Category: Shoegaze

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

With the release of 2019’s Mouth Full of You EP, rising Malmö-based shoegazer outfit and JOVM mainstays Spunsugar — Elin Ramstedt, Cordelia Moreau, and Felix Sjöström — quickly established a unique, genre-blurring take on shogaze, which meshed elements of industrial electronica, post-punk, noise rock and dream pop. Mouth Full of You earned the band international attention, with the EP receiving airplay from BBC 6 Music‘s Steve Lamacq.

2020 saw the release of their critically applauded, Joakim Lindberg-produced full-length debut Drive-Through Chapel, an album that saw the Malmö-based outfit actively seeking to emulate the sounds of post punk and shoegaze pioneers like Cocteau Twins, Slowdive, and others — but while simultaneously crafting some of their hardest hitting material to date.

2021 saw the release of Things That I Confuse EP, an effort that saw the band still focusing on an overarching post-punk and dream pop aesthetic, while taking an opportunity to spread their creative wings to craft a broader and diverse batch of material.

The Swedish shoegazers highly anticipated sophomore album A Hole Forever is slated for a November 17, 2023 release through Adrian Recordings. Thematically, the album will further cement the band’s fearlessness when it comes to discussing heavy topics with the album touching on the realities of coming to terms with internal shame, getting older and confessing dark secrets with the mindset that life is a slow death.

A Hole Forever’s latest single “It Never Gave Me Anything” is built around classic and beloved shoegaze elements — propulsive and grimy bass lines, thunderous bass lines and hazy reverb-drenched guitars. Those beloved elements are paired with a seamless meshing of electronic, post-punk and pop components that create a subtle yet very modern touch. But under that hazy instrumental is a darker, menacing story about a person’s disturbing relationship with themselves. The result is a song that’s emotionally ambivalent and uneasily uncertain while being unvarnished and deeply probing.

“‘It Never Gave Me Anything’ describes a relationship between a person and an unwanted side of themselves,” the band explains. “This side is so unlike how they want to be that they treat them as a separate entity, maybe even a person. It has always been there, ruining moments, talking to them and making sure that they never forget that it is present. A seemingly never ending list of things this ‘it’ is responsible for is recited over a pulsating beat and bass riff that is both ominous and groovy at the same time. This paired with a wall of distorted guitars that show up in the bridges and choruses, creates a song that makes you question what mood the song leaves you with. As is typical of the band, the song plays with what emotion, as well as which genre, it evokes.”



Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Chicago’s Precocious Neophyte Shares “120 Minutes”-era MTV-like “My Electronic Idol”

South Korean-born, Chicago-based singer/songwriter and musician Jeehye Ham is the creative mastermind behind the shoegaze/dream pop project Precocious Neophyte. Ham first gained recognition in the South Korean indie scene and elsewhere as the frontperson and guitarist of post-rock shoegaze outfit Vidulgi OoyoO and as the guitarist of noise/psychedelic outfit JuckJuck Grunzie.

Ham relocated to Chicago, where she began experimenting with home recording, eventually releasing an EP of intimate, acoustic compositions under the moniker Sophysoon.

With her Precocious Neophyte debut, Home in the Desert, Ham fully embraces the solitary action, lo-fi aesthetics and DIY ethos of home recording to create a fuzzier and more expansive sound, inspired by the bands she grew up with back in Korea. Written and recorded between 2021-2022, the album’s material developed out of her attempts to envision how skeletal guitar lines might sound when performed at ear-splitting volumes by a full band. “I never expected that I would make loud music again, but one day I took my guitar out and started jamming on my own,” the South Korean-born, Chicago-based artist explains.

Last summer, Ham began rehearsals with Daniel Lyons (drums), Brendan Romanowski (guitar) and Ethan Waddell (bass.) That lineup has been playing shows across the Chicago area since last November.

Thematically, the album negotiates the impossible longings for perpetual spaces and times of home. Home in the Desert‘s latest single “My Electronic Idol” offers a taste of what to expect from the album’s overall sound with Ham’s plaintive and ethereal vocals and soaring melodies are paired with lush layers of fuzzy, distorted guitars and a propulsive backbeat. The result is a song that sounds indebted to 120 Minutes-era MTV shoegaze — i.e., Slowdive, Cocteau Twins, Lush, and others,

Fittingly, the accompanying video features the members of the band performing the song features the members of the band performing the song in a studio lit with some trippy lighting. Footage of Chicago — both walking in the loop and driving around, followed by the band hanging out in a local park are superimposed on each other to hallucinogenic effect.

Graveface Records remastered the original, digital release for a September 1, 2023 vinyl release. Shoegazers, be on the lookout!

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Slowdive Shares Bruising “the slab”

Slowdive — co-founders  Neil Halstead (vocals, guitar) and Rachel Goswell along with Nick Chaplin (bass), Christian Savill (guitar) and Simon Scott (drums) — will be releasing their highly-anticipated fifth album everything is alive on September 1, 2023 through Dead Oceans. everything is alive is the shoegaze pioneers’ first album in over six years, and the material reportedly sees the British outfit finding ever more contours of its immersive, elemental sound. Individually, each of the album’s songs contain the duality of a familiar internal language mixed with the exaltation of new beginnings.

The record began with the band’s Halstead in the role of writer and producer, working on demos at home. Experimenting with modular synths, Halstead originally conceived everything is alive as a “more minimal electronic record.” The band’s collective decision-making ultimately saw them drawing back to their signature reverb-drenched guitar sound — but the synths seeped their way into the compositions. “As a band, when we’re all happy with it, that tends to be the stronger material. We’ve always come from slightly different directions, and the best bits are where we all meet in the middle.” Halstead says. “Slowdive is very much the sum of its parts,” Goswell adds. “Something unquantifiable happens when the five of us come together in a room.”

