1: Donovan Quinn Cult Of Strangers (Skygreen Leopards/ New Bums, Donovan Quinn & the 13th Month)

San Francisco’s Donovan Quinn has just released a new pay what you want EP on Bandcamp titled Cult Of Strangers. The five songs on Cult Of Strangers is the first peak out the window to Quinn’s forthcoming album Absolom, and the vista is uncluttered and quite lovely. Wether Absalom will lay closer in sound to the airy jangle of The Skygreen Leopards or the folk-noire of Quinn’s colaborative project New Bums, with Ben Chasny ( Six Organs OF Admittance, Comets on Fire), the ep is a reason to celebrate. I find myself gravitating to Quinn’s work around every spring, a sort of cathartic ritual. These five songs showcase Quinn’s ability to capture vignettes of characters and the quirks that bind them, armed with only his acoustic guitar, minimal organ and his unmistakeable hushed vocal, he creates worlds out of simple lines. Lyrically Quinn remains one of the most interesting contemporary lyricists, imbuing a balance of California bohemianism and ennuie, his detail of characters and events bring to mind a lyrical Wes Anderson.

2: Light Bulb Alley

Montreal’s Light Bulb Alley return with a new album, the band’s third titled Lights & Shades. For over ten years Allister Quinn has navigated Light Bulb Alley through Montreal’s garage scene and various line-up changes. In 2018, while playing a festival, he befriend’s brothers Max & Jack White of Harmony On Mars, an encounter that would eventually bear fruit with Lights & Shades. Entrusting the White brothers with Quinn’s collection of demos dating back various years, allowed them to flourish these songs with over dubs, giving Quinn’s portraits three dimensions to live within. However the album was pieced together, the band pull off a sinister and satisfying soundtrack to ducking out and getting lost in the underbelly of the city. Lights & Shades covers a lot of ground musically, opener Corpus Lopus checks the psych- stomp check box, I Don’t Owe You A Thing is drenched in swagger and it’s guitars absolutely bubble to a boil. Fly Away You Stupid Ghost is stripped down and plaintive, for stiff drinks and late night regret. Travelling Alone (I Lost My MInd) is Jonestown-ian in all the right ways, What You Wanted (Is What You Get) mixes the Stones and the Stooges for a rather raucous hip- shaking meltdown. The guitars on this album are drenched in gasoline and maintain a mainline straight to the adrenal glands. The instrumental breaks between songs are brief sonic explorations, using percussion and drone elements, that effectively add more mood and texture to the album as a whole, allowing the transitions from light to shade to be musically cohesive. It would be interesting to see the band incorporating more of this in the future. Art work by Paul Jacobs (Paul Jacobs Band, Pottery) for the physical cassette should be incentive to go beyond the digital release.

3: Drug Train/ Dumb Train

What would summer in Montreal be without the ever elusive Drug Train to help take the edge of those humid summer nights, cocktail in hand? It stuns me around this time every year as apartment and car windows are left open, allowing music to pour over the streets, and everyone isn't unanimously listening to the sweet electo-groove of Drug Train...well in this case Dumb Train. Perhaps the name has changed for the band's last EP, 2018’s Bouge de la la, but their musical trajectory remains as chill, hypnotic and catchy as ever. With live shows pretty much a non-reality for Drug Train/Dumb Train, do yourself a favour and dive into their back catalogue and like the Musique Plus show that the EP is cheekily named after, don't forget to dance. When I new Drug Train/ Dumb Train album is released , it’ll be a reason to celebrate, so start workin’ on those moves.

Check out their catalogue here.

4: Purple Mountains

Earlier this month it was announced that David Berman is back. Berman put to rest The Silver Jews 11 years ago, to concentrate his writing on his contempt for his right-wing lobbyist father. Out of exile from Washington D.C, Berman has emerged first with a Record Store day release, then an album announcement. On July 12 Berman will release his first album since The Silver Jews Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea under the new name Purple Mountains through Drag City Records. As if new music from Berman wasn’t enough, it’s been revealed that Jeremy Earl and Jarvis Tanveniere of indie psych-folk masters Woods were invited to the studio to contribute to the album. In the eleven years that Berman was on hiatus, Earl and Taneviere carved out an impressive catalogue of superb albums, through a DIY ethos of constantly touring and recording as well as starting their own label, Woodsist, and subsequent Woodsist Festival.

First single All My Happiness Is Gone helps bridge the gap in time since we last heard Berman, sounding not too removed from The Silver Jews, Berman’s iconic drawl drops some confessional musings about friendship, relationships and loss all above a shuffling of acoustic guitar and a fluttering of airy synths. The honey dipped jaunty rhythms betraying the darker lyrical imagery.

On second single Darkness and Cold, Earl and Taneviere’s musical stamp can be heard from the start, the song employing similar musical shades as Woods’ 2014 album With Light and With Love. The pairing of Woods with Berman is genius , Jeremy Earl’s back up vocals match up perfectly with Berman’s croon, which has never sounded better, the arrangements shine amidst the darkness in the tales. Stoked to get to give this a proper listen on July 12, and crack into Berman 2.0.

You can pre-order Purple Mountains through Drag City here.

5: Blank Tapes “Super Bloom” EP

Sometimes you can judge an album by it’s cover and the latest Blank Tapes EP looks like one of singer/ guitarist Matt Adams stoner cartoons brought to life, it looks hallucinatory and fun. Matt Adams returns once again with his band The Blank Tapes for another slice of summer psychedelia with his latest release, the Super Bloom EP. Following last year’s high water mark album Candy (which you can read our review of here), Super Bloom harvests six new entries into the ever prolific and expanding Blank Tapes cannon and continues Adams journey to become California’s premier psychedelic son. Continuing the trail of smoke left from Candy, Super Bloom taps into some truly meditative journeys, showcasing The Blank Tapes ability to open doors to the mind’s eye through their brand of sun baked, West coast psych. Title song Super Bloom would have felt at home on Candy, however on the EP it serves as a bridge back into Adam’s world, the song’s hazy warmth drips with golden guitar strums, a fuzzy lead buzzing like dragonflies until shifting into guitar breakdown territory.

The EP rolls in and out like the tide, reverberated waves washing in until the lead guitars tear through the meditation and take the reigns, There is a lot of wigging out on Super Bloom, putting it more in line with past Blank Tapes entries like Other Places (Candy) and Ride The Tide (Wobbly Rock EP). It’s a trippy and unrestrained magic carpet ride that dips between sun baked skies to stormy systems. It’s never long between Blank Tapes albums, hopefully the release of this EP means that a new full length album is on it’s way, in the meantime, slip into Super Bloom and float away.