Category: dream pop

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Los Angeles-based JOVM mainstays Junaco — Shahanna Jaffer and Joey LaRosa — derive their name for a term that they say generally means rolling with the pace of life and enjoying the present; living and working with intention, and not just running on autopilot. Fittingly, much like the term that inspired their band’s name, Jaffer and LaRosa have developed and honed a deliberate creative approach that actively eschews the music industry’s commonly-held attempts to placate the blogosphere’s short attention span with constant releases of varying quality.

Over the past year though, the Los Angeles-based JOVM mainstays have released a batch of material including:

  • “In Between (Reprise) ” an even more ethereal and softer take on their Omar Yakar-produced Awry EP single “In Between” that retained the confusing sensations of uncertainty and progress. 
  • “Blue Room” a gorgeous bit of hook driven indie rock that’s both a sigh of contentedness and frustration that thematically touches upon a familiar concept to all of us — that home can be a place of safety, security, peace and love, as well as a place full of stifling boredom and uncertainty. 
  • “Weight Of The World,” a slow-burning, Beach House-like track centered around Jaffer’s achingly soulful vocals paired with a gorgeous arrangement of lush and swirling layers of shimmering and jangling guitars drenched in reverb, atmospheric synths, a chugging rhythm section and a soaring hook. But at its core, the song dives headfirst into the experience of slowing down to look around and truly dig what’s around you.

The duo’s highly-anticipated Blue Room EP which is slated for a July 9, 2021 release through Side Hustle Records will be reportedly be a 360º music and art project inspired by “When we were writing the new tunes, we were listening to a lot of Amo Amo, Big Thief, Rodrigo Amarante, Sam Evian, Broncho & Hannah Cohen,”and others.

Building upon the pre-release buzz, the EP’s latest single “Paradise” continues a run of jangling and hook-driven dream pop featuring Jaffer’s gorgeous vocals. But this time also featuring muscular yet blown out drumming, twinkling keys, and reverb drenched feedback and effects. Interestingly, “Paradise” may arguably be the most person song that the duo have released to date: “The mind is a powerful tool – we have the ability to shift our perspective at any given moment with practice and control,” Junaco’s Shahanna Jaffer explains. “A strong sentiment I learned from my parents’ immigrant experience – that paradise is in your mind if you allow it. We have the habit of placing responsibility on a far away action: ‘when I move there, my life will be better’ but if we instead tried to look inward and felt every feeling genuinely, would we have an easier time adapting?” Joey LaRosa adds, “And while we all attempt to live in the present, it’s still important to take the past and future into account. You are who you are based on the past. And you are who you are based on what you want and what you envision your future to be.” 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Kekko is a Singapore-based psych rock/dream pop duo and married couple — multi-instrumentalist Tim Kek and vocalist Cherie Ko. Ko spent her teenaged years covering dream pop and shoegaze classics on YouTube, earning a cult following from fans of Slowdive, Beach House and My Bloody Valentine. But her musical career started in earnest with a stint as the frontperson of Bored Spies, an act that featured members of Seam.

Bored Spies managed to tour the US and Europe, including a notable stop at Primavera Sound Festival. But interestingly according to the band’s Cherie Ko, Kekko marks the first time that she has been able to fully embrace her authentic wholeness. And without self-imposed expectations and ideas of what music — in particular her music — should be, Ko feels the she now sings from a place of “warm transcendence,” where the music fully embodies who she is deep inside. Kekko’s Tim Kek is tasked with with the paradox of expressing the inexpressible through his compositions. Deeply steeped in Eastern philosophy, Kek’s work often “starts with just one night and a quiet contemplation” of how the sound makes him feel. He then builds and crafts melody-driven arrangements from his “heart cave,” a term that Ram Dass describes as “a place beyond all forms and lists, a place for letting go.” The end result is work that attempts to envision and encapsulates the expansiveness and magic of all realms of existence.

The Singaporean duo have exploded out the gate with their debut single “Past Lives,” which received praise from NME, Obscure Sound and Nevermind. The duo’s debut EP Dreaming Life is inspired by an ancient introspective musing by the ancient Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi: Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was myself. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.” The EP’s material reportedly feels strangely familiar yet simultaneously exciting and surreal.