The album was recorded over a couple of years, starting in the fall of 2020 at Courtyard Studio, where they’ve historically recorded. Sessions moved to Oxfordshire, and then the Wolds of Lincolnshire and then to Halstead’s Cornish studio. Early last year, the band enlisted Shawn Everett to mix six of the album’s eight tracks. 

Because of their deep and lengthy history, there’s a palpable familial energy to the band — and fittingly to to the album: The album is dedicated to Goswell’s mother and Scott’s father, who both died in 2020. “There were some profound shifts for some of us personally,” Goswell says. Life’s profound shifts and uneasy crossroads are often reflected in the many-layered emotional tenor of their music. And while everything is alive is informed by some of life’s heaviest experiences, the material sees the band poised, wizened and pitching themselves to hope. Sure, there’s sadness, but there’s gratitude and uplift, coming from the acknowledgement that life is complicated yet profoundly beautiful in itself. 

Thematically, the album is in many ways an exploration into the shimmering nature of live and the universal touch points within it. Sonically, the album reportedly sees the acclaimed British outfit boldly pushing their sound towards the future with the material touching upon the psychedelic soundscapes they’ve long been known for but with 80s electronic elements, and John Cale-inspired journeys.

So far, I’ve written about two of the album’s singles:

  • “kisses,” a breathtakingly gorgeous song, which struck me as being a sort of gentle refinement of the classics enveloping Slowdive sound that fans have long adored: reverb-drenched guitar textures,. Goswell’s and Halstead’s uncannily precise, yearning harmonies, soaring hooks and choruses and a gently driving groove — with featuring an emphasis on atmospheric synths. The result is a song that — for me, at least — evokes a waking dream full of intertwined yearning, nostalgia and hope.

  • “skin in the game,” a slow-burning, forlorn and smudged song built around Halstead’s aching vocal radiating outward from hazy and distorted guitars paired with a narcotic and syrupy rhythm. Much like its immediate predecessor, the song evokes a woozily heartbreaking nostalgia, mixed with regret., unease and uncertainty.

The album’s third and latest single, album closer “the slab” is built around skittering and thunderous percussion, layers of reverb-drenched guitar fuzz, menacing synths. Halstead’s plaintive delivery is buried in the mix, seemingly desperate to burst out from its confines. It’s one of the heaviest songs on the album that I’ve heard so far — and arguably one of the heaviest songs they’ve written or recorded ins some time.

“This is the heaviest track on the record and as the name suggests we wanted it to feel like a big slab of music,” Slowdive’s Neil Halstead explains. “We wanted it to feel very dense.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: London’s SANDS Returns with Icy and Brooding “When It Starts to Rain”

Andrew Sands is a London-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and creative mastermind behind rising shoegaze project SANDS. Influenced by Neil Young, David Bowie, The Smiths, David Lynch, Talk Talk, Echo and the Bunnymen and a long list of others, Sands’ own music sees him seamlessly blending rock, psych rock and elements of pop. 

Since starting the project back in 2017, the London-based artist has released a handful of EPs and singles, including 2017’s S/T EP and “Let’s Run”/”Echoes,” 2018’s Waves Calling EP and “Tomorrow’s Gone”/”Burning Man” and 2019’s Nothing Can Go Wrong EP.

Sands’ highly-anticipated full-length debut, The World’s So Cruel is slated for an October 13, 2023. The album’s first single “Transmission” was written and produced at several London studio locations, including Hackney, South Bermondsey and his apartment. Built around glistening synths, buzzing guitar riffs, a relentlessly propulsive rhythm, a rousingly anthemic series of hooks and choruses paired with Sands’ plaintive delivery, the high energy “Transmission” manages to bring The Stone Roses and the Madchester sound to mind — but with a subtly modern take.

“Transmission” is inspired by the busy and eclectic Northeast London neighborhood that Sands once lived in. The lyrics capture the restless energy and activity of the neighborhood in a way that feels very familiar to me as a native New Yorker. And it does so in a way that feels a bit like a contented sigh of being home, and of awe of everything going on around you.

The World’s So Cruel‘s second and latest single is the brooding and icy “When It Stars to Rain.” Built around reverb-drenched guitars, skittering and swaggering boom bap-like drum patterns, a glitchy bridge paired with a scorching solo, “When It Starts to Rain” is a slick Stone Roses-like vehicle for the London-based artist’s plaintive vocal and his penchant for crafting remarkably catchy hooks and choruses. Sonically, the new single evokes the sense of daydreaming your way through busy, crowded streets, completely immersed in your thoughts and memories, as though you were in a hallucinatory fever dream of the present and your nostalgia.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Slowdive Shares Woozy and Slow-Burning “skin in the game”

Deriving their name from a dream that that their co-founder Neil Halstead (vocals, guitar) had once had, and “Slowdive,” a single written and recorded by co-founder Rachel Goswell’s (vocals, guitars) favorite band, Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Reading, Berkshire, UK-based shoegazer band Slowdive, which is currently comprised of its co-founders Halstead and Goswell, along with Nick Chaplin (bass), Christian Savill (guitar) and Simon Scott (drums) can trace its origins to when its co-founders, childhood friends started the band in 1989.

