File under: utterly blasted crust bursting with nihilistic shreddery. Tearing through every inch of magnetic magma wrapping their debut offering, Nubians embark on a crusade of bosonic annihilation crammed with enough attitude to crush, kill, destroy stress. SICC WIDDIT.

Spiritual reverberations emanate from this dense offering of solo Contrebasse by Montreal-via-Toronto’s Aaron Lumley. Pushing past limitations of space and consciousness, mass churns through energetic bursts whose halo can be felt in every groove. Wilderness resonates with incredible candor while Lumley reaches lonesome heights of the highest mystic calibre. Worth every repeated listen.

Emerging as a monolithic, chrome-plated, velvet-wrapped, polyvinyl beacon to our frightening future, Drainolith is leading the vanguard of a new Canadian tradition. It’s outrageous to imply the disparate, hallowed murmuring and violent drum-dance to the netherzone as any sort of American primitive, yet Fighting‘s potency is its gorgeous descent into genre nihilism; a future folk-minimalism augmented with drum machines and metal-zone abandonment, harkening the urgency of creative expression within a world of redacted meaning. Drainolith has forged a terrifying new breed of singer-songwriter. Incredible. Must grip.

Somewhere between a rave-induced, casio-blown pop ritual and the netherworld of nuanced bedroom wizardry lurks an unassuming champion of weirdo minimalism. Several journey‘s through Spools’ cosmique varieté will induce a space-gaze of drum machine rhetoric, riddum annihilation, and post-ritual keyboard jammery. A rare glimpse into the streaming consciousness of precious obscurity.

As Western-Canada’s premier festival quickly approaches (or, rather, starts today), we thought we’d prepare the world’s smallest guide to the Canadian underground. Below is a printable and foldable PDF to help you make your way through Sled Islands vast program of emerging Canadiana. The guide aims to highlight emerging sounds from our northern zone and may cause geographic fanaticism. Use at own risk.

Download: Weird Canada’s Micro-Guide to Sled Island 2012

Emerging from the Drexciyan school of liquid-techno, No UFO’s tour-only-CDR yields a peak into the digital netherverse enveloping their creative flow. Percolating an emerging digi-ethos through layers of bit-filtered static, each song on MPC Tracks Vol 1 is a stargate into the meditative tech-zones of modern electronica. It’s got enough rhythmania to sustain the heaviest of Kraut grippery, but the bedroom boredom dance groove transfigures it into new dimensions of minimal nongenre. An official cassette version will be available sooner for immediate grippage.

The final release from Montreal’s Pop Winds has it’s genesis within the sub-atomic modal vibrations coursing through the fabric of space time. “Phonons” fades into pulsed existence, while the droning guitars and synth tones coalesce into Earth To Friend‘s mournful harmonies. The pervasive feeling of departures permeates the album’s sparse, cosmic catch, solidifying their popular emotion with minor-key elegance. RIP, friends. You were good to us.

In preparation for our Montreal invasion, we asked all the Wyrd MTL II artists to submit a short introduction about them and their upcoming performance at the festival. The video gives a sneak peek into the imminent wyrdness waiting to take over Casa del Popolo and Sala Rossa this Thursday June 14.

In addition to the video, Montreal’s preeminent purveyour of experimental synthesis, Hobo Cubes, has put together a mix of sounds from artists playing Wyrd MTL II. You can catch Hobo Cubes DJ’ing alongside Aaron Levin outside the Casa stage. We can’t wait to see all of you in just a few days!

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.

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.