Calling Jon McKiel albums a journey doesn’t quite cut it; perhaps a traipse or a stumbling meander that nonetheless seems very focused on where it’s headed. Pitchfork called his 2024 album Hex “compellingly disorienting; the melodies are as tight as the grooves are strange — hypnotic, slightly off.”

Sonic exploration has long been this former Nova Scotian’s MO. His previous album, the cult favourite Bobby Joe Hope, began when McKiel bought a used reel-to-reel with tape still wound onto it. He was so captivated by the mysteriously odd song fragments and guitar pieces that his release became a full collaboration with the ghost on the reel.

Hex proved McKiel doesn’t need a ghost to help him create haunting sound collages that float spectrally between what can be described and what must simply be appreciated.

Exclaim! said while McKiel “crafts an approximation of brill building pop and Beatnik folk,” on his latest Polaris Prize-longlisted release, “his psychedelic guitar noodling and dense patchwork of percussive layers mean that Hex exists enigmatically out of time.” Folk, lo fi, dub, blues, tropicalia, poetry, “bloodshot pop” — critics have found encapsulating the East Coast songwriter’s music as tricky as capturing an aroma with a butterfly net.

- Jason Markusoff