According to both Halstead and Goswell, their initial demos were highly derivative My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth-based songs that they recorded for fun, until the the addition of Christian Savill, a former member of Eternal joined the band. “We advertised for a female guitars, but only Christian replied. He writes a sweet letter though, he said he’d wear a dress if necessary,” the members of the band recall. Their second official demo as a band was a leap forward for the band — while their previous demo found the band heading towards noisy No Wave and experimentalism, “Avalyn,” was a gentle and steady flow of nearly white noise; in fact, the demo caught the attention of fellow Reading-based act Swervedriver, who helped bring the band on to their label Creation Records. Interestingly, the demo single eventually became the band’s debut single as the band couldn’t recreate the same atmosphere and sound in a professional studio.

Once they signed to Creation Records, the band went through the first of a series of lineup changes as their original drummer Adrian Sell left the band to go back to school. As the members of Slowdive recall, their original drummer didn’t quite fit in — he didn’t share the same aims and tastes of the others, and it made touring uncomfortable. He was first replaced by Neil Carter, who played on the Morningrise EP before being replaced by Simon Scott, a former member of Charlottes, who joined the band and played with them for about four years before leaving to pursue a career in jazz. Ian McCutcheon joined the band before the band’s self-financed 1994 North American tour, a tour they had to pay for themselves, as their American distributor SBK Records had gone out of business.

Throughout their first run together, Slowdive released three full-length albums 1991’s Just for a Day, 1993’s Souvlaki and 1995’s Pygmalion and a number of EPs,  and initially, the band saw quite a bit of commercial and critical success: 1990’s self-titled EP, 1991’s Morningrise EP and Holding Our Breath EP were released to critical praise from the likes of NME, Melody Maker, and others — with Holding Our Breath landing at #52 on the UK Albums Charts, thanks in part to the commercial success of UK Indie Chart topping single “Catch the Breeze.”

Work on Slowdive’s full-length debut began shortly after the band’s primary songwriting Halstead convinced Creation Records label head Alan McGee that the band had enough songs written for an album; however, they didn’t. They had to hurriedly write songs the studio — experimentation with marijuana and sounds occurred during the music, with lyrical inspiration coming from the abstract nature of the music. As Halstead recalls “[We] went into a studio for six weeks and had no songs at the start and the end we had an album.” The result was their full-length debut Just for a Day was released to praise from NME and landed in the Top 10 of the UK Indie Charts; however, the band had the misfortune of releasing their full-length debut when the British music press had started to backlash against shoegaze — with a number of critics panning the album. The backlash got even worse when critics began re-evaluating the genre after the release of My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless later that year. Consider the time period:  Massive Attack‘s Blue Lines was released in April; Pearl Jam’s Ten and Metallica‘s Black Album were released that August; Nirvana‘s Nevermind was released that September; Primal Scream‘s Screamadelica,Soundgarden‘s Badmotorfinger and A Tribe Called Quest‘s Low End Theory were released about a week after Nevermind; U2‘s Achtung Baby was released a few weeks after Loveless. While critics can be shortsighted and biased, there was one thing that was obvious — a seismic shift in music was occurring. Let’s not forget to mention Ice Cube’s Death Certificate, Public Enemy‘s Apocalypse 91: The Enemy Strikes Black, Cypress Hill‘s eponymous debut, De La Soul’s De La Soul Is Dead were also released that year, as well. Yes, 1991 was an insane year for music — and  for me, many of those albums changed the course of my music listening life. (As for the shortsightedness of music critics, Slowdive has become one of the more influential acts of their day with Souvlaki being considered a classic of the genre — but I’m jumping ahead.)

In early 1992, the band were touring to support Blue Day, a re-release of their early EP material and in a rather busy year, they were also writing songs for their sophomore album. But as the band noted the negative coverage they had received in the press had began to affected their songwriting to the point that they were increasingly self-conscious and worried about how their material would be received. They wrote, recorded and re-recorded 40 songs that Creation Records’ McGee loathed. The band scrapped the album and started over. Interestingly, the band wrote to Brian Eno and requested that he produce their sophomore album; however, Eno told them that while he liked their music, he wanted to collaborate, not produce. Halstead later called the recording sessions “one of the most surreal, stoned experiences of [his] life.” But the end result was two songs which appeared on the album “Sing,” a co-write with Eno and “Here She Comes,” which Eno contributes keys.

Creation Records wanted a much more commercial sounding album. Halstead agreed and at one point, he suddenly left, seeking seclusion a Welsh cottage while the remaining members of the band were left in a recording studio waiting for Halstead to return.When Halstead returned, he had some new music, including “Dagger” and “40 Days.”  Souvlaki, which derives its name from a Jerky Boys skit, was released in 1993 to critical panning. Much to their misfortune, Suede released their self-titled debut, which was a critical and commercial success, and an album generally credited as beginning the Brit pop movement.

With increasing issues between their label and distributor, who had been delaying the release of Souvlaki and an EP, the band went through several more lineup changes as they released Pygmalion. The band was then dropped by the their label, and the band’s founding duo along with Ian McCutcheon formed Mojave 3. “After that (Pygmalion), Slowdive didn’t so much split as take a shift in direction, one that a couple of the other members weren’t comfortable with. It didn’t seem right to carry on with the same name, we needed to get a fresh start and all the pieces fell into place for us to get one,” the band’s Goswell explains in their bio.

Since then Scott went on to form Televise, an act that added electronics to the ambient, shoegazer sound. He  also joined Lowgold in 1999 before releasing solo albums through 12k, Miasmas, Sonic Pieces and Kompakt Records before cowriting and performing with Seattle’s The Sight Below. Savill went on to form Monster Movie, a dream pop act with former Eternal bandmate Sean Hewson that specializes in an early Slowdive-like sound. Along with Mojave 3, Halstead and Goswell have released solo albums with Halstead forming side project Black Hearted Brother in 2012 while Goswell joined supergroup Minor Victories in 2015.