Dreaming Life‘s second single, the slow-burning and painterly EP title track features Ko’s ethereal and plaintive vocals paired with shimmering synth arpeggios, an almost motorik-like groove and a soaring hook. While sonically, some critics have compared their sound to Tame Impala and Melody’s Echo Chamber, “Dreaming Life” reminds me of Young Narrator in the Breakers-era Pavo Pavo. But as the duo explain, the song offers a reminder to the listener: that being in control of our lives is an illusion and that this futile pursuit can be very stressful and tiresome. The song calls for an different view of our existence — that life actually happens through you and because of you and that all we can do is appreciate each and every moment we’ve got.

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Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstays Pastel Coast Return with a Shimmering and Nostalgia-Inducing Bop

The rising French dream pop act 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 developing and honing a breezy yet melancholic sound indebted to the early 90s developing and honing a melancholic sound deeply indebted to the early 90s Manchester scene and to acclaimed French indie act Phoenix.

2019 proved to be an enormous year for Pastel Coast: their full-length debut Hovercraft landed on Dream Pop Magazine‘s Top 100. And the band wound up landing a slot at last year’s Inouïs du Printemps de Bourges, which was unfortunately cancelled as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Continuing upon that momentum, the French dream pop JOVM mainstays sophomore album Sun officially dropped today — and if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past few months, you may recall that the album features the following singles:

The attention grabbing “Rendezvous”
“Dial” a breezy synths 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 a carefully crafted synthesis of New Zealand jangle pop and Phoenix that thematically focused on lovelorn folks racing against time to try to find love before sunset.
“Distance” one of the album’s more synth-driven numbers featuring angular guitar bursts, gently Autoned vocals and a euphoric club and beach friendly hook.

“Funeral,” Sun’s fifth and latest single begins with an atmospheric intro before quickly morphing into a euphoric bop centered around twinkling synths, jangling guitars, Isidore’s plaintive vocals and a motorik groove that sounds like synthesis of early 80s New Order and Phoenix but imbued with an achingly wistful nostalgia for simpler times and the proverbial “one that got away.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Meggie Lennon Releases a Feverish Visual for Shimmering “Night Shift”

Meggie Lennon is a Montreal-based singer/songwriter, who started her career as the frontperson of acclaimed indie pop/indie rock outfit Abrdeen, an act that received an  Alternative Independent Music Gala of Quebec (GAMIQ) nomination for 2017’s Endless Dreams and Dreamlike Mornings EP.

Abrdeen supported their material touring with a number of indie acts including Good Morning, JOVM mainstays Elephant Stone, The Dears, Julie Doiron, Sugar Candy Mountain and Laura Sauvage. And the band made the rounds of the provincial festival circuit with stops at POP Montreal, M for Montreal and FME. Additionally, Lennon developed a reputation as a go-to collaborator, lending her vocals to material by Debbie Tebbs, Lucill and Super Plage.

Lennon fully steps out into the spotlight as a solo artist with the July 9, 2021 release of her Samuel Gemme-produced full-length debut Sounds From Your Lips through Mothland. Featuring guest sports from Elephant Stone’s Gabriel Lambert and her longtime friend and collaborator, Super Plage’s Jules Henry, the album finds Lennon and her collaborators crafting a sound that meshes late 60s and early 70s psych, The Byrds, T.Rex, Melody’s Echo Chamber, MGMT, and Beach House into something that Lennon describes as “make-out dream-pop” with a glowing and infectious sense of optimism.

Sounds From Your Lips’ first single, album opening track “Night Shift” is heavily indebted to Scott Walker psych pop as the track features a gorgeous arrangement of soaring strings, twinkling Wurlitzer and a sultry yet propulsive groove paired with Lennon’s breathy vocals and fuzzy guitars within an alternating quiet, loud, quiet song structure, a trippy break. And as a result, the song manages to capture the intimate thoughts of late night trips home — but with a cinematic grandeur.

“The first part of the song came to me while cycling home back from L’Esco after a wild night. I was on a Box and the streets were completely empty,” Lennon explains. “I was riding fast through the night and it felt both meditative and exhilarating – this feeling is reflected in the dreamy verses and then heavier guitar crescendo at the end. When we got in the studio, I laid the lead track on the Wurli and it all came naturally. The second part, ‘take a glimpse outside,’ came while doodling on the synth. We were in the studio without windows but we both went outside and the sun blinded us, the lyrics were inspired by this.”

