shoegaze
SEE: The video for llawgne’s hazy psych-pop break-up nugget, ‘Golden Soul’
MATHIAS ENGWALL is no stranger to these pages, though a relative newcomer; based in Gothenburg, he’s enthralled, like so many of us, by the heady twin rushes of dreampop and shoegaze, his particular vision of which he introduced us to in November gone with “Reverie Neverending”, a lovely slice of ‘gazey pop with a little …
Meet: We put dream pop maestros Heligoland under the microscope and review their shimmering new album This Quiet Fire
Heligoland began life in Melbourne before adventurously packing up and moving to Paris, where they have produced a series of stunning albums and EPs with the production skills of Cocteau Twins luminary Robyn Guthrie adding a certain lustre. Their new album, ‘This Quiet Fire’, has all the hallmarks of classic dream pop music that bears …
SEE: The video for Cheval Sombre’s ‘Curtain Grove’: a thrilling, delicate highlight from his new album; a song of the year?
WE’RE a way towards the release of Chris Porpora, aka Cheval Sombre’s, first album in eight years, Time Waits For No One; brighter days to come, seasonally and musically, for sure, come February 26th. It seems serendipitous that, with the ‘rona and the lockdown and all, the globe has wound down to Cheval Sombre’s pace just …
TRACK: Western Column – ‘Hear Not Say’: spiralling shoegaze sunshine
CHRISTOPHER DEVINE has been a-shakin’ and a-movin’ on the Glasgow music scene for a fair old while now, as part of Dutch Wine and Stock Manager; but he’s changed costumes once more over in a Sauchiehall Street phone box to re-emerge as Western Column, with a very fine diffusion line in proper shoegaze pop like …
NEWS: Belgian shoegazers Slow Crush reissue ‘Aurora’; see the new video for ‘Aid And Abet’
IF YOU’RE the kinda person who likes shoegazing to be actual, y’know, shoegazing – that deep, complex bleed of guitars and thicketed, soundscapes, the one which Slowdive do in an unparalleled way – then maybe you need to become acquainted with Slow Crush, the darker perfumed Belgian band fronted by Mancunian Isa Holliday. The band’s …
Track: T. G. Shand’s new single ‘The Ease’ is a glorious, woozy, shoegaze delight
‘The Ease’, the new single from T.G. Shand, is an immersive and dreamy soundscape with a shoegaze sheen and a dream pop glimmer. It is absolutely fantastic. T.G. Shand is actually the solo work of Ōtautahi/Christchurch resident Annemarie Duff, formerly of the legendary Melbourne shoegaze band Miniatures (on the iconic Saint Marie Records label). This …
EP: Tender Tones – Youth Retirement Club
Out now on Bandcamp, via Shore Dive Records is the debut ep – Youth Retirement Club, by French Dreampop/Shoegaze/Electronica duo, Tender Tones. This ep starts with, ‘In Dreamed Lives’; a pulsing Electronica-driven tune with hypnotic synth guided phasing and luscious multi-voice vocal delivery, setting a sense of mood and onward direction. The beat is pulsating …
Track: The Rosie Varela Project debuts luscious shoegaze track ‘Low’
Rosie Varela is the singer, songwriter and guitarist for the brilliant Texan shoegaze outfit Eep (whose single ‘Hogar’ I raved about last year). She has now branched out as The Rosie Varela Project (RVP) and released the first of a slough of singles in anticipation of an album later this year. And ‘Low’ clearly puts …
SEE: Andy Bell releases a trippy, solarised video for the lovely ‘Skywalker’
YOU KNOW him so well, of course, as one of the creative forces behind shoegazing legends Ride; and when Andy Bell stepped out from the boys from OX4 last autumn for The View From Halfway Down, you knew it would be a cracker. And your instincts were right. We reviewed it here and said, for …
ALBUM REVIEW: The Besnard Lakes – ‘ … Are the Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings’
Are the Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings is the sound of a band set free, wings spread; big, theatrical, but not self-indulgent. They know exactly what these songs demand and are prepared to give them everything they need. In terms of scope, file next to Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space and The Soft Bulletin. A lot going on, in short. Trust in their vision; they’ve got this.