In 2014, the members of Slowdive reunited to play dates across the global festival curious and it included stops at that year’s Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona, Spain and Porto, Portugal, Electric Picnic Festival, FYF Fest, Fortress Festival, Wave-Gotik-Treffen, Roskilde, Radar Festival and Off Festival, which they promptly followed up with a 20 date North American tour.

The band’s fourth album, 2017’s self-titled album was their first new batch of material in 22 years, and they supported the album with a stop at the dearly departed House of Vans.

The shoegaze pioneers’ fifth album everything is alive is slated for a September 1, 2023 release through Dead Oceans. The highly-anticipated everything is alive is their first album in over six years, and the material reportedly sees the British outfit finding ever more contours of its immersive, elemental sound. The songs themselves contain the duality of a familiar internal language mixed with the exaltation of new beginnings.

The record began with the band’s Halstead in the role of writer and producer, working on demos at home. Experimenting with modular synths, Halstead originally conceived everything is alive as a “more minimal electronic record.” The band’s collective decision-making ultimately saw them drawing back to their signature reverb-drenched guitar sound — but the synths seeped their way into the compositions. “As a band, when we’re all happy with it, that tends to be the stronger material. We’ve always come from slightly different directions, and the best bits are where we all meet in the middle.” Halstead says. “Slowdive is very much the sum of its parts,” Goswell adds. “Something unquantifiable happens when the five of us come together in a room.”

The album was recorded over a couple of years, starting in the fall of 2020 at Courtyard Studio, where they’ve historically recorded. Sessions moved to Oxfordshire, and then the Wolds of Lincolnshire and then to Halstead’s Cornish studio. Early last year, the band enlisted Shawn Everett to mix six of the album’s eight tracks. 
 

Because of their deep and lengthy history, there’s a palpable familial energy to the band — and fittingly to to the album: The album is dedicated to Goswell’s mother and Scott’s father, who both died in 2020. “There were some profound shifts for some of us personally,” Goswell says. Life’s profound shifts and uneasy crossroads are often reflected in the many-layered emotional tenor of their music. And while everything is aliveis informed by some of life’s heaviest experiences, the material sees the band poised, wizened and pitching themselves to hope. Sure, there’s sadness, but there’s gratitude and uplift, coming from the acknowledgement that life is complicated yet profoundly beautiful in itself. 

Thematically, the album is in many ways an exploration into the shimmering nature of live and the universal touch points within it. Sonically, the album reportedly sees the acclaimed British outfit boldly pushing their sound towards the future with the material touching upon the psychedelic soundscapes they’ve long been known for with 80s electronic elements, and John Cale-inspired journeys.

Last month, I wrote about the breathtakingly gorgeous “kisses,” which struck me as being a sort of gentle refining of the classic, enveloping Slowdive sound that I’ve long adored: reverb-drenched guitar textures, Goswell’s and Halstead’s uncannily precise, yearning harmonies, soaring hooks and choruses and a gently driving groove — but while featuring an emphasis on atmospheric synths. The result is a song that — for me, at least — evokes a waking dream full of yearning, nostalgia and hope.

everything is alive’s second and latest single “skin in the game” is a slow-burning, forlorn and smudged song built around Halstead’s aching vocal radiating outward from hazy and distorted guitars paired with a narcotic and syrupy rhythm. Much like its immediate predecessor, the song evokes a woozily heartbreaking nostalgia, mixed with regret., unease and uncertainty.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: SANDS Shares Buoyant and Energetic “Transmission”

Andrew Sands is a London-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and creative mastermind behind rising shoegaze project SANDS. Influenced by Neil Young, David Bowie, The Smiths, David Lynch, Talk Talk, Echo and the Bunnymen and a long list of others, Sands’ own music sees him seamlessly blending rock, psych rock and elements of pop.

Since starting the project back in 2017, the London-based artist has released a handful of EPs and singles, including 2017’s S/T EP and “Let’s Run”/”Echoes,” 2018’s Waves Calling EP and “Tomorrow’s Gone”/”Burning Man” and 2019’s Nothing Can Go Wrong EP.

Sands’ highly-anticipated full-length debut, The World’s So Cruel is slated for an October 13, 2023. The album’s first single “Transmission” was written and produced at several London studio locations, including Hackney, South Bermondsey and his apartment. Built around glistening synths, buzzing guitar riffs, a relentlessly propulsive rhythm, a rousingly anthemic series of hooks and choruses paired with Sands’ plaintive delivery, the high energy “Transmission” manages to bring The Stone Roses and the Madchester sound to mind — but with a subtly modern take.

“Transmission” is inspired by the busy and eclectic Northeast London neighborhood that Sands once lived in. The lyrics capture the restless energy and activity of the neighborhood in a way that feels very familiar to me as a native New Yorker. And it does so in a way that feels a bit like a contented sigh of being home, and of awe of everything going on around you.

The lyric video is shot at a Northeast London market and captures some of that thrumming activity from a seemingly endless array of people coming and going, of money and goods changing hands.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Atlanta’s Kid Fears Shares Gorgeous and Meditative “How Long Are We Here”

Atlanta-based shoegazers Kid Fears — founding member Rose Ewing, along with Emma Shaw, Micheal Whelan and Ben Ewing — evolved out of Ewing’s solo songwriting project. Ewing recruited her bandmates to help her create a lush soundscape that draws from Low, My Bloody Valentine, Grouper, Midwife and Gia Margaret among others, and to play their first live shows in the Atlanta area back in 2021.