Directed by Marielle Normandin Pageau, the recently released visual for “Night Shift” is a gorgeous visual featuring sequences shot during golden hour, with others shot through dreamy filters to evoke the a feverish and hallucinogenic vibe.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Long Beach, CA-based indie rock act Sweet Nobody — Joy Deyo (guitar, vocals), Brian Dishon (drums, guitar, vocals), Casey Synder (guitar) and Adam Nolan (bass) — recorded their Joel Jerome-produced sophomore album We’re Trying Our Best in sessions at Hurley Studios and Jerome’s garage prior to the pandemic. Intended for release last summer, the album’s planned release and their plans to support the album were understandably waylaid, much like everything else last year.

The album’s material is informed by Deyo’s struggles with chronic pain from an illness that managed to resist proper diagnosis and treatment — and her experience of trying to learn with pain. And although Deyo couldn’t possibly know what lay ahead for the world when she started writing the album, thematically the album fits our time, as it touches upon addressing the reality of living with challenges and difficulties, the insecurity and uncertainty that feeling damaged can bring, the sustaining support and love that only those close to you can bring and the weirdness of just being around other people.

Slated for a September 17, 2021 release through Daydream Records, We’re Trying Our Best‘s first singles are coming out just as all of us are trying to figure out how to reintegrate into society and deal with others after more than a year of pandemic-related isolation and boredom. But despite the seemingly dark themes, the album reportedly finds the band balancing poignant lyrical concerns and insight with a light sonic touch inspired by Felt‘s Maurice Deebank, Johnny Marr and The Go-Betweens.

Interestingly, the album’s latest single “Not A Good Judge” lyrically and thematically finds its narrator grappling with crippling self-doubt to the point that she wishes that she could quiet that annoying inner voice — but paired with a breezy soundscape that’s one part Flying Nun Records jangle pop, one part The Smiths centered around an anthemic hook and relentless four-on-the-floor.

“For me the creative process is cyclical; I’ll be making things I like and then I’ll get to a point where I’m stuck on something or I can’t access an idea I want,” Sweet Nobody’s Joy Deyo explains in press notes. “I get frustrated with myself and wonder if I ever really ‘had it’. Then I text my husband (our drummer Brian) and tell him I’m afraid I’ll never make anything good again. He laughs and tells me not to worry and not long after I’ll have a breakthrough and get back to feeling confident again. I’m learning to trust that those lows aren’t the final word on my ability to create. ‘Not a Good Judge’ is me on a creative high imploring the me that’s in a creative low not to take it too seriously. It’s about getting out of my own way so I can keep progressing.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: French JOVM Mainstays Pastel Coast Return with a Cinematic Visual for Breezy “Distance”

Led by their 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), the rising French dream pop act Pastel Coast has received attention both nationally and internationally for developing and honing a melancholic sound deeply indebted to the early 90s Manchester scene. 

2019 was an enormous year for the French indie act: their full-length debut Hovercraft landed on Dream Pop Magazine‘s Top 100. And adding to a the growing buzz surrounding them, the band wound up landing a slot at last year’s Inouïs du Printemps de Bourges, which was unfortunately cancelled as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Continuing that momentum, the French dream pop act and JOVM mainstays will be releasing their highly anticipated full-length debut Sun is slated for a June 4, 2021 release. The album will feature two previously released — and attention grabbing — singles “Rendezvous” and “Dial” a breezy synths of New Order and Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix-era Phoenix that evoked the swooning euphoria of new love.

Earlier this year, the band released “Sunset,” a glistening and breezy number that’s a carefully crafted synthesis of New Zealand jangle pop and Phoenix that thematically focused on lovelorn folks racing against time to try to find love before sunset. The album’s fourth and latest single “Distance” continues a run of shimmering and infectious pop — but interestingly enough, it’s more of a synth-driven number with angular guitar bursts, gently Autotuned vocals and a euphoric hook that’s perfect for the club and for the beach.

