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.

As Toronto is set ablaze with music during one of Canada’s largest music festivals, we’re proud to join our friends in providing an alternative to the chaos. NXNWyrd is a new micro-festival curated by Weird Canada, Offerings, Pleasence and Burn Down The Capital and is happening Thursday June 14 through Saturday June 16. As an imprint of Weird Canada’s nation-wide Wyrd festival series, NXNWyrd will focus on empowering guests to explore and discover the North American musical underground.

On top of stages shared by bands like Drainolith, Oneida-and-Sightings-related Man Forever, Sean Nicholas Savage, Sexy Merlin, and other emerging artists, NXNWyrd will feature a special Saturday Afternoon Mellow with vintage private issue New Age DJ’ing by yours truly and environs, smells, and comforts provided by Spa Kosmische.

Advance tickets for the entire weekend are $15, or priced individually for each show at the door. The weekend rate presents a deep discount if one plans on going to at least two shows. Full lineup, details, locations, and ticket information below.

Festival Details

Dates: Thursday June 14, Friday June 15, Saturday June 16
Festival Tickets: $15 (http://nxnwyrd.eventbrite.com/)
Festival Website: http://weirdcanada.com/nxnwyrd
Venues:

• Double Double Land (209 Augusta Ave.)
• Infinite Library (Upper – 664 Queen Street West)
• Polyhaus (388 Carlaw Ave)

Full Lineup

• Astral Gunk
• Drainolith
• Doom Tickler
• Energetic Action
• Indigenous Nudes
• John Milner, You’re So Boss
• Man Forever
• Man Made Hill
• Mass Horns
• Moonwood
• Pon De Replay
• Sean Nicholas Savage
• Sexy Merlin
• The Soupcans
• TOPS
• Young Truck

Show Details

Thursday June 14: Man Forever + Mass Horns + Guests

Featuring:

• Man Forever
• Mass Horns
• (special guests)

Date: Thursday June 14, 2012
Location: Double Double Land (209 Augusta Ave.)
Price: $10 door. / $0 with festival pass.
Doors: 9pm

Friday June 15: Pleasence Showcase

To celebrate Toronto’s finest polyvinyl imprint, Pleasence has curated an enormous bill of talent from across Canada.

Featuring:

• Sexy Merlin
• Young Truck
• Drainolith
• Pon De Replay
• Energetic Action
• Astral Gunk
• John Milner, You’re So Boss
• Man Made Hill
• The Soupcans
• Indigenous Nudes

Date: Friday June 15, 2012
Location: Polyhaus (388 Carlaw Ave.)
Doors: 7pm
Price: $10 door. / $0 with festival pass.

Saturday June 16: Saturday Afternoon Mellow + Sean Nicholas Savage + Guests

Everyone needs an afternoon of mellowtude. Come and relax within Weird Canada’s HQ. Vintage and authentic New Age meditation music provided by Aaron Levin with environs and aromatics by Spa Kosmische.

Featuring:

• Sean Nicholas Savage
• Doom Tickler
• Moonwood
• TOPS
• New Age Meditation Music DJ Aaron Levin

Date: Saturday June 16, 2012
Location: Infinite Library (Upper Floor – 664 Queen Street West)
Doors: 3:30pm
Price: $7 door. / $0 with festival pass.
Set-Times:

• 16:00 :: New Age music mellowness
• 18:00 :: TOPS
• 19:00 :: Sean Nicholas Savage
• 20:00 :: Doom Tickler
• 21:00 :: Moonwood

Performer Details

Astral Gunk (Sackville, NB)

• file under: garage burners
• why we love them: http://astralgunk.bandcamp.com/

ASTRAL GUNK was formed in September 2011 after 2 years of communicating through touring and email, the four members found themselves living in the same town while their previous bandmates were sprawled across eastern Canada. Drawing inspiration from a melting pot of punk, post punk, garage rock, pop, psych rock and everything in between, the prevailing sound is as much an amalgamation of influences as it is the product of four dudes drinking beer in a shed and avoiding their responsibilities. The gunk rockers are equally influenced by the rich history of rock n roll music as the current onslaught of Canadian and international bands they regard as peers and mentors.

