Silk Skin Lovers — Félix Foucambert (vocals, guitar), Jean-Baptiste Halin (bass, bass synths), Lucas Lerbret (guitar, backing vocals) and London-born Callum Taylor (keys, backing vocals) — is a rising French indie rock outfit that emerged into French scene with a handful of singles inspired by and informed by nightlife and nightlife revelry.
Released last year, Silk Screen Lovers’ debut EP, Bloom saw the band crafting material that bounced between playful delight to late-night melancholy; the blurring of memories to the brink of sobering up a bit as you head home — or when you arrive home, whichever comes first. While the EP’s material is primarily based in magical surrealism, it also reveals a band concerned about serious issues, including racism and police brutality.
“The first seeds of Bloom were planted in the summer of 2020,” the members of Silk Skin Lovers explain. “As a young and developing band, we found ourselves growing in a context that was harsh and complicated, as opportunities for artists were scarce to non-existent for a period. The EP was a natural response to not only the artistic restraints we were faced with, but the frustration of being away from what we love to do, and further from our aspirations as musicians.”
Earlier this year, I wrote about the the uptempo, Smiths-like bop “Moon 1AM,” a track that revealed itself to be emotionally ambivalent: despite the upbeat tempo, the song was a bittersweet and dreamy rumination meant to make you dance away your sorrows — even if it’s only for a little bit.
The rising French act’s latest single, “Forever” is a slow-burning and dreamy ballad centered around atmospheric synths, shimmering, reverb-drenched guitars, gently padded drums and Foucambert’s achingly plaintive vocals. “Forever” manages to sonically recall Beach House while simultaneously evoking melancholy and euphoria.
Directed by Robinson Lebret, the accompanying video for “Forever” follows a young woman as she prepares for a night out — to catch Silk Skin Lovers at a local club while reminiscing about a presumed lost love. And as a result, the video is a fever dream in which past and present bump into each other uncomfortably, and where ghosts linger.
Since their formation back in 2016, JOVM mainstays No Swoon — Tasha Abbott (vocals, guitar) and Zack Nestel-Patt (synths, baas) — have developed an established sound that sees the pair meshing elements of dream pop, shoegaze, post-punk and ethereal wave through two releases, 2018’s EP 1 and 2019’s ’s Jorge Elbrecht-produced, self-titled full-length debut.
Much like countless others across the world, the COVID-19 pandemic, threw the the lives and plans of the JOVM mainstays into disarray: their planned tour to support their full-length debut had to be scrapped entirely. After spending the past five years in Brooklyn, the duo relocated to Los Angeles. And understandably, spending over a year in quarantine-imposed isolation forced the pair to step back and think about their lives in new ways — and to examine the intricacies of going through life as we know it.
During the pandemic, the duo released a couple of singles during the pandemic: The Siamese Dream era Smashing Pumpkins meets Slowdive like Again,” a single that marked massive, life-altering transitions for the duo: their aforementioned return back West paired with a reworked sound and approach.
As the JOVM mainstays explained in press notes, “This song is about when days begin and end with no real definition. About being stuck in the loop of our life and we can’t get out. It may come to no surprise that this song was written early on in the Pandemic. Before everything shut down, I (Tasha) was constantly moving: work, music, sleep, etc., and being at stand-still all of a sudden was definitely strange (on top of the already terror and stress of the pandemic).”
“Again” will appear on the band’s highly-anticipated sophomore album Take Your Time. Slated for a Friday release, the lion share of Take Your Time was recorded by the band in Western Massachusetts, amidst the isolation of pandemic related quarantine — with the band’s Nestel-Patt taking up engineering duties during the initial recording sessions. The album features guest spots from longtime collaborator Jon Smith (drums), along with Furrows‘ and Olden Yolk’s Peter Wagner (guitar). Jake Aaron contributed some additional production and Chris Coady mixed the album, pushing the material into something otherworldly.
Take Your Time‘s material was conceived and written during both personal and global transitions and turmoil — but while celebrating a joyful acceptance of the paths that have lead each of us to where we are right now. About the album’s themes, No Swoon’s Abbott contends, “We are so hard on ourselves for decisions we made years ago. I have plenty of regrets, but I also see it as a process, and it’s ok that I didn’t realize the hopes and dreams of 20-year old me. What did she know anyways?”
In the lead up to the album’s release, I’ve written about two more singles:
“Besides,” Take Your Time‘s first official single that sonically nods a bit at JOVM mainstays Beach House, but was inspired by a wild, enigmatic dream the band’s Tasha Abbott once had in which, while exploring a mysterious cavern, she stumbled upon a secret and apparently blissful cult with ambiguous intentions.
“I have some really weird dreams,” Abbott said in press notes. “They are often these wide-ranging sci-fi stories. This song is part 2 of the same dream that inspired a song on our first record ‘Don’t wake up, wake up‘. That dream had ended with meandering into a cave that turned out to be the home to a cult where everyone looked the same and seemed very ‘happy.’ Though, obviously they were not very happy because it was a cult. I eventually got out.”
“Wait to See,” a simultaneously brushing and dreamily introspective song centered around a maelstrom of synths, driving percussion and blown out bass paired with Abbott’s ethereal vocals that Abbott explains is about growing up and getting older.
“We’re talking to our younger selves who had very specific dreams and ideas of how our lives would pan out. But as we all know, the hopes and dreams we had at 15 are usually not our realities when we grow up.. We could look back and be upset that we didn’t become who we had hoped to be, or we could relish the new ideas and new dreams, and be ok with where we are. This song is about how looking back now, you can see the path that led to where we are now and how we wish we could tell our younger selves to be kind to who we will grow up to be.”
“Spare the Time,” Take Your Time‘s final single is a slow-burning and wistful track centered around buzzing guitars, fluttering synths paired with Abbott’s plaintive vocals begging and invoking a creative muse to inhabit her — if only for a brief period of time. “Spare the Time” will feel familiar to those, who have suffered through writer’s block, and have a deadline to complete something.