Kid Fears’ sophomore album Undying Love is slated for a June 28, 2023 release. The album’s material reportedly approach the elusive human truths that lie just outside the scope of understanding. Ewing’s lyrics are rooted in a moving honesty and gentleness, while weaving together everything from ineffable grief to quiet encounters with the sublime.

Undying Love‘s latest single, the slow-burning “How Long Are We Here” is built around swirling A Storm in Heaven-like guitar textures, Ewing’s achingly tender delivery describing the devastation of a sudden breakup — or a relationship on its last legs — with an unerringly precise psychological detail. Most of us have been here before, and because of that, it should fill you with the uneasy and painful memories of loss, confusion and uncertainty that always comes about as a result.

“This song was really fun to record. I feel like it really solidified our move into a distorted, shoegaze direction,” Kid Fears’ Rose Ewing says. “I remember I recorded the demo and Ben Ewing got home from work and listened and then immediately added the slide guitar and we were really excited and energized because it felt like we were stepping into a new territory. Then bringing it to the studio and having Ben Etter bring it into a high-fi zone was thrilling.”
 

Shot on what appears to be Super 8mm film, the video follows the Atlanta-based shoegazers while on the road, driving up and down Interstate 95 — but it captures the sense of boredom, excitement, hijinks and inside jokes within a band as they’re touring.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Drab Majesty Shares Lush Meditation on Time “The Skin and The Glove”

Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist Andrew Clinco, also known for his work drumming in Marriages founded Drab Majesty back in 2011 as a way to create music in which he recorded every instrument himself. For the project, Clinco created the androgynous character Deb Demure. Alex Nicolaou, a.k.a. Mona D (keys, vocals) joined the project in 2016. 

Since signing to Dais Records, the Los Angeles-based duo have released three albums, 2015’s Careless, 2017’s The Demonstration, 2019’s Modern Mirror, which saw the project combining androgynous aesthetics and commanding vocals with futuristic and occult lyrics, to create a style and sound that the band’s Demure refers to as “tragic wave.” 

Drab Majesty’s forthcoming EP, An Object in Motion is slated for an August 25, 2023 release through Dais Records. Clocking in at 32 minutes, the release actually sits somewhere between an EP and a mini-album, and the effort reportedly marks a new chapter in the project’s legacy story: Written during a 2021 retreat to the remote costal Oregon town of Yachats, the band’s Deb Demure leaned into the neo-psychedelic resonance of a uniquely bowl-shaped 12-string Ovation acoustic/electric guitar. After early morning hikes in the rain, Demure would record ambient guitar experiments the rest of the day, tapping into “flow states,” in which he would let the sound lead the way. Those sessions were then refined or recreated and then later elevated with contributions from Slowdive‘s Rachel Goswell, Beck’s, M83‘s and Air’s Justin Meldal-Johnsen, and Uniform’s Ben Greenberg. Fittingly, the EP reportedly holds true to its title, as it captures Demure and Drab Majesty in a transitional state, and evolving while showcasing a series of potential futures from the project. 

Last month, I wrote about An Object in Motion‘s first single “Vanity” featured a very rare guest spot from Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell. Built around shimmering, reverb-drenched 12 string guitar, gated reverb-soaked drum patterns, Demure’s plaintive commanding baritone paired with soaring hooks. Goswell contributes her imitably expressive vocal, which seamlessly intertwines with Demure’s vocal in an uncannily gorgeous harmony. To my ears, sonically, “Vanity” seems like a synthesis of Lita Ford and Ozzy Osbourne‘s “Close My Eyes Forever,” Sisters of Mercy, Disintegration-era The Cure and Goswell’s work with Slowdive — or in other words, something that will warm the cold hearts of any goth. 

An Object in Motion‘s second and latest single “The Skin and The Glove” is a lush, Smiths-meets-Slowdive/RIDE-like song built around reverb-soaked, shimmering 12 string guitar, a driving groove paired with the Los Angeles-based duo’s uncannily unerring knack for gorgeous harmonies and catchy hooks. But under the lush soundscapes is a song that thematically touches upon the endless march of time, and our inevitable mortality.

Inspired by the song’s lyrics, the accompanying video for “The Skin and The Glove,” was shot primarily on Super 8mm film while the band was on tour, and includes sequences in Los Angeles, Palm Springs, Switzerland, France, Italy, Hungary, Mexico, Vancouver, and Tasmania. Digital video footage was shot in Los Angeles. The duo decided that film was the medium that most accurately reflects the way that memories seem sewn together by fragments of imagery.

The video’s flashing moments in time that seem naturally edited seem naturally edited in some part by simply moving through moments, holding down the trigger and choosing to remember certain aspects of a day, a trip or an extended period of travel. Throughout, there’s the attempt to compress a long passage of time and the effort that goes into playing and touring in a band and to present it as the mind does; a tapestry of reflection and memory that seems stitched together randomly. And with that sort of ephemeral granularity, the potential to misremember — and to mythologize.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Italian Shoegazers We Melt Chocolate Shares Stormy “No Meaning Man”

Formed back in 2014, Florence-based shoegazers We Melt Chocolate over the course of a handful of releases — a self released demo and EP, followed by 2019’s self-titled, full-length debut — have firmly cemented a noisy take and approach that equally draws influence from My Bloody Valentine, Lush, and even The Sugarcubes.

The Italian shoegazers’ highly-anticipated and long-awaited sophomore album is slated for release in October. But in the meantime, the band’s first bit of new material in four years, “No Meaning Man” alternates between dreamy and stormy passages built around a relentless motorik groove, layers of distorted and fuzzy guitar textures, shimmering synths, thunderous drumming paired with reverb-soaked vocals buried within the oceanic mix.