Drainolith (Montréal, QC)

• file under: underwater hood jams
• why we love them: http://weirdcanada.com/2011/12/new-canadiana-drainolith-you-paid-for-it-bw-deep-water-pa/
• official website: http://www.myspace.com/drainolith

Drainolith is the droned-out, avant-cosmic project of AIDS Wolf guitarist Alex Moskos. We have heard tales of live shows nothing short of incredible.

Doom Tickler (Toronto, ON)

• file under: gremlinatrix
• why we love them: http://weirdcanada.com/2010/06/review-doom-tickler-spectral-forum-teen-steam/
• official website: http://doomtickler.bandcamp.com/

An intense miasma of gremlinized vocal workouts from Toronto’s L. Predy. Incredible, if not totally terrifying.

Energetic Action (Edmonton, AB)

• file under: 80s post-industrial goth-riot
• why we love them: http://weirdcanada.com/2011/09/new-canadiana-energetic-action-walls/
• official website: http://www.youtube.com/user/energeticaction

Hailing from the petroleum wastelands of Edmonton, Alberta, Energetic Action have single-handedly revived the D.E.Y (Do Everything Yourself) aesthetic that defined the British post-punk invasion. In one fell swoop they have conjured an punk-driven intensity that compares to nothing the world is ready for.

Indigenous Nudes (London, ON)

• file under: freak-city drone
• why we love them: http://weirdcanada.com/2011/11/new-canadiana-indigenous-nudes-cleaning-up-for-al/
• official website: http://indigenousnudes.bandcamp.com/

Rude, nude, and dudes. We’re kidding. This avant-collage project from the unlikely town of London, ON, heralds back to a time when the Nihilist Spasm Band ran rampant through the streets of tinsel town, Ontario.

John Milner, You’re So Boss (Toronto, ON)

• file under: boss punk
• why we love them: http://weirdcanada.com/2012/05/new-canadiana-john-milner-youre-so-boss–7/
• official website: http://jmysb.tumblr.com/

Intense punk crustaceans from Toronto’s underground nether maze. As brilliant live as their name is long.

Man Forever (Brooklyn, NY)

• file under: Glassian drum drone
• why we love them: http://thrilljockey.com/thrill/Man-Forever/Pansophical-Cataract

John Colpitts (aka Kid Millions) is a Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist, composer and writer who is perhaps best known as the drummer for Oneida. Man Forever, his vehicle for exploring the outer limits of drum performance, was created to overwhelm, to investigate the nuances that bloom in the midst of repetitive music, and to act as a pure sound experience. John also plays in Brooklyn-based band Sightings.

Man Made Hill (Toronto, ON)

• file under: fonkayness of the highest sexual order
• why we love them: http://weirdcanada.com/2011/06/new-canadiana-man-made-hill-future-florists/
• official website: http://www.myspace.com/llihedamnam

Man Made Hill is a breathtaking work-out of sexual funk jams that has Susan Johanson getting busy on the dance floor. If you can match Man Made Hill’s dance regime, you’re guaranteed to loose 50 in 30. We’ll let you define the units and time frame. In the interim, GET FONKAY.

Mass Horns (Toronto, ON)

• file under: avant-drum-psych intensity
• why we love them: n/a
• official website: n/a

A blistering side-project of Young Mother, the drum-based guitar wrenching insanity will completely melt your face, body, mind, soul, wallet, children, home, job, and universe. This will be the last thing you ever see. Die fantastically.

Moonwood (Toronto, ON)

• file under: aquatic explorations of ethnographic psych
• why we love them: http://weirdcanada.com/2012/03/new-canadiana-moonwood-river-ghosts/
• official website: http://moonwood.bandcamp.com/

Moonwood conjure a choking atmosphere of worldly instrumentals. Their drawn-out explorations touch upon every ephemeral state. Their new jams stray from the acoustic cosmos occupied on their first album and dive deep into heavy Krautrock territory. We’re excited to see the climax of their being. Join us.

