Tops

Montreal’s TOPS cloak themes of alienation, aimlessness, tangled relationships, and shifting power dynamics inside breezy sophisti-pop arrangements that favor polished surfaces over raw edges. The group advanced its craft through successive self-produced LPs, earning acclaim for 2014’s Picture You Staring and its fusion of outsider viewpoints with time-honored songwriting. Following several Arbutus Records releases, the quartet issued its fourth album, I Feel Alive, in 2020 on the newly established Musique TOPS imprint.

TOPS coalesced in 2011 after the dissolution of Silly Kissers, whose roster had also featured kindred indie singer Sean Nicholas Savage. Vocalist and songwriter Jane Penny joined forces with guitarist and songwriter David Carriere; they were soon augmented by drummer Riley Fleck and bassist Tom Gillies. The band shared an orbit with Doldrums, Grimes, and Mac DeMarco, and placed its 2012 debut album, Tender Opposites, on Arbutus Records, the hub of that circle. Before sessions for Picture You Staring, Madeline Glowicki replaced Gillies on bass.

Seeking a fresh setting, TOPS tracked its third album inside a rented house in Glendale, California. The sessions yielded Sugar at the Gate, issued by Arbutus in 2017 with Jackson MacIntosh of Sheer Agony handling bass duties. Keyboardist Marta Cikojevic joined as the fifth member ahead of a European tour. Returning to the studio, the group emerged with I Feel Alive, produced by Penny and Carriere and released on Musique TOPS in tandem with distributor House Arrest. Plans to tour the album collided with the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting early cancellation of dates; once conditions eased, the band resumed live work in late 2021 and delivered the EP Empty Seats in May 2022.