room with amplifiers and wants you to hear what happens when they are switched on.

Phoenixes are a staple of the pop songbook. Most singers who stage a rebirth do it with a smoke machine and a lawyer on retainer. Susan Mohini Kane does it with a stomp, a clap and a crowd.

Memory is a poor archivist. It mislays the important things, hoards the trivial ones, and returns them to us at three in the morning, slightly rearranged and wholly irresistible. "rest assured," the third and final single from Skiptrace's forthcoming debut album, behaves much like that. It plays like a recollection you can't quite place, and by the time its nearly five minutes are up you are certain it mattered.

Pop music has grown so loud, so eager to be liked, that a song willing to wait for you feels almost impolite. Danny Lu's "我渴望," a Mandarin single written in the high desert of Santa Fe and finished many years later, does exactly that. It sits there, unhurried, with its coat still on, and lets you decide whether to come in.