London-based dream pop act and JOVM mainstays Still Corners — vocalist and keyboardist Tessa Murray and multi-instrumentalist, producer and songwriter Greg Hughes — have managed to bounce between chilly and atmospheric pop and shimmering guitar-driven, desert noir through five full-length albums: 2012’s Creatures of an Hour, 2013’s Strange Pleasures, 2016’s Dead Blue, 2018’s Slow Air and 2020’s The Last Exit.
The Last Exit continued where its immediate predecessor left off with 11 songs centered around shimmering and carefully crafted arrangements featuring organic instrumentation paired with Tessa Murray’s smoky crooning. Thematically, the album took the listener through a hypnotic and mesmerizing journey filled with dilapidated and long-abandoned towns, mysterious shapes appearing on the horizon and long trips that blur the lines between what’s there and not there.
The album’s material was brought into further focus as a result of pandemic-related lockdowns and quarantines. “There’s always something at the end of the road and for us it was this album. Our plans were put on hold – an album set for release, tours, video shoots, travel,” Tessa Murray explained in press notes for The Last Exit. “We’d been touring nonstop for years, but we were forced to pause everything. We thought the album was finished but with the crisis found new inspiration and started writing again.” Three of the album’s songs — “Crying,” “Static,” and “‘Till We Meet Again” were written during this period and they reflect upon the profound impact of isolation and the human need for social contact and intimacy.
Late last year, the JOVM mainstays released “Heavy Days,” a propulsive and uptempo bop featuring twinkling synth arpeggios, a chugging motorik groove, shimmering and reverb drenched guitars and a soaring hook paired with Murray’s smoky vocals. In many ways, “Heavy Days” could be seen as a synthesis of Dead Blue, Slow Air and The Last Exit.
Despite the literal weight of its title, “Heavy Days” may arguably be one of the more optimistic and sunnier songs of the duo’s growing catalog. “Sometimes it all feels like too much, there’s a lot to take in reading the news all the time,” Still Corners’ Tessa Murray said in press notes. “We wanted to write a reminder to put the phone down now and again and get out there and live life to the fullest while you can.”
The JOVM mainstays latest single “Far Rider” sees the duo returning to the sound of Slow Air and The Last Exit: shimmering and reverb-drenched guitar twang, a steady and propulsive rhythm and Murray’s imitably smoky vocals placed within an expansive and mind-bending song structure that’s roomy enough for a lengthy and hallucinogenic guitar solo and gently oscillating synths. At one point, Murray’s own vocal is sampled, distorted and layered into the mix to add to the dream-like vibe. Much like their last two albums, “Far Rider” evokes the lingering ghosts, regret and old memories conjured up on lonely drives meant to clear your head — or to redeem yourself.
“This song is about leaving, lost love and finding yourself somewhere on the journey, really it’s about redemption,” Still Corners Tessa Murray explains. I recently drove 6000 miles across the southwest to feel the sun on my face and think. We used the dreamlike nature of the song to capture the landscape and a hypnotic feel to conjure up the long and lonely travel days.”
Primarily shot in the New Mexico desert during “Golden Hour,” the accompanying video for “Far Rider” follows a lone and weary traveler walking across the sandy dunes trying to forget a lost love or a escaping from a past that’s best forgotten forever. The dream-like nature of the song is emphasized with trippy effects.
“We filmed this video during a 6000 mile trip to New Mexico. We did it all on a handheld camera. Most of the time we would drive way out to a spot and have to wait until the light was right, the golden hour etc.,” Still Corners’ Tessa Murray explains. ” One of the places we went to was White Sands and we spent ages sitting in a sand dune in the shade waiting for the light to change. The sand is pure white gypsum so reflects the sun to such a degree it’s completely blinding. The good thing is the sun takes a while to set so you have about 30 minutes of beautiful light. We only had one problem, all the sand dunes look very similar, there’s really no landmarks so as it became dark we got completely lost on the way back to the car, it was a little scary but we made it. We love how it turned out, it captures the vibe of the song perfectly.”
Influenced by The Cure,Cocteau Twins and Joy Division and others, the Swiss-American shoegaze duo The Churchhill Garden — currently, founding member Andy Jossi (guitar) and Whimsical‘s Krissy Vanderwoude (vocals) — was originally founded by Jossi as a solo recording project back in 2010 as a way for the Swiss-born and-based guitarist to plug into his emotions and to focus on writing music without any pressure.
A friend had showed Jossi how to use GarageBand, which he eventually used for some of his earliest recordings. He was determine to become a better guitarist and songwriter, so he learned from his mistakes, which helped him advance as an artist. As he was growing as a musician and songwriter, Jossi discovered Logic, which led to an improved and lusher quality to his recordings.
Around the same time, Jossi began to notice that the songs he had begun to write were more expansive, and although largely inspired by Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, shoegaze, post punk and jangle pop, the material revealed his own take on the sounds he had long loved. The Swiss guitarist and songwriting posted his compositions on Myspace without expecting much in return but, he was pleasantly surprised and encouraged by the positive response he received. Although he had enjoyed writing and recording the material he posted on MySpace, he felt as though the material was missing something — vocals.
Hoping to broaden his musical horizons, the Swiss guitarist and songwriter sought out a few local vocalists to collaborate with. His first collaboration was with The Reaction’s Max Burki, one of Jossi’s local musical heroes. Jossi then went on to record two more tracks with Eva Tresch. Technological advances — i.e., home recording studios and programs, as well as file sharing — allowed Jossi to collaborate with vocalists outside of his native Switzerland. His first collaboration with a foreign vocalist, “Noisy Butterfly,” which featured Italian vocalist Damiano Rosetti helped expand The Churchhill Garden’s audience and fanbase outside of Switzerland.