The members of We Melt Chocolate explain that when the pandemic ended, that they were finally able to attempt to complete some material that was unfinished before everything went to a screeching halt. Their latest single was a part of that collection of material. “No Meaning Man” went through several different iterations before its current version. “The sound tries to find a point of encounter between noise moments and more ethereal moments, a contrast that has always fascinated us.”

Lyrically, the song speaks speaks of disillusionment of others — particularly with those superficial people, who base their lives on appearances and conceal their vapidity and lack empathy towards others. “They don’t have the courage to be themselves and exist honestly, but rather live their live on lies,” the band says.

The accompanying video sees the band performing the song in an empty club with a trippy light display.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: The Library is on Fire Shares a Sludgy Ripper

Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and musician Steve Five took his name from a poem by French wartime poet René Char, while working at Strand Bookstore. He also had weekly meetings over coffee with Television‘s Tom Verlaine. Five started The Library is on Fire back in 2007, and the band quickly established a sound that combined the melodies of Guided by Voices and the wall of sound guitar riffage of Dinosaur, Jr. and others.

The Library is on Fire quickly became a NYC scene mainstay and developed a reputation for playing chaotic live shows at Glasslands and Death by Audio. After several releases including 2010’s Magic Windows, Magic Nights, the band went on hiatus on 2014 with members going on to play in a number of other notable projects including Oberhofer, Public Access TV and more.

Released earlier this year, “Back Pocket” is the first single from the Brooklyn-based outfit in over nine years. Built around distortion-pedaled power chords, thunderous and propulsive drumming, dreamy melodies and enormous hooks and choruses, “Back Pocket” is a sludgy, shoegazer-like ripper that brings A Place to Bury Strangers and others to mind.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Slowdive Shares Breathtakingly Gorgeous “kisses”

Deriving their name from a dream that that their co-founder Neil Halstead (vocals, guitar) had once had, and “Slowdive,” a single written and recorded by co-founder Rachel Goswell’s (vocals, guitars) favorite band, Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Reading, Berkshire, UK-based shoegazer band Slowdive, which is currently comprised of its co-founders Halstead and Goswell, along with Nick Chaplin (bass), Christian Savill (guitar) and Simon Scott (drums) can trace its origins to when its co-founders, childhood friends started the band in 1989.

According to both Halstead and Goswell, their initial demos were highly derivative My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth-based songs that they recorded for fun, until the the addition of Christian Savill, a former member of Eternal joined the band. “We advertised for a female guitars, but only Christian replied. He writes a sweet letter though, he said he’d wear a dress if necessary,” the members of the band recall. Their second official demo as a band was a leap forward for the band — while their previous demo found the band heading towards noisy No Wave and experimentalism, “Avalyn,” was a gentle and steady flow of nearly white noise; in fact, the demo caught the attention of fellow Reading-based act Swervedriver, who helped bring the band on to their label Creation Records. Interestingly, the demo single eventually became the band’s debut single as the band couldn’t recreate the same atmosphere and sound in a professional studio.

Once they signed to Creation Records, the band went through the first of a series of lineup changes as their original drummer Adrian Sell left the band to go back to school. As the members of Slowdive recall, their original drummer didn’t quite fit in — he didn’t share the same aims and tastes of the others, and it made touring uncomfortable. He was first replaced by Neil Carter, who played on the Morningrise EP before being replaced by Simon Scott, a former member of Charlottes, who joined the band and played with them for about four years before leaving to pursue a career in jazz. Ian McCutcheon joined the band before the band’s self-financed 1994 North American tour, a tour they had to pay for themselves, as their American distributor SBK Records had gone out of business.

Throughout their first run together, Slowdive released three full-length albums 1991’s Just for a Day, 1993’s Souvlaki and 1995’s Pygmalion and a number of EPs,  and initially, the band saw quite a bit of commercial and critical success: 1990’s self-titled EP, 1991’s Morningrise EP and Holding Our Breath EP were released to critical praise from the likes of NME, Melody Maker, and others — with Holding Our Breath landing at #52 on the UK Albums Charts, thanks in part to the commercial success of UK Indie Chart topping single “Catch the Breeze.”

Work on Slowdive’s full-length debut began shortly after the band’s primary songwriting Halstead convinced Creation Records label head Alan McGee that the band had enough songs written for an album; however, they didn’t. They had to hurriedly write songs the studio — experimentation with marijuana and sounds occurred during the music, with lyrical inspiration coming from the abstract nature of the music. As Halstead recalls “[We] went into a studio for six weeks and had no songs at the start and the end we had an album.” The result was their full-length debut Just for a Day was released to praise from NME and landed in the Top 10 of the UK Indie Charts; however, the band had the misfortune of releasing their full-length debut when the British music press had started to backlash against shoegaze — with a number of critics panning the album. The backlash got even worse when critics began re-evaluating the genre after the release of My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless later that year. Consider the time period:  Massive Attack‘s Blue Lines was released in April; Pearl Jam’s Ten and Metallica‘s Black Album were released that August; Nirvana‘s Nevermind was released that September; Primal Scream‘s Screamadelica, Soundgarden‘s Badmotorfinger and A Tribe Called Quest‘s Low End Theory were released about a week after Nevermind; U2‘s Achtung Baby was released a few weeks after Loveless. While critics can be shortsighted and biased, there was one thing that was obvious — a seismic shift in music was occurring. Let’s not forget to mention Ice Cube’s Death Certificate, Public Enemy‘s Apocalypse 91: The Enemy Strikes Black, Cypress Hill‘s eponymous debut, De La Soul’s De La Soul Is Dead were also released that year, as well. Yes, 1991 was an insane year for music — and  for me, many of those albums changed the course of my music listening life. (As for the shortsightedness of music critics, Slowdive has become one of the more influential acts of their day with Souvlaki being considered a classic of the genre — but I’m jumping ahead.)