Directed by the band’s Quentin Isidore and filmed by David Sagot, the recently released video for “Distance” continues a run of incredibly cinematic visuals — this one seemingly indebted to French New Wave, thanks to the use of subtitles with the song’s lyrics as we follow a man who’s blocked by flowing fabrics and flags in front of him.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Frank Rabeyrolles and Friends Perform “Winter One”

Frank Rabeyrolles is a French singer/songwriter and guitarist, who has released material under a variety of different names and outfits — but throughout his career, the French artist has developed a reputation as an obsessive and frenzied craftsman, whose work has often been described as otherworldly: centered round reverb-drenched guitars, Rabeyrolles’ work thematically touches upon distant reminiscences, unfinished business, frustration and more.

Back in 2019, Rabeyrolles released one EP each season of that calendar year. The end result was four EPS of atmospheric pop and lo-fi written and recorded solo and/or with Sarah Lucide in a Bedroom Pop fashion. That March, the French singer/songwriter and guitarist came up with the idea of recording a song with a group of friends at La Paloma Studio in Nîmes, France, giving the song a different life. Rabeyrolles recruited a backing band of friends that included Drive Blind’s and My Tigerside’s Rémi Saboul, Marvin’s Gregoire Bredel, Carole Fauré, My Favorite Horses’ Jean Alvarez and Le Super Homard’s Laurent Elfassy. The end result is the live version of “Winter One,” a brooding and slow-burning bit of dream pop and shoegaze centered around shimmering guitars, Rabeyrolles’ plaintive vocals and an enormous hook. Sonically, the track — to my ears, at least — is a seamless synthesis of R.E.M. and The Verve.

The live footage was filmed by Naomi Heinrich and Damien Oliveres and catches Rabeyrolles and his collaborators in an intimate, blue-lit setting.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Lucid Express Teams Up with The Bilinda Butchers’ Adam Honingford on Their Most Brooding Snigle to Date

Rising Hong Kong-based indie outfit Lucid Express — Kim (vocals, synths), Andy (guitar), Sky (guitar), and siblings Samuel (bass) and Wai (drums) — can trace their origins back to 2014: the then-teenagers formed the band in the turbulent weeks just prior to the Umbrella Movement, the most recent in a series of tense pro-democracy protests against increasingly brutal state-led suppression in their home region. Amidst the constantly scenery of tear-gassed, bloodied and beaten protestors, politically-targeted arrests and death threats from government officials, the five Hong Kong-based musicians met in a small practice space sun the remote, industrial Kwai Hing neighborhood. 

Despite the ugliness of their sociopolitical moment, the band manages to specialize in an ethereal and shimmering blend of indie pop, dream pop and shoegaze with their practice space being someplace where they could escape their world. “At that time, it felt like we have [sic] a need to hold on to something more beautiful than before. Like close friendships, the band, our creation,” the band’s Kim says in press notes. 

The band’s name can be seen as a relatively modest mission statement describing the band’s intent: their use of the word lucid is in the poetic sense of something bright and radiant. Essentially, Lucid Express operates as the service to take the listener on a journey through their lush, blissful and dreamy sounds. Unsurprisingly, their material manages to carry the mood of their inception: with the band’s members working late-night shifts, their rehearsal and recording schedules found the band playing, writing and recording material between midnight and 4:00AM, and then crashing for a few hours in the studio before going back to work. 

The end result is the band’s highly-anticipated, full-length debut. the 10-song album thematically touches upon being young, being in love and maneuvering through heartache in difficult times. Of course while writing and recording together served as a unifying and soothing presence for the members of the band, their music fell victim to their complicated circumstances: The pervasive uncertainty over Hong Kong’s sociopolitical future created an overwhelming feeling of depression that found its way into the local music scene. Shows were cancelled and releases delayed. And for a time, it just didn’t feel relevant to promote music. 

While there’s much to be fought for at home, the members of the rising indie rock act have recently begun to feel a fresh hope in their work. They’ve felt as though they’ve reached an understanding of their music’s place amongst the world it inhabits — and they’ve decide to release their full-length, self-titled debut through Kanine Records on July 16, 2021. 

So far, the act has received glowing praise from Time Out for their “dreamy live performances” with their debut single “Lime” receiving praise from Drowned In Sound, NME and others. Building upon the growing buzz surrounding them, the Hong Kong shoegazers released the self-titled album’s second single “Wellwave,” a sculptured and lush soundscape centered around Kim’s ethereal vocals, glistening synths, skittering four-on-the-floor and a motorik groove — with the end result being a song that reminded me quite a bit of Lightfoils, Palm Haze and Cocteau Twins but while feeling like a lucid fever dream.

