Ease back into 90s sluritude with Weed’s latest quad-platter offering of bummed-out grunge. The newly formed melancholy drips mighty rhythms into a painful chorus of subterranean solitude; the glimmering sun, locked into grooves laced with peaks and valleys, rarely yielding a morning dew more suffocating than the BOSS distortion warming each track on Gun Control. Minimal synth aficionados will be fooled by “Ben’s Tour”‘s opening riff, but the real heads will dive for the mail-order-only grippage. Vinyl is limited to 200 copies with a cassette-version offered via Green Burrito.

The physical connections between Jamaica and Toronto have been well documented by one Kevin Sipreano. Less known amongst the gripper elite are the abundance of fantastic dancehall singles produced in the heart of TO. Kitty Rouler’s stock-label entry on the ubiquitous Toronto imprint Classic Sounds is an addictive conjuring of dancehall-fuzed 80s R&B. Kitty’s staccato, pseudo-rap delivery, with pitched melodies, strangely anthemic flow, and relentless pursuit of her lyrical boyfriend, mutates traditional rhythms into a netherworld of clurb bangin’ and ep swingin’. It’s immediacy and nuanced personality made it an instant classic at WC HQ after Brandon Hocura dropped the bomb on us. “My Boyfriend” pre-dates Mike Jones‘ telephone # drop by 20 years, making it a proto-Swishahouse classic. Super grip.

Convenience stores emit sounds so high pitched that adults can’t hear to ward off young people from loitering (what we used to call “hanging out”). Reverse this hypothesis and lo, a sound that shakes soil and loam to drag up undergrounders from the deep who can dance with their eyes closed. Metal gates creak open in Sodom to welcome those shunned from the sidewalks and we fall, tripping over cracks. This overtly rude foursome can’t help but glue together weirdos and fun-boys, calling the rest of us a bunch of Taquito-eating old folks. If you think you’ve got it on the wrong speed, it’s right.

This is the first (and hopefully last) time anything Blood, Sweat, and Tears related will appear within our northernly quadrant. Thankfully, most things of a fantastic nature endure humble beginnings, and David Clayton Thomas’ second single on ACTA embodies this vision. Paving the way for the ensnarled, rabid, wave known as garage-punk, Thomas embodies the enigmatic Bo Diddley on his first two singles. However, somewhere hidden within “Lucy”, DCT breaks the brooding, bass-frothy organ with a scorching scream. The resulting shreddery kick-starts the droning organ that wraps the cacophony in wondrous 4-4 time. Certainly not psychedelic, nor overly punk, “Lucy”‘s simplicity is its charm, and for whatever reason, its present is totally without mention within the DCT discography. Thanks to Brandon Hocura / Polyphasic Studios for the transfer. Rad.

Moments pass; Each Other persists. The Nova Scotian wunderkinds have traversed twisted trails to arrive at these amber-encased oscillations, cramming a Rundgren-esque treasure trove of hooks into two new insta-classics. Paradigmatic pop moves that transcend an already-flawless discography.

A strange creature has emerged from the western camp of Kevin Stebner’s Revolution Winter. Town Ship’s wikked dabbling in the occulant waves of 80s post-punk pommel their cyclic guitar wrenching into awesomely unfamiliar landscapes. The resulting collateral damage is more Pinx than Jehu and the surrounding void is proof of your transfiguration. Beautiful silk-screen sleeves ripe for the gripping.

Police Des Moeurs may be Alphaville’s greatest export since Lemmy Caution and Anna Karina. The duo intuitively know when to let sequencers speak for themselves, when to chime in, and when to command their drum machines to play another remorseless fill. Best experienced while observing Brutalist architecture, a worn existential paperback in your pocket. [Note: Certain copies of the 7" may come packaged with a page from Georg Orwell's 1984.]

Cheaper than a leather jacket but equally effective at scaring your parents, Lantern’s new single takes them to new levels of speaker-blowing oblivion. “I Don’t Know” resurfaces from this summer’s tape on Night People, jabbed with adrenaline by drummer Sophie White’s Maclise-via-hambone beat. But B-side “Out of Our Heads” is the true highlight—nearly five minutes of relentless bass-as-extra-tom-tom, high pitched smears of sneers, and a final solo of celestial murk. For Cuban heels only.

Avec son évangile Casio punky et sa guitare-jouet au fuzz ping-pong, P/DO P/DRO célèbre la créativité encadrée de la tendre enfance dans une réinterprétation souillée de savoir-faire faussement puéril que les plus grands peuvent canaliser comme un souvenir d’enfant sauvage pour un premier album numérique dont les four plus grands succès potentiels ont été pressés sur cire. C’est de la post-danse sociale riche d’un crémage de ponctuation synthétique bip-boup-bip qui fait frétiller, un bouillon de poulet pour une bacchanale de demi-mesure, crooné sur la fine ligne du bon goût et de l’étiquette.

Montreal’s storied scriptures of garage rock sass find its latest disciples with this smirking fuzz-punk trio. “Cling On” lurches to a start amidst raspberry blasts of guitar, Manzarek organ and lock-step drums before settling into the brand of smashed groove you’d hear pumping from the DJ booth at L’esco. “Ma Babby” ups the hook ‘n’ tackle factor even further with a deluge of pedal effects, tempo shifts and howling monkey vox. Stuff this in your stocking and smoke it.