IF YOU love the way shoegaze can really thrill, really transport, with that amazing combination of sweetly abrasive guitar and blurry, beautiful vocals – less the dream pop thing, for all its joys, I mean the real heartwood, that surge and the gleam that can’t help but induce ecstasy – then you really want to be spending some time making the acquaintance of Resplandor, who’ve just dropped the visualiser for the complete rush of “Adore” – you can hear and see that down below.
If you notice a certain stamp on the sound, a real classic shoegaze aesthetic that a lot of bands aim for and miss – well, step forward Robin Guthrie himself, who was at the controls when Resplandor were in the studio. That glimmer.
None other than Slowdive’s Simon Scott mastered the track, too. Absolute royalty.
Currently based in the Netherlands, Resplandor have roots right across the Atlantic, as the band’s Antonio Zelada explains.
“I founded the band in Lima, Peru in 1996,” he says. “In this time we’ve recorded three albums, an EP and some singles.
“I got involved with Robin, since I brought him to Lima to give a show when he was on tour with his show Lumiére in 2007; he liked Resplandor and he produced and mixed our third album, Pleamar.
“He also played with us at gigs for Pleamar in March 2008 with The House Of Love in Lima and the same year with [there] The Jesus & Mary Chain. In 2013 we opened for The Cure in Lima and in 2017 we played with Slowdive.
“I moved to the Netherlands in 2018 and currently the band is based here. The band members are Tanya, from Russia, on keyboards; Joeri from Belgium on bass, Christopher on drums and myself on guitar and vocals.”
That beautiful rush of sound; truly it’s a language without borders.
The remastered reissue of Resplandor’s Pleamar is available now digitally and on CD over at Bandcamp; you can follow Resplandor online at Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