“The Same Sky” was released to an overwhelmingly positive response with people generally commenting that they felt a magical chemistry between the two — and after a couple of songs together, they both realized that Vanderwoude should be a permanent and full-time member of The Churchhill Garden. And while Vanderwoude is a permanent member of The Churchill Garden, Jossi has continued to collaborate with other vocalists, including including Seashine’s Demi Haynes and Fables‘ and Swirl’s Ben Aylward.
Back in 2020, The Churchhill Garden released their full-length debut, a double LP album Heart and Soul, which their fans had clamored for, for quite some time. Since Heart and Soul, the duo have been busily writing, recording and releasing new material including the Souvlaki-era Slowdive and So Tonight That I May See-era Mazzy Star-like “Fade Away,” and the slow-burning, Cocteau Twins-like “Lonely.”
Clocking in at a little over seven-and-a-half minutes, the slow-burning “Rearview Mirror,” the Transatlantic shoegaze duo’s latest single begins with a gorgeous and lengthy acoustic guitar-led intro that slowly morphs into a noisy and towering wall of sound centered around Jossi’s impressive guitar work and Vanderwoude’s achingly plaintive and ethereal vocals. While arguably being the most Storm in Heaven-like track of their rapidly growing catalog, the song details a heartbreakingly bittersweet relationship including its sublime highs, darkest lows and ultimately, its conclusion.
The cinematic, accompanying video for “Rearview Mirror” follows a stranded astronaut who has crash landed on a remarkably Earth-like world — and some mind-bending visual effects that capture the slow-burning storminess of the song.
Rising New York-based outfit Colatura — Jennica (bass, vocals), Digo (guitar, vocals) and Meredith (guitar, synth, vocals) is a rising Brooklyn-based indie trio that features multiple lead singers while establishing a sound that’s sometimes dreamy and sometimes heavy, centered around pop-leaning melodies and post-punk atmospherics. And as a result, some critics have described them as “Fleetwood Mac with shoegaze guitars.”
With the release of 2018’s debut EP Spring Drew Blood and a handful of singles released in 2020, including “I Don’t Belong Here,” the Brooklyn-based indie outfit built up some buzz: They’ve been featured by The Deli and Oh My Rockness, and they’ve received breathless praise from Full Time Aesthetic, who covered a live show and wrote “the easiest way to describe Colatura is they’re like sunshine streaming out of an amplifier with its volume set at nine.” Adding to a growing profile locally, Colatura has played sets at Rough Trade, Baby’s All Right, Mercury Lounge and Elsewhere as well as house parties and DIY Brooklyn venues.
The band’s full-length debut, And Then I’ll Be Happy is slated for an April 22, 2022 release. Album single “Team Sport,” was released to breathless praise from the likes of BrooklynVegan and Under The Radar — with Under The Radar making references to Cocteau Twins,Alvvays and Yumi Zouma. And Then I’ll Be Happy‘s latest single “Kids Like Us” continues a run of gorgeous, nostalgia-inducing, 120 MinutesMTV-like dream pop featuring Meredith’s plaintive and yearning vocals, reverb-drenched guitars, driving rhythms and the band’s unerring ability to craft an enormous hook.
Seemingly drawing from personal and very lived-in experience, the song is rooted in bittersweet memories of a dysfunctional, flawed family — with the recognition that you’ll only have one, very screwed up biological family for better or for worse.
“This song is about collective family baggage, mental illness, and destructive patterns that can repeat generation after generation,” the band’s Meredith Lampe explains in press notes. “We wrote it from the perspective of one sibling calling another to remind them that they made a pact to never have kids in the hopes of cutting off the negative cycle and to stop passing down traits that they wish they didn’t have themselves.
The accompanying video was made by Phantom Handshakes‘ Matt Sklar and features the band performing over a college of footage from each band member’s childhoods, which fittingly gives the visual a bittersweet, nostalgic air.
Pastel Coast, led by Boulogne-sur-Mer, France-based creative mastermind Quentin Isidore (vocals, guitar) and featuring Benjamin Fiorini (drums), Ingrid Letourneau (keys), Marion Plouviez (guitar, vocals) and Renaud Retaux (bass) have received attention both nationally and internationally for breezy yet melancholic sound that’s indebted to the early 90s Manchester scene and to acclaimed French indie act Phoenix.
2019 was a break through year for the rising French act: their full-length debut Hovercraft landed on Dream Pop Magazine‘s Top 100. Continuing upon that momentum, Pastel Coast released their sophomore album, last year’s Sun, which featured five critically applauded singles:
The attention grabbing “Rendezvous”
“Dial” a breezy synthesis of New Order and Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix-era Phoenix that evoked the swooning euphoria of new love.
“Sunset,” a glistening and breezy number that’s saw the band meshing New Zealand jangle pop and French pop focused on lovelorn folks racing against time to try to find love before sunset.
“Distance,” a synth-driven numbers featuring angular guitar bursts and a euphoria-inducing hook
“Funeral,” an achingly nostalgic song that wistfully yearned for simpler times and the “one that got away.”
“Helios,” is the first bit of new material from the French JOVM mainstays since the release of Sun. Centered around glistening synth arpeggios, Isidore’s plaintive vocals, a four-on-the-floor-led motorik groove, angular guitar bursts, “Helios” sonically — to my ears, at least — recalls fellow JOVM mainstays Yumi Zouma: a winning breezy melancholy that longs for bright sunny, Spring and Summer days, Spring and Summer crushes and flings and the like.
Directed by Robin Larroque and Quentin Sarda, the accompanying visual is a slick and stylish visual that features the members of the JOVM mainstay act performing the song in a studio in front of white walls. Each member of the band has a distinct shade of blue on, which explodes in front of the white background. The band also does some record cover art posing,. And at one point we see plastic balls dumped on top of individual band members. It’s a surreal and playful fever dream that eventually pulls out to see a behind-the-scenes view of the video.