Pon De Replay (Toronto, ON)

• file under: warbled tape jams
• why we love them: http://weirdcanada.com/2011/09/new-canadiana-pon-de-replay-whats-all-this-then/
• official website: http://www.myspace.com/pondereplaymtl

We say it’s warbled tape jams because this collage project is just that. Can you deal with it? Or will you dance to it. You decide.

Sean Nicholas Savage (Montréal, QC)

• file under: disco crooner pop of the highest calibre
• why we love them: http://weirdcanada.com/2012/01/new-canadiana-sean-nicholas-savage-flamingo/
• official website: http://seannicholassavage.bandcamp.com/

Edmonton ex-pat and now-Montreal crooner extraordinary, Sean Nicholas Savage has established himself as the go-to man for all things love. It’s pop, it’s personality, it’s beautiful. Sean Nicholas Savage is nothing short of a miracle.

Sexy Merlin (Toronto, ON)

• file under: double liquid drum insanity
• why we love them: http://weirdcanada.com/2011/11/new-canadiana-sexy-merlin-sexy-merlin/
• official website: http://www.myspace.com/sexymerlins

Easily the best-named band in canada, Sexy Merlin is an unstoppable erectro-drum kit explosion. harkening back to a time when Liquid Liquid filled cavernous halls with their insatiable drum-dance to the mother-land, Sexy Merlin will fill your mind with ecstatic sensations of eclectic euphoria.

The Soupcans (Toronto, ON)

• file under: trash punk
• why we love them: http://weirdcanada.com/2012/03/new-canadiana-the-soupcans-altered-states/
• official website: http://thesoupcans.bandcamp.com/album/altered-states

Toronto’s Soupcans will vomit trashy punk jams of the highest calibre, and you will eat the spew up with utter delight owing simply to their incomprehensible personality the band emits on stage. An incredibly unique experience and worth ditching your dinner date to catch the sloppy seconds. What?

Spa Kosmische (Toronto, ON)

• file under: smells
• why we love them: http://spakosmische.com/

Spa Ksomische is the musically-inspired spa product-line of Naomi Hocura. We are talking bath salts inspired by Can. Do you need any more?!

TOPS (Montréal, QC)

• file under: soft-psych mellowtude
• official website: http://tops.bandcamp.com/

Birthed from the ashes of Montreal-by-way-of-Edmonton’s Silly Kissers, Arbutus recording artist TOPS have redefined soft-pop into a mirrored acquiescence of mellowed delight.

Young Truck (Toronto, ON)

• file under: proto-post-drum-psych-disco-punk-adjective
• why we love them: http://weirdcanada.com/2011/07/new-canadiana-young-truck-man-made-hill-work-stress-disco-prison/
• official website: http://www.myspace.com/youngtruckmusic

With an incredible knack for thrashing genre boundaries and creating a beacon of non-wave dance
euphoria, Young Truck have become the premier gravity well for all things angular.

Partner Details

Burn Down The Capital

• web: http://burndownthecapital.weebly.com/

Burn Down The Capital puts on shows in Toronto. Our booking policy in dictated by personal taste, although we do tend towards noise, jazz & punk in the avant-garde, we are opened to pretty much any genre. We have been putting on shows in Toronto for about 5 years now & hope to continue doing so in the future. If you think we’d be into your music, please feel free to get in touch. Even though we can’t help everyone, it’s nice to hear from people who are into the same stuff we are.

Pleasence Records

• web: http://pleasencerecords.tumblr.com/

Pleasence Records is owned and operated by Deirdre O’Sullivan and James Lindsay. We release music on vinyl records. Pleasence Records loves no one specific genre more than another, though we prefer bands and artists with a flare for the oddball and experimental. Pleasence Records would like to meet you.