In early 1992, the band were touring to support Blue Day, a re-release of their early EP material and in a rather busy year, they were also writing songs for their sophomore album. But as the band noted the negative coverage they had received in the press had began to affected their songwriting to the point that they were increasingly self-conscious and worried about how their material would be received. They wrote, recorded and re-recorded 40 songs that Creation Records’ McGee loathed. The band scrapped the album and started over. Interestingly, the band wrote to Brian Eno and requested that he produce their sophomore album; however, Eno told them that while he liked their music, he wanted to collaborate, not produce. Halstead later called the recording sessions “one of the most surreal, stoned experiences of [his] life.” But the end result was two songs which appeared on the album “Sing,” a co-write with Eno and “Here She Comes,” which Eno contributes keys.

Creation Records wanted a much more commercial sounding album. Halstead agreed and at one point, he suddenly left, seeking seclusion a Welsh cottage while the remaining members of the band were left in a recording studio waiting for Halstead to return.When Halstead returned, he had some new music, including “Dagger” and “40 Days.”  Souvlaki, which derives its name from a Jerky Boys skit, was released in 1993 to critical panning. Much to their misfortune, Suede released their self-titled debut, which was a critical and commercial success, and an album generally credited as beginning the Brit pop movement.

With increasing issues between their label and distributor, who had been delaying the release of Souvlaki and an EP, the band went through several more lineup changes as they released Pygmalion. The band was then dropped by the their label, and the band’s founding duo along with Ian McCutcheon formed Mojave 3. “After that (Pygmalion), Slowdive didn’t so much split as take a shift in direction, one that a couple of the other members weren’t comfortable with. It didn’t seem right to carry on with the same name, we needed to get a fresh start and all the pieces fell into place for us to get one,” the band’s Goswell explains in their bio.

Since then Scott went on to form Televise, an act that added electronics to the ambient, shoegazer sound. He  also joined Lowgold in 1999 before releasing solo albums through 12k, Miasmas, Sonic Pieces and Kompakt Records before cowriting and performing with Seattle’s The Sight Below. Savill went on to form Monster Movie, a dream pop act with former Eternal bandmate Sean Hewson that specializes in an early Slowdive-like sound. Along with Mojave 3, Halstead and Goswell have released solo albums with Halstead forming side project Black Hearted Brother in 2012 while Goswell joined supergroup Minor Victories in 2015.

In 2014, the members of Slowdive reunited to play dates across the global festival curious and it included stops at that year’s Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona, Spain and Porto, Portugal, Electric Picnic Festival, FYF Fest, Fortress Festival, Wave-Gotik-Treffen, Roskilde, Radar Festival and Off Festival, which they promptly followed up with a 20 date North American tour.

The band’s fourth album, 2017’s self-titled album was their first new batch of material in 22 years, and they supported the album with a stop at the dearly departed House of Vans.

The shoegaze pioneers’ fifth album everything is alive is slated for a September 1, 2023 release through Dead Oceans. The highly-anticipated everything is alive is their first album in over six years, and the material reportedly sees the British outfit finding ever more contours of its immersive, elemental sound. The songs themselves contain the duality of a familiar internal language mixed with the exaltation of new beginnings.

The record began with the band’s Halstead in the role of writer and producer, working on demos at home. Experimenting with modular synths, Halstead originally conceived everything is alive as a “more minimal electronic record.” The band’s collective decision-making ultimately saw them drawing back to their signature reverb-drenched guitar sound — but the synths seeped their way into the compositions. “As a band, when we’re all happy with it, that tends to be the stronger material. We’ve always come from slightly different directions, and the best bits are where we all meet in the middle.” Halstead says. “Slowdive is very much the sum of its parts,” Goswell adds. “Something unquantifiable happens when the five of us come together in a room.”

The album was recorded over a couple of years, starting in the fall of 2020 at Courtyard Studio, where they’ve historically recorded. Sessions moved to Oxfordshire, and then the Wolds of Lincolnshire and then to Halstead’s Cornish studio. Early last year, the band enlisted Shawn Everett to mix six of the album’s eight tracks.
 
Because of their deep and lengthy history, there’s a palpable familial energy to the band — and fittingly to to the album: The album is dedicated to Goswell’s mother and Scott’s father, who both died in 2020. “There were some profound shifts for some of us personally,” Goswell says. Life’s profound shifts and uneasy crossroads are often reflected in the many-layered emotional tenor of their music. And while everything is alive is informed by some of life’s heaviest experiences, the material sees the band poised, wizened and pitching themselves to hope. Sure, there’s sadness, but there’s gratitude and uplift, coming from the acknowledgement that life is complicated yet profoundly beautiful in itself.

Thematically, the album is in many ways an exploration into the shimmering nature of live and the universal touch points within it. Sonically, the album reportedly sees the acclaimed British outfit boldly pushing their sound towards the future with the material touching upon the psychedelic soundscapes they’ve long been known for with 80s electronic elements, and John Cale-inspired journeys.

everything is alive‘s breathtakingly gorgeous first single “kisses” strikes me as a gentle refinement of the classic, enveloping Slowdive sound that I adore: reverb-drenched guitar textures, Goswell and Halstead’s uncannily precise yet yearning harmonies, soaring hooks and choruses and gently driving groove but paired with atmospheric synths. The end result is a song that — for me, at least — evokes a waking dream full of yearning, nostalgia and hope. “It wouldn’t feel right to make a really dark record right now. The album is quite eclectic emotionally, but it does feel hopeful,” Halstead says.