Split between Indiana and Florida, dream pop/shoegaze outfit Whimsical — currently Krissy Vanderwoude (vocals) and Neil Burkdoll (guitar, production) — can trace their origins back to 1995 when Vanderwoude and Burkdoll met while attending high school in Indiana.
At the time, Burkdoll, along with Andy Muntean (drums) were members of a local band Mystified Thinking. Mystified Thinking split up when its members graduated from high school and gradually went their own ways. However, Burkdoll decided that he wanted to start a new band that was the complete opposite of what he had been writing with Mystified Thinking, which was primarily centered around depression and sadness.
Over the next handful of years, what eventually became Whimsical went through a few false starts and lineup changes before 1999 when the band settled upon their first lineup — Time Fogle (drums) and Joe Santelik (bass), along with Burkdoll and Vanderwoulde.
Their full-length debut, 2000’s Setting Suns Are Semi-Circles is considered a dream pop cult classic. The act went on to write their debut’s follow-up but they split up after that album was about 90% finished.
In 2015, Vanderwoulde and Burkdoll reunited to complete their long-anticipated sophomore album, the critically applauded Sleep to Dream, an effort that drew comparisons to Lush and The Cranberries, among others. Since the release of Sleep to Dream, the members of Whimsical have been busy: 2019 saw the release of the act’s third album, Bright Smiles and Broken Hearts. In between the release of Sleep to Dream and the writing sessions for their forth album, they also released a series of covers, featuring songs they’ve long wanted to cover including Motorhome’s “Sweet Valentine,” Smashing Pumpkins‘ “Snail,” and The Ocean Blue’s “Cerulean,” which reveals some of their influences.
And if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past couple of years, Krissy Vanderwoulde’s name may be familiar: she’s one half of the Transatlantic dream pop duo The Churchill Gardens.
Whimsical’s fourth album, the nine-song Melt is slated for an April 1st release through Shelflife Records here in the States and Through Love Records in Germany. Melt reportedly sees the duo pushing their sound in new directions while retaining the elements that their fans have expected and loved — namely, Burkdoll’s incandescent guitar and Vanderwoulde’s lilting and ethereal vocals.
Melt‘s third and latest single, the slow-burning and painterly “Quicksand” is a bit of a trip-hop take on dream pop with the song being centered around skittering beats, twinkling keys and sampled and manipulated guitars paired with Vanderwoulde’s lilting and ethereal vocals. The end result is a song that seems the duo nodding at Massive Attack, Cocteau Twins and A Storm in Heaven simultaneously.
“‘Quicksand’ is the ‘oddball’ on our new album Melt, but it’s also the song we are probably most excited about,” the duo say in press notes. “Sounding mostly electronic, Quicksand is made from our sampled guitars that have been manipulated and repurposed in a new and interesting way. We were able to expand our sonic palette and try new things with what makes up a Whimsical song. Initially we were worried that ‘Quicksand’ wouldn’t fit alongside our other songs, but once we realized that our melodies and Krissy’s heartfelt lyrics were in place, we knew that we had created something special and any concerns we had faded away. We’ve waited a long time for people to finally hear ‘Quicksand’ and we hope they are as excited about it as we are.”
Formed back in 2016, JOVM mainstays No Swoon — Tasha Abbott (vocals, guitar) and Zack Nestel-Patt (synths, baas) — have developed an established sound that sees the pair meshing elements of dream pop, shoegaze, post-punk and ethereal wave through two releases, 2018’s EP 1 and 2019’s ’s Jorge Elbrecht-produced, self-titled full-length debut.
Much like countless others across the world, the COVID-19 pandemic, threw the the lives and plans of the JOVM mainstays into disarray” their planned tour to support their full-length debut had to be scrapped entirely. After spending the past five years in Brooklyn, the duo relocated to Los Angeles. And understandably, spending over a year in quarantine-imposed isolation forced the pair to step back and think about their lives in new ways — and to examine the intricacies of going through life as we know it.
The duo managed fro released a couple of singles during the pandemic, including the Siamese Dream era Smashing Pumpkins meets Slowdive like Again,” a single that marked massive, life-altering transitions for the duo: their aforementioned return back West paired with a reworked sound and approach.
As the JOVM mainstays explained in press notes, “This song is about when days begin and end with no real definition. About being stuck in the loop of our life and we can’t get out. It may come to no surprise that this song was written early on in the Pandemic. Before everything shut down, I (Tasha) was constantly moving: work, music, sleep, etc., and being at stand-still all of a sudden was definitely strange (on top of the already terror and stress of the pandemic).”
Interestingly, “Again” will appear on the band’s highly-anticipated sophomore album Take Your Time. Slated for an April 8, 2022 release, the lion share of Take Your Time was recorded by the band in Western Massachusetts, amidst the isolation of pandemic related quarantine — with the band’s Nestel-Patt taking up engineering duties during the initial recording sessions. The album features guest spots from longtime collaborator Jon Smith (drums), along with Furrows‘ and Olden Yolk’s Peter Wagner (guitar). Jake Aaron contributed some additional production and Chris Coady mixed the album, pushing the material into something otherworldly.
Take Your Time‘s material was conceived and written during both personal and global transitions and turmoil — but while celebrating a joyful acceptance of the paths that have lead each of us to where we are right now. About the album’s themes, No Swoon’s Abbott contends, “We are so hard on ourselves for decisions we made years ago. I have plenty of regrets, but I also see it as a process, and it’s ok that I didn’t realize the hopes and dreams of 20-year old me. What did she know anyways?”