Building up more buzz for the forthcoming album’s release, the album’s third single “Hollowers” finds the Hong Kong-based quartet subtly pushing their sound towards its darkest corners — while also being the album’s only collaborative track: the features The Bilinda Butchers’ Adam Honingford, who contributes his baritone to the track’s chorus. Interestingly, their collaboration can be traced back to when Lucid Express shared a bill on the Hong Kong stop of a Bilinda Butchers tour to the region and as the members of Lucid Express share, they’ve been mutual fans since that show. “From the first time we heard Adam on stage in Hong Kong, we always wanted to ask him to sing on one of our songs,” Kim explains. During the album’s writing sessions, “Hollowers” began to take shape as a song that might offer the perfect opportunity to collaborate.

And although the song features shimmering synth arpeggios, shimmering guitars, the track’s stormy feedback driven chorus give the song its emotional heft, keeping the material grounded in an uncertain reality. Thematically, the song finds its narrator coming to terms with the gnawing realization that even if two people have all the passion of the world, a lack of deeper understanding can leave a relationship with finite time on the clock.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Tape Waves Release an Intimate and Playful Visual for “Invisible Lines”

Charleston, SC-based dream pop duo Tape Waves — Kim and Jarod Weldin — have released three albums through San Diego-based label Bleeding Gold Records, which have garnered comparisons to the likes of Mazzy Star, Cocteau Twins and Best Coast while receiving glowing praise from the likes of SPIN Magazine, who once described the duo’s sound as “wistful, lens-blurred dream pop to soundtrack nostalgia daydreams and sleepy weekend afternoons.” 

The duo’s two most recent albums were also released through 2670 Records in Japan, where they toured to support 2018’s Distant Light.

The South Carolina-based act’s fourth album Bright is slated for a June 4, 2021 release through Emotional Response Records — and the album reportedly finds the duo combining their long-established sun-drenched pop with the influences of My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive and Teenage Fanclub.

Earlier this week, the Chucktown-based duo released “Tired,” a lush and sunny track equally indebted to dream pop and shoegaze that reminded me quite a bit of Slowdive’s gorgeous 2017 self-titled album. Bright’s latest single “Invisible Lines.” centered around shimming acoustic guitar, gently oscillating feedback, padded drumming and Kim Weldin’s plaintive and ethereal vocals, “Invisible Lines” — and as a result, the track is arguably one of the album’s more contemplative yet dreamy tracks, evoking the sensation of daydreaming on a gorgeous late Spring or early Summer afternoon. (Much like today — May 13 — in New York.)

The recently released DIY video for “Invisible Lines” is an intimate yet playful look into the Weldin’s world: we follow the duo as they ride bicycles down the street, head to a local ice cream shop, play with their cat, pull out the album’s that they love and have insisted them, and of course, play the song in their home.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Charleston, SC-based dream pop duo Tape Waves — Kim and Jarod Weldin — have released three albums through San Diego-based label Bleeding Gold Records, which have garnered comparisons to the likes of Mazzy Star, Cocteau Twins and Best Coast while receiving glowing praise from the likes of SPIN Magazine, who once described the duo’s sound as “wistful, lens-blurred dream pop to soundtrack nostalgia daydreams and sleepy weekend afternoons.”

The duo’s two most recent albums were also released through 2670 Records in Japan, where they toured to support 2018’s Distant Light.

The South Carolina-based act’s fourth album Bright is slated for a June 4, 2021 release through Emotional Response Records — and the album reportedly finds the duo combining their long-established sun-drenched pop with the influences of My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive and Teenage Fanclub.

“Tired,” Bright‘s latest single is a lush and sunny track, equally indebted to dream pop and shoegaze, centered around shimmering guitars, cavernous drumming, Kim Weldin’s ethereal vocals and rousingly anthemic hooks. Interestingly, “Tired” reminds me of Slowdive’s gorgeous 2017 self-titled album, complete with a similar sonic depth.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Portland-based indie act CHAD  — founding members Sarah Lane and  Trevor Greely along with Zach Whiton and Alex Widner — can trace its origins to the split up of its founding members’ previous band. And since the release of their debut single, the  Cameron Spies-produced “I Got Time,” the Portland-based quartet have released an EP which established a lush  Beach House-like sound centered around shimmering synths and Lane’s gorgeous vocals.