Spa Kosmische

• web: http://spakosmische.com/

SPA KOSMISCHE is an exploration of the therapeutic relationship between sound and scent. Each product is hand-blended using pure botanical essences chosen for their therapeutic and aromatic qualities. Inspired by kosmische musik (cosmic music) and krautrock, a genre of experimental music that emerged in Germany in the late 1960s, Spa Kosmische creates meditative environments to help your body return to earth while sending your mind into orbit. Created for people who enjoy exploring outer and inner space.

Weird Canada

• web: http://weirdcanada.com

Weird Canada is an award-winning publisher of diy / fringe / experimental / self-released musics from Canada. Weird Canada explores the Canadian musical cosmos through the lens of physically-released ephemera across all formats, genres, and experiences.

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.

Kevin Stebner is the only guy we know who can fit his gear into a lunchbox. While he wears many hats — Bart Recs / Revolution Winter founder, Stalwart Sons howler and Ghost Throats head stoker — his chiptune project GreyScreen is the focus of this particular feature. Jamming harder on his GameBoys than most can with a Stratocaster, Stebs charges the Nintendo kingdom full steam ahead. On his recent trip to support the new tape Thrillogy, we linked him up with WC’s resident lensman Landon Speers to spotlight some essential tour items.

Jesse Locke
Weird Canada // Texture Magazine
weirdcanada.com // texturemagazine.ca/wordpress

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.

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.

We are excited to announce the second annual Wyrd Montreal festival occurring Thursday, June 14 2012! Once again, we have teamed with beloved experimental music festival Suono Per Il Popolo to offer a multi-stage showcase of boundary pushing artists from the northernly fringes. Alongside the returning Mega Merch Bazaar (featuring a selection of Canada’s best record labels) Weird Canada will be taking over both La Sala Rossa and Casa del Popolo simultaneously for a one-night-only cornucopia of sinusoidal delight. This will allow fans the chance to bounce back and forth between the two bars conveniently located across the street from one another. Should fans find themselves needing a respite between wondrous electronics and/or bludgeoning chaos, experimental DJs Aaron Levin and Hobo Cubes will take residency in Casa del Popolo delivering a strange brew of new age, electronic, and avant psychedelics.

Date: Thursday June 14, 2012
Venue #1: La Sala Rossa (4848 Boulevard Saint-Laurent, Montreal)
Venue #2: Casa del Popolo (4873 Boulevard Saint-Laurent, Montreal)
Cost: $10 (adv.) / $12 (door)
Doors: 8pm

Lineup

La Sala Rossa
Brave Radar
Dog Day
Actual Water
Coca Cola (U.S. Girls + Slim Twig)

Casa del Popolo
Drainolith
Energetic Action
Tenderness
Bobo Boutin

Artist Bios

Coca Cola (U.S. Girls + Slim Twig) (Toronto)

Continuing Wyrd’s philosophy of unique collaborations, we’re proud to include a rare performance by this duo known as Coca Cola. Combining the rhythmic polyphonies of Toronto’s Slim Twig with the miasmic chaos of U.S. Girls, Coca Cola conjure an arpeggiated ethos of Cluster-inspired jammery. Expect a fantastic array of electronic drone and perturbed psychedelics.

Actual Water (Toronto)

Born in the depths of Ben Cook’s (Fucked Up, Young Guv, Bitters) epic space in East Toronto, Actual Water’s jangled power-pop transforms their 12-string anthems and insatiable marimba-laced punk into vocal bonanzas and summery attitudes. Every song is laced with their flowering ’60s slacker vibes and live the whole calamity is wrapped by frontman Tony’s enigmatic ‘tude. Stoked!

Drainolith (Montreal)

Drainolith is the multi-throned oscillating 8-bit transmigration of Montreal native Alex Moskos (ex-guitarist for the now defunct AIDS Wolf). Diving deep into polyrhythmic hood jams and clamouring solos of synthetic marvel, Drainolith hams heavy, agnostic experimentalism into a creative vehicle the world may or may not be ready to digest.

Energetic Action (Edmonton)

Edmonton, Alberta is home to many improbable entities, and Energetic Action’s revisionist goth-punk paradigm is no exception. Straddling the unknown line between The Pop Group and This Heat, their impossible rhythms and extravagant performances wrap an undisturbed nascency into music hardened by generations of nuclear waste. A certified western anomaly.