Last month, I wrote about Take Your Time‘s first official single “Besides.” Centered around Abbott’s plaintive and breathy falsetto, a propulsive rhythm section and intertwined buzzing power chords and twinkling, reverb-drenched synths, “Besides” sonically nods at Beach House, but as the band’s Tasha Abbott explains, the song was inspired by a wild, enigmatic dream she once had in which, while exploring a mysterious cavern, she stumbled upon a secret apparently blissful cult with ambiguous intentions.
“I have some really weird dreams,” Abbott said in press notes. “They are often these wide-ranging sci-fi stories. This song is part 2 of the same dream that inspired a song on our first record ‘Don’t wake up, wake up‘. That dream had ended with meandering into a cave that turned out to be the home to a cult where everyone looked the same and seemed very ‘happy.’ Though, obviously they were not very happy because it was a cult. I eventually got out.”
“Wait to See,” Take Your Time‘s brooding third and latest single is centered around a maelstrom of synths, driving percussion, blown out bass with Abbott’s ethereal vocals floating over the mix, to create a mesmerizing song that’s simultaneously bruising and dreamily introspective.
“This song is about growing up,” No Swoon’s Abbott says in press notes. “ We’re talking to our younger selves who had very specific dreams and ideas of how our lives would pan out. But as we all know, the hopes and dreams we had at 15 are usually not our realities when we grow up.. We could look back and be upset that we didn’t become who we had hoped to be, or we could relish the new ideas and new dreams, and be ok with where we are. This song is about how looking back now, you can see the path that led to where we are now and how we wish we could tell our younger selves to be kind to who we will grow up to be.”
Currently split between Florida and Berlin, emerging psych pop duo Dream Powder — Argentinian-born multi-instrumentalists and producers Karl Wunsche and Nico Leivo — was conceived as a virtual project as a result of the pandemic.
The Transatlantic psych pop act’s latest single, the Tame Impala-like “Theories” is centered around wobbling and glistening synth arpeggios, a sinuous bass line, stuttering and blown out boom bap-like beats, fuzzy guitars, Leivo’s achingly plaintive vocals paired with an enormous and infectious hook.
As the duo explain, the song reflects on two very disparate events that Dream Powder’s Nico Leivo experienced: A summer weekend in which he was forced to cope with and then deal with the relationship fears and insecurities expressed by a partner. And a contemplative stroll in his neighborhood under the influence of LSD. The song’s narrator nostalgically fantasizes about the two as though they were merged into one moment — a walk that finds the narrator reflecting on the new stresses of a romantic relationship and the desire to escape it through a pleasurable, mesmerizing and buzzy trip.
London-based dream pop act and JOVM mainstays Still Corners — vocalist and keyboardist Tessa Murray and multi-instrumentalist, producer and songwriter Greg Hughes — have managed to bounce between chilly and atmospheric pop and shimmering guitar-driven, desert noir through the release of five albums: 2012’s Creatures of an Hour, 2013’s Strange Pleasures, 2016’s Dead Blue, 2018’s Slow Air and 2020’s The Last Exit.
The critically applauded The Last Exit continued where its immediate predecessor left off with 11 songs centered around shimmering and carefully crafted arrangements featuring organic instrumentation paired with Tessa Murray’s smoky crooning. Thematically, the album took the listener through a hypnotic and mesmerizing journey filled with dilapidated and long-abandoned towns, mysterious shapes appearing on the horizon and long trips that blur the lines between what’s there and not there.
The album’s material was brought into further focus as a result of pandemic-related lockdowns and quarantines. “There’s always something at the end of the road and for us it was this album. Our plans were put on hold – an album set for release, tours, video shoots, travel,” Tessa Murray explained in press notes for the album. “We’d been touring nonstop for years, but we were forced to pause everything. We thought the album was finished but with the crisis found new inspiration and started writing again.” Three of the album’s songs — “Crying,” “Static,” and “‘Till We Meet Again” were written during this period and they reflect upon the profound impact of isolation and the human need for social contact and intimacy.
Late last year, the JOVM mainstays released “Heavy Days,” a propulsive and uptempo bop featuring twinkling synth arpeggios, a chugging motorik groove, shimmering and reverb drenched guitars and a soaring hook paired with Murray’s smoky vocals. The end result twas a song that saw the duo retaining the beloved elements of their overall sound — but while seemingly drawing from 80s pop.
Despite the literal weight of it’s title “Heavy Days” may be the most optimistic and sunny song of the JOVM mainstays’ growing catalog. “Sometimes it all feels like too much, there’s a lot to take in reading the news all the time,” Still Corners’ Tessa Murray says in press notes. “We wanted to write a reminder to put the phone down now and again and get out there and live life to the fullest while you can.”
The JOVM mainstays start off the year with the expansive “Far Rider,” a track that sounds as though it could have been on both or either Slow Air or The Last Exit as its centered around shimmering, reverb-drenched guitars and a steady rhythm paired with Murray’s smoky crooning, which at one point are chopped up and distorted.
“This song is about leaving, lost love and finding yourself somewhere on the journey, really it’s about redemption,” Still Corners Tessa Murray explains. I recently drove 6000 miles across the southwest to feel the sun on my face and think. We used the dreamlike nature of the song to capture the landscape and a hypnotic feel to conjure up the long and lonely travel days.”
Still Corners will be embarking on a lengthy tour throughout 2022 that includes a June 16, 2022 stop at Le Poisson Rouge. Check out the rest of the tour dates below.
