dream pop
Track: Local Authority – Oil Rigs
Dripping with an early The Cure vibe but infused with a Ride-like wall of harmony and jangling guitars, the new single from Brisbane’s Local Authority, ‘Oil Rigs’, is an absolute delight. With a cold, clinical spine, the sound is leavened by the layered vocals that are haunting – distantly floating in a dream-like reverie. Apparently …
EP/Track: Fragile Animals – Only Shallow
South East Queensland’s Fragile Animals have recently released their new EP, ‘Only Shallow’ and it is an absolute shimmering delight. Infused with a dream-like melancholia and an antithetical summer sheen, this band has all the genetic makeup of classic shoegaze, but has evolved this into their own unique style. There is a developing sound from …
Album Review : Rev Magnetic’s ‘Versus Universe’
The debut album by quartet Rev Magnetic buzzes with light-headed glee. Versus Universe follows in the grand tradition of symphonic psych pop bands like Mercury Rev, Polyphonic Spree, the Flaming Lips, and to some degree Spiritualized. There’s a mixture of modern electronics with the hallucinogenic sweetness of acid-burnt pop. Rev Magnetic is the brainchild of …
New Track: The Raft – Xanadu plus album news
Xanadu, the new single from Liverpool’s highly talented The Raft is absolute shoegaze gold with a scouse glint that recalls all the pure pop glories of Ian Broudie’s The Lightning Seeds and an alumni of merseyside pop. The brainchild of Phil Wilson, The Raft has been an incredibly prolific source of shimmering glory – see …
Track: San Mei – Heaven
Following up on her debut single “Wonder” earlier this year, Emily Hamilton, working under the name San Mei, has just released a fitting follow-up in “Heaven”. This is a somewhat more poppy and less abrasive San Mei, yet it still has a spine of fuzz and understated distortion below the surface of synths. “Heaven” is …
Album Review: Soft Science – Maps
Soft Science warned us with their first two double A singles from ‘Maps’ that something very special was on its way and, in ‘Maps’, something special has been delivered. Hailing from sunny California, Soft Science have gifted an album rooted to some extent in a very British shoegaze cloak that is yet somehow imbued with …
Track: A Shoreline Dream – Waitout plus EP news
A Shoreline Dream epitomise shoegaze dream pop at it’s most vibrant. Their new single ‘Waitout’ mixes a Ride-like vocal layers over an instrumentation that recalls The Stone Roses – rolling waves of shimmering guitar over a solid rhythm track. Waitout induces a dream-like reverie with shards of crystalline guitars weaving wave after wave of melody-infused …
Track: Barrie – Tal Uno
There is something about melancholic dream pop that seduces me. It is the bittersweet nature of the music – layers of beautiful bright often upbeat sounds sometimes contrasting and at times augmenting wistful downbeat vocal refrains filled with a sense of longing. Barrie, a band based in New York but with an international mix of …
Album Review : Beach House’s ‘7’
It took me a bit before I truly could appreciate the magic of Beach House’s music. The Baltimore band’s appeal eluded me their first couple records. What I’d heard off of Teen Dream and then Bloom was nice in a passerby sort of way, but I didn’t know what all the accolades were about. What …
Track: Soft Science – Sooner/Paris (Double A Side)
Soft Science are continuing to produce some of the most exciting music out of the US West Coast with their unique take on shoegaze/dream pop. Following close on the release of their brilliant double A side singles ‘Undone’ and ‘I Don’t Know Why I Love You’ reviewed by us last month, the band are releasing …