It’s dark and I’m crammed into a back corner with 2/5 members from Toronto’s Tiny Danza. The room is full of, well, seemingly everyone: photographers, pretty girls, hipster boys, sunglasses, non-participating band members. There are cupcakes on the table with the band members’ names and faces on them, a sentiment from a super fan earned after TD’s 2011 Indie Week win. They offer me one nicely and although I admit the cupcakes look delicious, I decline. Eating the faces of people I’m interviewing seems kinda weird. Plus, there’s more important things to do – like talk about Tiny Danza’s whirlwind of a life since winning a trip to Ireland to also play Indie Week there.

We talk to Juno and Grammy award winning mastering engineer João Carvalho (The Sheepdogs, Death From Above, City In Colour) about what bands should consider when recording and mastering an album

For most new recording artists, the process of mastering can seem elusive.  The art seems so wrapped in secrecy and confusion you would expect it to be done by members of the illuminati reciting dark incantations in some Masonic back room.  In reality it is the art done by a handful of audio professionals to create the best sonic enhancements and achieve an overall cohesive sound.  To shed more light on the mastering process is the João Carvalho, the owner of Toronto studio João Carvalho Mastering.

Mothers, bring your young daughters: the Anna Calvi route is female values wrapped up in a bow. While Thursday’s performance at Lee’s Palace played to a wider demographic of the 19+, the British artist managed to exceed already high hopes with her on-stage aloof and a couple of electrics.

Rousing a crowd comes easily to Austra and its posse of interchanging stage-friends. Alongside Katie Stelmanis’ iced (and increasingly signature) operatics, the band’s homecoming show at the Phoenix last Thursday pledged theatrics and the posture of a group in its prime state of mind.

A DJ that has built his loyal crowd appeal from the ground level of electronica and up, all while unleashing his high-energy electro and dubstep tracks on a crowd of screaming fans craving more. I had the chance to chat wit Mr. Dual Canadian & American citizenship himself, Buckeye Red.