European Tour Dates
2nd April – Athens, Greece @ Gagarin 205 Tickets
4th April – Lille, France @ L’Aeronef Tickets
5th April – Paris, France @ La Maroquinerie Tickets
6th April – Sint-Niklaas, Belgium @ De Casino Tickets
7th April – Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Q-Factory Tickets
8th April – Groningen, Netherlands @ Vera Tickets
10th April – Copenhagen, Denmark @ Hotel Cecil Tickets
11th April – Hamburg, Germany @ Grünspan Tickets
12th April – Köln, Germany @ Gebäude9 Tickets
13th April – Berlin, Germany @ Heimathafen Tickets
14th April – Leipzig, Germany @ UT Connwitz Tickets
15th April – Prague, Czech Republic @ Meetfactory Tickets
16th April – Vienna, Austria @ Flex Café Tickets
18th April – Zagreb, Croatia @ Boogaloo Tickets
19th April – Ljubljana, Slovenia @ Kino Šiška Tickets
20th April – Milan, Italy @ Magnolia Tickets
21st April – Bern, Switzerland @ Dachstock/Reitschule Tickets
22nd April – Metz, France @ La Chapelle des Trinitaires Tickets
25th April – Dublin, Ireland @ Pepper Canister Church Tickets
26th April – Glasgow, United Kingdom @ Stereo Tickets
27th April – Leeds, United Kingdom @ The Brudenell Social Club Tickets
28th April –Manchester, United Kingdom @ YES Tickets
29th April – London, United Kingdom @ EartH Theatre Tickets
US Tour Dates
18th May – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania @ Underground Arts Tickets
19th May – Vienna, Virginia @ Jammin Java Tickets
20th May – Durham, North Carolina @ Motorco Tickets
21st May – Atlanta, Georgia @ Aisle 5 Tickets
22nd May – Tampa, Florida @ Crowbar Tickets
26th May – Dallas, Texas @ Deep Ellum Arts Co Tickets
27th May – Austin, Texas @ The Parish Tickets
30th May – Phoenix, Arizona @ Rebel Lounge Tickets
31st May – San Diego, California @ Soda Bar Tickets
1st June – Santa Ana, California @ The Observatory Tickets
2nd June – Los Angeles, California @ Echoplex Tickets
3rd June – San Francisco, California @ Great Northern Tickets
5th June – Portland, Oregon @ Mississippi Studios Tickets
6th June – Seattle, Washington @ The Crocodile Tickets
8th June – Boise, Idaho @ Neurolux Tickets
9th June – Salt Lake City, Utah @ Urban Lounge Tickets
10th June – Fort Collins, Colorado @ The Coast Tickets
11th June – Denver, Colorado @ Globe Hall Tickets
14th June – Chicago, Illinois @ Lincoln Hall Tickets
16th June – New York, New York @ LPR Tickets
17th June – Hamden, Connecticut @ Space Ballroom Tickets
18th June – Allston, Massachusetts @ Brighton Music Hall Tickets
18th June – Allston, Massachusetts @ Brighton Music Hall Tickets
French singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Charles de Villers is the creative mastermind behind solo recording project Charles Like The Prince. de Villers emerged onto the French scene with 2020’s “Estonia.”
Building upon the buzz that “Estonia” received, de Villers will be releasing his Charles Like The Prince debut EP this Spring. The EP’s first single “Cigarette” is a slow-burning pop confection centered around glistening guitars, atmospheric synths, de Villers achingly plaintive vocals, and reverb-drenched drum machine. The end result is an airy yet yearning song that subtly recalls early Beach House, Washed Out and others. The accompanying visual for “Cigarette” is shot through a nostalgic and cinematic haze, full of romantic yearning and of course, cigarettes.
Formed back in 2016, JOVM mainstays No Swoon — Tasha Abbott (vocals, guitar) and Zack Nestel-Patt (synths, baas) — have quickly established a blogosphere winning attention sound that meshes elements of dream pop, shoegaze, post-punk and ethereal wave with the release of 2018’s EP 1 and 2019’s ’s Jorge Elbrecht-produced, self-titled full-length debut.
Much like countless others across the world, the COVID-19 pandemic, the members of the JOVM mainstay act found their lives and plans thrown into disarray: their planned tour to support their full-length debut had to be scrapped. And after spending the past five years in Brooklyn, the duo relocated to Los Angeles. Understandably, spending over a year in quarantine-imposed isolation forced the pair to take a step back and think about their lives in new ways — and to examine the intricacies of going through life as we know it.
The band managed to release a couple of singles throughout the bulk of the pandemic, including “Again,” a single that marked massive, life-altering transitions for the duo: their aforementioned return back West. And along with their relocation, the band reworked their sound and approach. The Siamese Dream era Smashing Pumpkins meets Slowdive like “Again” was deeply inspired by life during the pandemic. As the JOVM mainstays explained in press notes, “This song is about when days begin and end with no real definition. About being stuck in the loop of our life and we can’t get out. It may come to no surprise that this song was written early on in the Pandemic. Before everything shut down, I (Tasha) was constantly moving: work, music, sleep, etc., and being at stand-still all of a sudden was definitely strange (on top of the already terror and stress of the pandemic).”
Interestingly, “Again” will appear on the band’s highly-anticipated sophomore album Take Your Time. Slated for an April 8, 2022 release, the lion share of Take Your Time was recorded by the band in Western Massachusetts, amidst the isolation of pandemic related quarantine — with the band’s Nestel-Patt taking up engineering duties during the initial recording sessions. The album features guest spots from longtime collaborator Jon Smith (drums), along with Furrows‘ and Olden Yolk’s Peter Wagner (guitar). Jake Aaron contributed some additional production and Chris Coady mixed the album, pushing the material into something otherworldly.
Take Your Time‘s material was conceived and written during both personal and global transitions and turmoil — but while celebrating a joyful acceptance of the paths that have lead each of us to where we are right now. About the album’s themes, No Swoon’s Abbott contends, “We are so hard on ourselves for decisions we made years ago. I have plenty of regrets, but I also see it as a process, and it’s ok that I didn’t realize the hopes and dreams of 20-year old me. What did she know anyways?”