Brave Radar (Montreal)

Local Montreal darlings Brave Radar have kept quiet a long time. So long, in fact, that we reluctantly started to believe their demise. We can barely conceive they’ll be back on stage with brand new oblique pop sweetness.

Bobo Boutin (Montreal)

Ex-Les Georges Leningrad drummer Bobo Boutin inhabits a delirious world of warped electronics. One man, yet an overwhelming performance slowly mounting into a frenzy of nightmarish proportions.

Dog Day (Halifax)

Dog Day’s bent alt-rock resonates with grand designs. Seth and Nancy are husband and wife, a charming duo who constantly keep slinging sharp and heavy anti-heroic hooks at every corner.

Tenderness (Toronto)

With bizarre loop sampling wizardry, cracked electronics and sexy sax swoons, Chrissy Reichert redefines any conceivable notions of contemporary R & B. Tenderness is not to be missed, because true originality comes in small doses.

Here it is: the Patron Saint of weird Canadian records. Alongside Corpusse’s Delusions and Bernard Bonnier’s Casse-Tête, Carlyle Williams’ Gotta Go For It! forms the Holy Trinity of ’80s Montreal private press beauty; each of them summing their parts and transcending with a one-man-one-wholly-formed vision possessed of unbridled id and utter disdain for the prevailing rules and praxis.

Forgotten in the usual fetishizing of the “filles du roi” cypher (1), beyond bloodlines French-royal and First Nation, is that Montreal’s women posses the ultimate sexy quality: good taste. And so it went that Leila Majeri (2) and Marie-Douce St. Jacques (3) played me Gotta Go For It! and on each separate occasion, my mind split open, the air charged, everything changed, and the damn crew hasn’t been the same since.

Released in 1988 and recorded at the Unidisc studios (4) in Montreal’s St. Henri neighbourhood, Gotta Go For It!’s qualities are many: blocky Chung King Studios drum programming, a careening non-chops guitar style that sounds like The Birthday Party minus the fireworks-display fay hairdos, and streams of vocal overdubs that make whomever Tim Buckley thought he was on Starsailor seem like a sane and well adjusted man. Some tracks have a synthetic tropical vibe that predicates the various fi’s (5) of the last half-decade like a boss, raising bloody hell in the listener’s mind, forcing one to reconsider every aesthetic category.

For all its sonic density and deistic power, Carlyle’s message, via truly inspiring vocal work, is positive: obsessive self-awareness and accompanying self-criticism can be reality forming, that the more you look INSIDE the more you will see. That, as he says on “No Reason”, “There is no reason for your next depression. And that’s the truth.” Which as an underlying vibe makes Gotta Go For It! unique amongst the great works of 20th century Canadian art.

Gotta Go For It!’s sleeve states: “The more you look – The more you see”, and like all amazing ass records, the more you listen, the more you hear.

(1) These women, who were poor and undereducated, often orphaned, and in their teens or early twenties, were sent over from France for the men of Canada. The rumour-that-won’t-die is that they were prostitutes.

(2) Screen printer extraordinaire, often using the nick Alphonze Raymond, and also the drummer in the amazing Yomul Yuk.

(3) Editor-in-chief of the awesome aMAZEzine, which lasted a few issues, came with a GYBE! 7” and generally covered a zone, Marie-Douce was also the Farfisa player and vocalist in Pas Chic Chic! I sat down with her to discuss this piece.

(4) Obviously, as the ’80s wore on and disco, particularly the French-Canadian kind, receded in popularity, Unidisc fell on hard times and started renting out their facilities cheap. They were based in the RCA building, who obviously were slowing down themselves.

(5) Lo, no, slow, glow, hi and high fidelities, be it Ariel Pink, Spencer Clark, James Ferraro and the rest, you can hear Carlyle in the faux madness. The incredible Afternoon Penis tape on Heavy Tapes is the most obvious student of Gotta Go For It!, however. Worth looking into for fans of Carlyle.