From the Queen West corridor comes a jolt of synthesized punk fit to soundtrack your next trip into the Sprawl. Eardrum scraping drum machine snaps provide the accompaniment to guitars, bubbling electronic tones and swathes of fuzz-riddled bass. The skull-and-palm-trees cover finds its expression in vocals that dart from yelps to booming horror soundtrack chants, but Cellphone is also simply the sound of overheated asphalt.

Un dance party angoissant, mais un party quand même : la voix d’un la Fred Schneider fantomatique mène des guitares spastiques, des volutes synth-chédéliques et un tapochage de Neandertal à travers une dense ambiance de sélection naturelle. Des tounes qui crient vers les cavernes, préhistoriques et brutales, rendues intrigantes par des mélodies vivides et tordues qui rampent vers toi comme des peurs que tu t’inventes : je veux dire, tu vas pas avoir peur d’un CD, t’es plus fort que ça, mais ces gars-là PORTENT DES MASQUES.

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.

Actual Water have emerged a pop monstrosity from the mirth of fidelic ruin; their debut LP exists within an echo-chamber of guitar-laced jangle and humoured rhythm, making each stab more destructively addicting. With bludgeoned flare, The Paisley Orchard‘s euphoric clamour induces a slurred frenzy of popular distaste. The entire package is some top of the line wine for the ruinous at heart. Top 10 of the year for sure. YEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Somewhere between a Canadiana Jandek, or a tone-deaf Neil Young, prairie-born Dave Smith drops a few of his strongest Going Down the Road-styled slices. Smith’s jams are often nothing more than tape buzz and harmonica-folk devolving into windy noise but with enough personality to shame Shotgun Jimmie into submission. Man of the land.

The bleeps, sweeps and creeps of Craig Storm’s MMC get a visual jolt from found footage aficionado Joshua Rogers on this hep DVD. In a tour de force of cable access follies, the songs of Le Progrès sync up with stormy night drives, puppy love on the monorail and aluminum foot soldiers goose-stepping to the beat. It’s an A/V collab on par with Ratté v. Femminielli.

Encased in a squeeze box of screen printed palms, Ocular Gymnastics’ debut transmission is as lavishly packaged as it is blissful. Pedal-jammed Casio meditations cast ripples across the mind-pond while the mountain of found-sound percussion clanks and rattles down the cortex. Only Moduli TV could provide suitable visual accompaniment for these C.H.U.D. ravers in a tropical time-warp à la Bamboo For Two.

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.

Toronto’s storied six-string weakling and Winnipeg’s notorious nightmare machinist junk it up on this flesh-crawling collab. The plainspoken title does little to prepare for the onslaught of shreddery lost in the tempest of tape loops and R2-D2 squeals. Bill Orcutt getting down with Bernard Bonnier is a start, but this is more like Mutant Concrète.

Hey, you over there. Brazilian Money is back didn’t cha know? Led by bespectacled teen heartthrob Garrett Johnson and a new backing trio of friendly and familiar faces, these boys on the bus are back to what they do: making artfully warm and warbly pop wormholes. Their latest release Doug Nasty asks questions: “What do ya do when a guy comes and shits on your floor?” and ponders the simple things: “Nothing is free, some things are cheap.” Maybe it was the product of several late night acid parties; maybe it was just the people. Maybe it’s for the dance floor slackers, burned out, thinking about the incomprehensible. Either way, it’s fuuuuuuuuun! Glad to see Johnson still shuckin’ and jivin’ in yer minds, giving you reason to think.