Sweet and shifty. That’s what you get when you mix the savory sounds of Boston’s best after-dinner treat, Banana Phonetic, a BP that you can trust, with the itinerant crew of vagabonds who make up the sewer-blues side project: August West and the Rest. Stoked and stoned: It’s my general condition sittin’ back with a Buddha sack, knowing that this very sonic split is on the menu Wednesday night (December 
at Precinct down in Union Square, Somerville.
Banana Phonetic, fresh off their rowdy stint at Brooklyn’s Trash Bar a couple weekends back—and flaunting a new, five-strong front—is surely one of the best of Boston’s burgeoning groups, bringing high-voltage psychedelica and downbeat funk in a concise, well-honed package. Haunting vocals float over a soupy-thick rhythmic backdrop with searing guitar leads pumping effect-laden surges through the twisting soundscape for a real cool time. And the rag-tag troubadours of August West and the Rest are coming together Wednesday night for a rare and special treat. Utilizing a groove-based gutter flow of street-swing, test-tube mind expansion and good ol’ fashioned grime, this synapse-singing syndicate will most assuredly deliver a tasty dish of vaga-blues for the Phonetic prequel.
(9:30 p.m. Wednesday, December 8, Precinct, 70 Union Square, Somerville, 21+, no cover) Bartlett