The rising Portland-based act’s first single of the year — and the follow-up to last year’s Good Talk EP is “Days of Chunder.” Recorded at Rainer, WA– based STackSound Studio with Stephen Berkley Tack, “Days of Chunder” is a lush, synth-driven bit of dream pop, indebted to 80s New Wave featuring dramatic and propulsive drumming paired with Lane’s achingly plaintive vocals and a sinuous bass line. Interestingly, the single, much like their previously released material is inspired by and is reflective of the time we’ve lived in: As the band explains, the song thematically is about how it can feel to have your energy drained by people, who don’t have your best interests at heart.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Rising French Act Pastel Coast Releases a Satirical Send-Up of Love and Heartbreak

Led by their 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), the rising French dream pop act Pastel Coast has received attention both nationally and internationally for developing and honing a melancholic and nostalgia-including sound deeply indebted to the early 90s Manchester scene. 

2019 was an enormous year for the French indie act: their full-length debut Hovercraft landed on Dream Pop Magazine‘s Top 100. Adding to a the growing buzz surrounding them, the band wound up landing a slot at last year’s Inouïs du Printemps de Bourges, which was cancelled as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Continuing upon that momentum, the band has been working on their highly-anticipated sophomore album Sun, which will feature the attention grabbing singles “Rendezvous” and “Dial,” an infectious and summery track, which brought New Order and Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix-era Phoenix to mind, while evoking the swooning euphoria of new love.

The French act’s first single of 2021, “Sunset” is hook-driven and breezy bit of glistening jangle pop that sonically — to my ears, at least — is a carefully crafted synthesis of New Zealand jangle pop and Phoenix. And much like its predecessors, the song focuses on affairs of the heart: in this case, capturing lovelorn folks racing against time and trying to find love before sunset.

Directed by Robin Laroque and Quentin Marinello, the recently released and gorgeously shot video for “Sunset” is a satirical look at love and heartbreak that stars Samya Arrat as a lovelorn woman, who winds up falling for a houseplant. And although initially she’s wildly in love, she gradually gets increasingly annoyed with the one-way nature of her affair.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Hong Kong Shoegazers Lucid Express Release a surreal and Feverish Visual for Shimmering “Wellwave”

Rising Hong Kong-based indie outfit Lucid Express — Kim (vocals, synths), Andy (guitar), Sky (guitar), and siblings Samuel (bass) and Wai (drums) — can trace their origins back to 2014: the then-teenagers formed the band in the turbulent weeks just prior to the Umbrella Movement, the most recent in a series of tense pro-democracy protests against increasingly brutal state-led suppression in their home region. Amidst the constantly scenery of tear-gassed, bloodied and beaten protestors, politically-targeted arrests and death threats from government officials, the five Hong Kong-based musicians met in a small practice space sun the remote, industrial Kwai Hing neighborhood.

Despite the ugliness of their sociopolitical moment, the band manages to specialize in an ethereal and shimmering blend of indie pop, dream pop and shoegaze with their practice space being someplace where they could escape their world. “At that time, it felt like we have [sic] a need to hold on to something more beautiful than before. Like close friendships, the band, our creation,” the band’s Kim says in press notes.

The band’s name can be seen as a relatively modest mission statement describing the band’s intent: their use of the word lucid is in the poetic sense of something bright and radiant. Essentially, Lucid Express operates as the service to take the listener on a journey through their lush, blissful and dreamy sounds. Unsurprisingly, their material manages to carry the mood of their inception: with the band’s members working late-night shifts, their rehearsal and recording schedules found the band playing, writing and recording material between midnight and 4:00AM, and then crashing for a few hours in the studio before going back to work.

The end result is the band’s highly-anticipated, full-length debut. the 10-song album thematically touches upon being young, being in love and maneuvering through heartache in difficult times. Of course while writing and recording together served as a unifying and soothing presence for the members of the band, their music fell victim to their complicated circumstances: The pervasive uncertainty over Hong Kong’s sociopolitical future created an overwhelming feeling of depression that found its way into the local music scene. Shows were cancelled and releases delayed. And for a time, it just didn’t feel relevant to promote music.