The album’s first official single, the uptempo “Besides” is centered around Abbott’s plaintive and breathy falsetto, a propulsive rhythm section and intertwined buzzing power chords and twinkling, reverb-drenched synths. While sonically nodding at fellow JOVM mainstays Beach House, “Besides” as the band’s Abbott explains was inspired by a wild, enigmatic dream she once had in which, while exploring a mysterious cavern, she stumbled upon a secret, apparently blissful cult with ambiguous intentions.
“I have some really weird dreams,” Abbott says in press notes. “They are often these wide-ranging sci-fi stories. This song is part 2 of the same dream that inspired a song on our first record ‘Don’t wake up, wake up‘. That dream had ended with meandering into a cave that turned out to be the home to a cult where everyone looked the same and seemed very ‘happy.’ Though, obviously they were not very happy because it was a cult. I eventually got out.”
Shot and edited by the duo, the accompanying visual for “Beside” emphasizes the song’s dream-like air: The viewer is placed in a forest, where we see the duo walking towards us in a seemingly infinite loop.
Rising indie pop/dream pop act Morning Silk is led by creative mastermind and founder Frank Corr. The project can trace its origins back to when Corr was studying Architecture at The Rhode Island School of Design: Initially conceived as a creative side project, while school took up most of his time, Corr was inspired to seriously pursue music after listening to MGMT’s Oracular Spectacular and Congratulations.
Most of the early material was guitar based, but the projects sound and aesthetic gradually began to materialize with Corr linked up with Matthew Lancaster (bass, production). The ideas they started working on desperately needed drums, so the duo recruited Robert Norris (drums) to join the project. And as a trio, Morning Silk began playing across Rhode Island. Corr was simultaneously collecting gear, so they could build a studio in NYC.
Upon graduation, the trio relocated to New York and landed jobs in order to finance their studio and their creative work. Working with a collection of producers including the band’s Matthew Lancaster, Eamon Ford, Robert Norris and Caroline Sans, Morning Silk’s self-titled, full-length debut is slated for release this year.
So far, I’ve written about two of the album’s three previously released singles
“Don’t Try Hard Enough,” a dreamy, hook-driven MGMT and Tame Impala-like bop that’s a gentle reminder that it’s never too late to change the path and course of your life.
“So Fun,” a lush pop confection that’s mix of Summer Heart, Tame Impala and Washed Out with an infectious, two-step inducing hook and guest spots from Sur Black and Kolezanka
“Skin,” the full-length debut’s fourth and latest single continues a run of lush pop centered around glistening synths, Corr’s plaintive vocals, boom bap beats and woozy guitars that reveals the act’s uncanny knack for crafting anthemic hooks. And while being an upbeat anthem, “Skin” as the band’s Frank Corr explains “is our Indie Pop anthem about trying to chase your dreams and pay your rent.”
“I lost a lot of work due to Covid, so I started writing music again. We opened up songs from six years ago and finished one of them,” Corr continues. “This sort of set in motion a new sonic palette for us. For some reason, the words “pay the rent,” kept popping into my head. So with a simple melody, we put “pay the rent” over some heavy synth bass sounds. I wanted this bass line to sort of have an energy of its own, so Matt, Rob, and I listened to some DirtBike for inspiration.”
Formed back in 2016, Hamilton, Ontario-based dreamgaze outfit Basement Revolver — currently, Nimal Agalawatte (bass, keys), Chrisy Hurn (vocals, guitar), Jonathan Malström (guitar) and Levi Kertesz (drums) — can trace their origins back quite a bit earlier, to the longtime friendship between Hurn-Morrison and Agalawatte.
The band hit the ground running with the 2016 release of breakout single “Johnny Pt. 2,” which led to the band signing to British label Fear of Missing Out and later, Canadian label Sonic Unyon Records. The Canadian dreamgazers closed out that year with their self-titled EP. Over the next couple of years, Basement Revolver were remarkably prolific with the release of 2017’s Agatha EP, 2018’s full-length debut Heavy Eyes and 2019’s Wax and Digital EP. The band supported their recorded output with touring across Ontario, the States, the UK, and Germany.
2020 was a tumultuous year for much of the world — and unsurprisingly, it was tumultuous year for the Canadian quartet: They had written and recorded a bunch of songs. They had gone through a lineup change in which one member left and was replaced by another. But because of the pandemic and pandemic-related restrictions, they couldn’t rehearse or record in the way they had been long accustomed. And of course touring was completely off the table for much of 2020 and 2021.
The gap between their work and being alone, naturally resulted in serious introspection for the members of the band — including a reconsideration of who and what the band was. According to the band’s Agalawatte, the band had planned on making their sophomore album last year. But they wound up waiting and working out what to do, eventually making changes to what they had written. “The world was shifting around us – and there was some global trauma – with that, we decided we wanted to fully express ourselves. So far we had kind of held off sharing political views, but we were realizing that our silence was actually just violence. We realized that to be who we are fully and authentically, we needed to share our voice.”
For the band’s members, they felt the need to share things in public, that they had long held private: Agalawatte came out. Hurn came out. According to Hurn-Morrison, the pair came out against what she describes as homophobic and transphobic environments, much like Redeemer University, a private Calvinist university, which has been the birthplace of countless local acts.
Back in 2020, Redeemer University announced a policy that would discipline students for any sexual behavior outside heterosexual marriage. “While we were in the studio, the CBC released an article about Redeemer University, and their homophobic and transphobic policies. I realized then and there, I had to come out. I had to share my experience with being bi,” Hurn-Morrison explains.
Basment Revolver’s sophomore album Embody is slated for a February 18, 2022 release through Sonic Unyon Records. Thematically, the album sees the band wrestling with questions of identity, sexuality, faith and mental illness in an explicit, honest, and self-aware fashion. Sonically, the album’s material reveals a much deeper sound paired with a crisper production. And while arguably being the most personal album of their growing catalog to date, the album’s material is rooted in hope and hopeful waiting — to physically be with your friends, to tour and to engage with the world with this newfound understanding of yourself and your place within the world.
