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CO/NTRY is an adult-contemporary post-punk duo comprised ofNewfoundland-born/Montreal-based artists Beaver Sheppard and David Whitten. Though the bandlikes to think of themselves as genre-neutral, their music cycles through a wide variety of styles withmanic indifference. The name — originally “Country” — was chosen because it was confusing andimpossible to search for online, in the tradition of enigmatic acts like Boston and Chicago. Lifestyleproclivities led the band to become a major part of the city’s seedy after-hours scene, where theenthusiastic reception they received from intoxicated audiences gave them the inflated sense ofconfidence they needed to continue. Fans of their music included employees of Montreal label TurboRecordings, who helped enable the recording of their first album, Failure, the product of a singlethree-hour studio session. CO/NTRY entered negotiations to sign a contract with Bethlehem XXX —a restaurant/art collective/performance space where Sheppard served as head chef — which hasbeen described as Andy Warhol’s Factory if the point was to never produce anything at all. Afteragreeing to a record deal with the restaurant’s owner, the band decided to leak the album viaFacebook the very next day, figuring it would supply a better narrative for future band bios. The bandhas received a host of ostensibly favourable reactions from the press. Brooklyn Vegan describedthem as “clearly not giving a fuck” while Complex Magazine called them Montreal’s best band/artproject. The readers of these content platforms are entirely free to adopt these opinions as their own.CO/NTRY is on the cusp of releasing its second album, Cell Phone 1, through Montreal labelFantôme Records in April 2017. They plan to remain friends for the foreseeable future.

Straw Pipes is an almost-all-women band from Brooklyn, composed of singer LeLe, guitarist/singer Stonie, bassist Adam, and a widely varied collection of lady/gender-nonconforming musician friends. The band foregrounds vocal harmonies over raw guitar/drums/bass, blending LeLe’s dark, Nico-esque voice, Stonie’s lighter, sanguine vocals, and occasional group singing from the other female members. Performative and unpredictable, they draw from pop archetypes from the 60’s to the 80’s in a way that at times feels cliché or kitsch, but somehow still manages to feel fresh.