Lovely chunk of burning slime from one of my Boston area faves Nice Guys and new kids Miami Doritos . The Miami Doritos side chugs like a bit of desert in the basement punk slam, exciting as shit to jump around to. Nice Guys pull out their deceptively tough chops in a multilayered shred on “Jamaican Vacation” and the completely nurts “Medical Envy”. All this good on sexy green or purple vinyl, which I have yet to see cause these stoners haven’t sent me one yet.

Improv quartet with some of the most fun and twisted musicians in Montreal, Chris Burns, Alex Pelchat, Martin Hoek and David Dugas Dion. The music is always a different and surprising permutation, what is constant is the sense of play and humor they bring to shows and recordings. Nothing of this CDR is online but you can enjoy this recent show footage!

GENS CHRÉTIENS @ The Plant (((FULL SET))) from Entretien normal de musique on Vimeo.

Old buds and true-blue punks from Providence, Downtown Boys win everyone over with this one, a four song clutch of badassedness crammed onto a 7”. The double sax attack is sharp as ever and singer Victoria Ruiz can reach down into the most cynical of hearts and pluck out a bluebird, while still being a burning fire of bilingual political bansheeism. These are for real, for the kids and manifest the joyous side of punk while still being fiercely political!

And now from Providence to New York, where PAS Musique, alias of Robert L Pepper, is as busy as every, putting out volumes of mysterious and compelling noise, clang and bloop on Alrealon. Abandoned Bird Egg drops atonal guitar into a Meat Beat Manifesto style arpiness and devolves gradually into babble with each track drifting and changing with complete psychedelic languidity. There is nice temporal sense to the music, a linearity which is refreshing in over-chopped 3D dubstepland of EDM these days. I like to hear the changes rather than see them.. A great release from an always challenging label.

Rad little piece of slithery rawk from Toronto’s Pleasance label, pairing Montreal’s Crosss with Sackville/Montreal based Astral Gunk, to great effect. The Crosss track, “Spectre” is a deturned shambolic lope that develops and grows on you and carries with it almost a throwback Inbreds vibe in it’s minimalism. Flipside sees barrage rockers Astral Gunk at their best, live and intense, a track called “Seven” that just plunges off the cliffs of insanity wholesale, like Motorhead crashing a bus into The Stooges… OONNNN ACCCCIIDDDDDD. Seriously, this destroys.

Split tape from slew of new releases on fresh faced tape label Misery Loves Company. The obtusely intense Shining Wizard occupies side A with ferocity on “Des slogans pour rallier et seduire les electeurs”, creating vast vistas of storm and squall while splintering the guitar and drums to rubble. Sludgy and compelling voyage by these capable wizards. Side B showcases At Peace, who crave tortured little vignettes out of feedback and kitchen sink clang while spoken word echolalia floats words in and out of the heady sound broth.

Add this to the ever-interesting and ever expanding catalog of good stuff put out by Fixture. This new tape by Brave Radar is gorgeous, the lovechild of label heads Tessa Smith and Conor Prendergast. The vocals bring to mind Stereolab but carry a more breezy lo-fi sense of engagement. This tape is made for the summer, sits well on a playlist with some Sea and Cake. Dry and snappy production that places things just so underlines the strong songwriting. A total joy and treasure of a recording, “Message Center” will be future soundtrack to sunny road trips everywhere this spring.

Sweet-ass single from a new Nashville band on the every expanding pulsating psych brain center that is Jeffery Drag recs. Swirling flangi-ly, the murk doesn’t obscure the driving beat enough to water things down, instead it sparks and rolls smooth, really where the interstitial realm of pop, garage and drugged out psych jams gets down. Both sides are straight up sick but side two is more my jam. Another hot as shit release from the kids down south who are keeping it real by saving garage rock from itself!

Finally sat down and listened to the band Corridor, Montrealers who’s reputation swells in the wake of this, their new release. Opens gorgeously, with a sort of Reich -ian guitar counterpoint, unfolding into distant vocal murk and casually complex chording. Very dark and nocturnal, the slow measured build in tempo is appreciated and the songs grown more and more urgent and hallucinatory. Solid, dark and deep, an understated but compelling release.

Let’s finish off the tour where we started, in Boston with the fun lope of crap-fi punks Kiss Concert, who also win band name of the year. What can you say, these songs are fun, sloppy and made for a basement party, you can practically smell the Pabst and sweat here!