While there’s much to be fought for at home, the members of the rising indie rock act have recently begun to feel a fresh hope in their work. They’ve felt as though they’ve reached an understanding of their music’s place amongst the world it inhabits — and they’ve decide to release their full-length debut through Kanine Records on July 16, 2021.

So far, the act has received glowing praise from Time Out for their “dreamy live performances” and their debut single “Lime” was praised by Drowned In Sound, NME and others. Building upon the growing buzz surrounding them, the Hong Kong shoegazers latest single “Wellwave” is a sculptured and lush soundscape centered around Kim’s ethereal vocals, glistening synths, skittering four-on-the floor and a motorik groove. Sonically, the track may remind listeners of the likes of Lightfoils, Palm Haze and Cocteau Twins but while feeling like a lucid fever dream.

The recently released video will bring 120 Minutes-era MTV to mind with the band playing in a room full of old, cathode ray TVs, footage shot with a grainy VHS-like quality, split with footage of the band walking around in an equally surreal backdrop of flying fish. It’s appropriately trippy and dream-like.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Influenced by The Cure, Cocteau Twins and Joy Division and others, the rising Swiss-American shoegaze duo The Churchhill Garden — currently, founding member Andy Jossi (guitar) and Whimsical‘s Krissy Vanderwoude (vocals) — was originally founded as a solo recording project back in 2010 as a way for Jossi to plug into his emotions and to focus on writing music without any pressure. 

As the story goes, a friend had showed Jossi how to use GarageBand, which he eventually used for some of his earliest recordings. The Swiss guitarist was determined to become a better guitarist and he learned from his mistakes, which helped his musicianship and songwriting flourish and grow. 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. And although Jossi enjoyed writing the material he had posted on MySpace, he felt that i was missing something vitally important — 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 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.

Jossi followed “Noisy Butterfly” with more collaborations with international vocalists including Craig Douglas (USA), Alistair Douglas (AUS) and Hideka (Japan). Back in 2016, Jossi first crossed paths with Whimsical’s Krissy Vanderwoude. Vanderwoude commented on Jossi’s “Sleepless” on Facebook, letting him know that she loved his music, had been a big fan and was deeply moved by the emotionality of his work. Her message went on to say that she could “hear his heart” through his work and that his work resonated deeply with her.

As it turned out, Vanderwoude and Jossi had a mutual friend, Kev Cleary, who chimed in on the comment thread that the two should work on a song together. The duo were very excited about the idea but didn’t quite know what to expect. Jossi sent Vanderwoude files for a couple of different instrumental pieces he had written and recorded, and encouraged her to choose which one she wanted to work on. Interestingly, the Whimsical frontwoman gravitated to one of the tracks in particular and remembers being moved to tears when she first heard it. The end result became their first song together “The Same Sky.”

“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. Of course, while Vanderwoude is a permanent fixture in The Churchhill Garden universe, Jossi has continued collaborated with other vocalists, including Seashine’s Demi Haynes and Fables‘ and Swirl’s Ben Aylward. 

Churchhill Gardens songs were coming together quickly with a new single being released every few months. With every new release, they found their fanbase steadily growing. And although, they were releasing material through Bandcamp and other DSPs, a growing number of people expressed interest in owning a physical copy of the songs — and they started asking if there would ever be an actual Churchhill Garden album. 

Last year, the Swiss-American duo released their full-length debut, a double LP album Heart and Soul. Since the release of Heart and Soul, the duo have been working on and releasing new material including “Fade Away,” which was released earlier this year. Centered around layers of reverb-drenched, shimmering guitars, Vanderwoude’s plaintive and ethereal vocals and soaring hooks “Fade Away” to my ears at least, reminds me quite a bit of Souvlaki-era Slowdive, So Tonight That I May See-era Mazzy Star, compete with a similar aching yearning at its core.

Clocking in at a little over seven minutes, the Swiss-American collaboration’s latest single “Lonely” is a slow-burning and aching track, featuring shimmering and reverb soaked guitars paired with a soaring hook and Vanderwoude’s ethereal vocals. And while sonically continuing on in a similar vein as its immediate predecessor with the song bringing the likes of Slowdive, Mazzy Star and even Cocteau Twins to mind, the song as the duo’s Krissy Vanderwoude explains is “lyrically a bit of a heartbreaker for anyone who knows what it feels like to have loved and lost.”