shoegaze
Album Review: the black watch releases the magnificent double album ‘For All The World’.
Spanning 21 luminescent tracks, the new double album ‘For All The World’ is a magnificent journey through the fertile imagination of John Andrew Frederick and his band the black watch. The common theme throughout is the ear for indelible catchy melodies, infused with a sparkling melancholia and shimmering instrumentation. Incredibly, it is the black watch’s …
Live Review & Gallery: DIIV’s ‘Frog in Boiling Water’ Tour Brings Beautiful, Glorious Grit to Vivid – Eora Land/Sydney, 13.06.25
Touring ‘Frog in Boiling Water‘, their first album in five years, DIIV brought their thick, slow-dripping sound to life with a set that doubled as a collage of cult consumerism, protest, and digital rot. Across the huge screen behind them, ads flickered like computer viruses: Soul-Net, ExxonMobil, fake slogans, anti-slogans. Aesthetics lifted from American mall …
EP Review: Look ‘Yonder’ – Sunsick Daisy unveil the shimmering widescreen wonder of a sophomore release.
Fresh out of school and already finalists in the 2022 JJJ Unearthed competition, Adelaide’s Sunsick Daisy released their spectacular debut EP ‘Breathe In…Breathe Out’ in 2023 (see my review here). They have now followed this up with their new EP entitled ‘Yonder’ and it reflects a greater maturity and growth but with the same exemplary songwriting …
Track: Aotearoa/New Zealand based dream pop/shoegaze exponent T.G. Shand unveils new direction and single ‘The Deadpan Break’
A firm favourite of the antipodean outpost of Backseat Mafia, T.G. Shand is the moniker of Ōtautahi/Christchurch resident Annemarie Duff, formerly of the legendary Melbourne shoegaze band Miniatures (on the iconic Saint Marie Records label), and she has returned after a year away with her new single ‘The Deadpan Break’. It’s a track which explores a whole …
Album Review: Matthew Nowhere’s debut ‘Crystal Heights’ is a transformative shimmering blend of gothic synth pop and Californian sunshine.
Multi-instrumentalist and producer Matthew Nowhere has just released the widescreen beauty of the album ‘Crystal Heights’: an ethereal collection of eighties-influenced shimmering synth pop that unfurls with a statuesque grace. it is incredible that this is a debut album. Opening track ‘Transmission’ is an atmospheric melange of sounds and a vocoded voice: a fittingly mysterious alien entry …
Album Review: Tidal Peak unveils the breathtaking beauty of ‘Treasureville’ – a dreamy evocation of sunshine and vast oceans with a glittering melancholia.
Capricorn Coast band Tidal Peak , essentially the work of musician/producer Kyle Lacko, has just released an expansive, glittering album entitled ‘Treasureville’. It’s a collection of sparkling gems that seem to take inspiration from the glittering sun-soaked environment where it was written. Opening with ‘Capricorntown’, the geographic connection is evident. A swell of synths and strings create …
Track: Take Fazerdaze’s ethereal ‘Motorway’ to a dreamy world of love and anxiety, with tours ahead.
The sun always shines brighter and the general misery of the world dissipates somehow when there is new material from the luminescent Fazerdaze (the nom de plume of Amelia Murray). Fazerdaze has just unveiled a new single, ‘Motorway’, out through Buttrfly/Virgin Music Group, a track that is delivered over fuzzy driving insistent guitars before heavenly synths drift in …
Track & Video: DIIV Confront Hope and Loss Amidst Californian Wildfire Aftermath With New Release ‘Return of Youth’ + UK/EU/AUS Tour Dates
A year after ‘Frog in Boiling Water‘, DIIV return with their first new release – ‘Return of Youth‘, a quietly devastating single that trades widescreen collapse for something far more personal. Unsurprisingly, the track is a masterclass in shoegaze’s more delicate corners: layered, intimate, and full of restraint. It’s a noticeable shift from the chaos …
EP Review: Chapterhouse – White House Demos; early psych-fuzz brilliance from Shoegaze legends
Long before they carved out a legacy as one of the defining names in shoegaze, Chapterhouse were just four gigs in and brimming with raw psychedelic energy. White House Demos, recorded live in a single day in January 1989 at The White House studio in Weston-super-Mare, captures the band in their earliest and perhaps most primal …
Live Review & Gallery: Enmore dissolves into a dreamscape with Slowdive and Beach Fossils, Sydney 6.05.2025
Beach Fossils and Slowdive Make a Case for the Beauty of Melancholy