Embody‘s fourth and latest single “Circles” is a slow-burning and expansive bit of shoegazy dream pop featuring swirling layers of shimmering and reverb-drenched guitars, atmospheric synths, Hurn’s achingly plaintive vocals and a driving rhythm section. And while sonically bearing a resemblance to A Storm in Heaven era The Verve and The Sundays, “Circles” is a deeply personal song in which it’s narrator openly struggles in the aftermath of being raped, and — sadly — informed by Hurn-Morrison’s personal experiences.
According to Chrisy Hurn, the song captures the feeling of “trying to do everything in your power to get better, but there is just that one thing that it always comes back to — knowing that it is a slow and long journey.
“As much as it is about this heavy, shitty thing that happened, I feel resilient. I feel a little bit stronger every time I hear it — a little bit more like I can stop hiding parts of myself.” Of course, while being cathartic for the band’s Hurn, she has the hope that it will help listeners, who may be going through similar experiences.
The recently released video is split between symbolic imagery of Hurn struggling with depression and anxiety — and seemingly gathering the courage to perform such a devastatingly honest song with her bandmates. The video’s color palette capture the brooding and serious nature of the song.
Featuring two married couples — Christina Carmona (vocals, bass) and Noe Carmona (guitar, keys) and Michelle Soto (guitar, vocals) and Jacob Soto (drums), the Austin-based dream pop/shoegazer outfit and JOVM mainstays Blushing can actually trace its roots back to El Paso, where Jacob Soto and Noe Carrmona grew up as lifelong friends and musical partners.
Jacob Soto and Noe Carmona relocated to Austin around 2009. Coincidentally, they both met their wives at The Side Bar and according to the band, “naturally all four of us became close friends.” As Michelle Soto was learning guitar, she also began writing material, creating guitar parts and vocal melodies in her bedroom. Christina Carmona, who is a classically trained vocalist, was recruited by Michelle Soto to contribute vocals; but Christina then taught herself bass and helped flesh out Michelle’s songs. Shortly after, Jacob and Noe began to notice how much potential the material had, and they joined in on a practice session to help further flesh out their arrangements. And from that point on, Blushing was a full-fledged band. Their natural simpatico and like-minded musical influences helped to solidify their ongoing creative process.
The members of the Austin-based shoegazer outfit spent the bulk of 2016 writing and refining material, which eventually led to their debut EP, 2017’s Tether. Tether was released to positive reviews across the blogosphere, including this site.
Building upon a growing profile in the shoegaze and dream pop scenes, the members of Blushing returned to the studio to write and record their sophomore EP, 2018’s Weak, an effort that saw them cementing a sound indebted to Lush, Cocteau Twins and The Sundays but while also being a subtle refinement. They ended that year with the Elliot Frazier-produced and mixed “The Truth”/”Sunshine” 7 inch, which featured what may arguably be the most muscular and direct song of their catalog to date. The Austin-based shoegazers supported their recorded output with several tours, sharing stages with Snail Mail, Sunflower Bean, La Luz, BRONCHO, Illuminati Hotties, JOVM mainstays Yumi Zouma and others.
2019 saw the release of their self-titled, full-length debut, which they supported with an extensive US tour with Ringo Deathstarr that included a stop at Saint Vitus Bar that November. Although touring was on an indefinite hiatus until the middle of last year, the Austin JOVM mainstays have been busy: they signed to Kanine Records, who will be releasing their highly anticipated Elliot Frazier-produced, sophomore album Possessions.
Slated for a February 18, 2022 release, Possessions is an album born out of incredible patience and perseverance: The earliest tracking sessions started in 2019 and continued in fits and starts through the quarantines, lockdowns and re-openings of the COVID-19 pandemic. There was a break in production while Frazier welcomed his second child, and that was followed by the massive blackouts across Texas as a result of last February’s winter storm that wrecked havoc across the region.
When it was finally finished, the album revealed itself as being heavier at points and at other points much lighter. Thematically and lyrically, the album reportedly sees the band embracing the full and complicated spectrum of life and relationships but while recognizing the need for escape and whimsy. The album also sees the band collaborating with two shoegazer legends — Lush and Piroshka‘s Miki Berenyi, who contributes vocals on “Blame” and RIDE‘s Mark Gardener, who mastered the album at his OX4 Sound in the UK.
In the lead up to the album’s release next month, I’ve written about two of the album’s singles:
“Blame,” which fittingly features Miki Berenyi is a lush, densely layered song featuring glistening and reverb drenched guitars, an enormous hook and some eerily spectral harmonies and counter melodies between Christina Carmona, Michelle Soto and Berenyi. But just under the shimmering surface is a subtle sense of menace, expressed by the refrain “Stick around and find out . . . “
“Sour Punch,” a woozy and seamless synthesis of 90s indie pop and grunge centered around reverb-drenched guitars, crunchy power chords, propulsive drumming and hazy yet ethereal vocals. But underneath the shimmering melody and power chords, “Sour Punch” as the band explains explores inequality and striving for independence in a relationship. You can feel the song’s narrator bristling from being hemmed in while desiring some space to herself, to be herself.
Possessions‘ third and final single “The Fires” may arguably be the darkest and most brooding track on the album. Featuring Michelle Soto’s chiming reverb-drenched guitars and a motorik groove built around Christina Carmona’s propulsive bass line and Jacob Soto’s metronomic four on the floor, “Fires” sees the JOVM mainstays pushing their sound into post-punk, goth and even coldwave territory while retaining their unerring knack for rousing hooks and ethereal harmonies.
The recently released video for “The Fires” also serves as a counterpoint to its brightly colored counterpart “Sour Punch” with the video featuring the band’s co-vocalists and the rest of the band in a brooding monochromatic color schemes.