Directed by Noel Paul, the accompanying video for “kisses” was shot in Naples primarily at night, and is a dreamlike portrait of a Neapolitan teen giving rides to everyone he knows on his motorcycle. Throughout the video, both driver and passenger express longing, loneliness, heartache, ennui, weariness, pride, flashes of jealousy and more with a fearlessly honest vulnerability. “If this video evokes emotion, it’s largely due to our excellent cast. In particular Charlie and Claudia, two courageous and beautiful souls who threw themselves into their roles and set a tone of fearless vulnerability,” Noel Paul says.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Drab Majesty Teams Up With Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell on Brooding “Vanity”

Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist Andrew Clinco, also known for his work drumming in Marriages founded Drab Majesty back in 2011 as a way to create music in which he recorded every instrument himself. For the project, Clinco created the androgynous character Deb Demure. Alex Nicolaou, a.k.a. Mona D (keys, vocals) joined the project in 2016.

Since signing to Dais Records, the Los Angeles-based duo have released three albums, 2015’s Careless, 2017’s The Demonstration, 2019’s Modern Mirror, which saw the project combining androgynous aesthetics and commanding vocals with futuristic and occult lyrics, to create a style and sound that the band’s Demure refers to as “tragic wave.”

Drab Majesty’s forthcoming EP, An Object in Motion is slated for an August 25, 2023 release through Dais Records. Clocking in at 32 minutes, the release actually sits somewhere between an EP and a mini-album, and the effort reportedly marks a new chapter in the project’s legacy story: Written during a 2021 retreat to the remote costal Oregon town of Yachats, the band’s Deb Demure leaned into the neo-psychedelic resonance of a uniquely bowl-shaped 12-string Ovation acoustic/electric guitar.

After early morning hikes in the rain, Demure would record ambient guitar experiments the rest of the day, tapping into “flow states,” in which he would let the sound lead the way. Those sessions were then refined or recreated and then later elevated with contributions from Slowdive‘s Rachel Goswell, Beck’s, M83‘s and Air’s Justin Meldal-Johnsen, and Uniform’s Ben Greenberg.

Fittingly, the EP reportedly holds true to its title, as it captures Demure and Drab Majesty in a transitional state, and evolving while showcasing a series of potential futures from the project.

The EP’s first single, the brooding “Vanity” features a rare guest spot from Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell. Built around shimmering, reverb-drenched 12 string guitar, gated reverb-drenched drum patterns, Demure’s plaintive yet commanding baritone paired with soaring hooks. Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell contributes her imitable, expressive vocal, which seamlessly intertwines with Demure’s vocal in an uncannily gorgeous harmony. Sonically, “Vanity” seems like a synthesis of Lita Ford and Ozzy Osbourne‘s “Close My Eyes Forever,” Sisters of Mercy, Disintegration-era The Cure and Goswell’s work with Slowdive — or in other words, something that will warm the cold hearts of any goth.

The collaboration came as a result of a mutual admiration for each other’s world. “As a long time listener and devotee of Slowdive, a band that literally shaped my DNA as a listener and musician, it was truly humbling to have Rachel offer her iconic vocal stylings to this song,” Demure says. “Her voice is a sonic treasure and unmistakable. I’m infinitely grateful to call her a friend and am still pinching myself wondering —  how did we get here?”

“It’s no secret that I am a long time Drab Majesty fan so when Deb asked me some years ago now if I would be interested in collaborating it was an immediate yes,” Slowdive’s Goswell adds., “Honoured to give my voice to ‘Vanity.'”

Directed by Jai Love, the accompanying video showcases a cast featuring Drab Majesty, Rachel Goswell, Samantha Robinson and Isabelle Rose Nelson, and is shot with a nostalgia-inducing VHS haze that’s full of the heartache of a childhood innocence long gone.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: A Place to Bury Strangers Perform “Let’s See Each Other” at LEVITATION Festival 2021

Live footage of A Place to Bury Strangers performing “Let’s See Each Other” at LEVITATION Festival 2021.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Draag Shares Dreamy “Good Era Doom”

Los Angeles-based musician Adrian Acosta was trained as a mariachi singer by his father, an established noreeńo musician, but after finding his older brother’s electric guitar, wound up getting into indie rock and shoegaze. He started the rising electro shoegaze outfit Draag as a solo recording project, but the project expanded into a full-fledged band when he brought together local musicians from the disparate musical worlds of underground punk, experimental jazz, no wave and classical to flesh out the project’s sound.  

The band — Acosta along with Jessica Huang, Ray Montes, Nick Kelley and Eric Fabbro —initially set about reviving songs from a karaoke tape deck that Acosta recorded when he was 10. They quickly became a buzz-worthy local act, playing shows with Wednesday, Reggie Watts, Mint Field and a lengthy list of others. Then the Los Angeles-based shoegazers released two critically applauded EPs, 2018’s Nontoxic Process and 2020’s Clara Luz. 

Draag’s full-length debut, Dark Fire Heresy is slated for a Friday release. Featuring arrangements built around Nintendo-era synths, lush guitars and warped tape samples played in reverse, the album thematically is reportedly a cathartic portrayal and release of religious trauma informed by Haung’s experience of using therapy to process her upbringing in a religious cult. Some songs act as vessels of healing and forgiveness and others became a revenge fantasy. Ultimately, the album holds space for a deeply familiar sentiment — the things you could have said, done or knew, while acknowledging a bittersweet nostalgia. 

Built around dense layers of scorching guitar fuzz paired with relentless, staccato thrash punk-styled drumming paired with ethereal vocal harmonies mosh pit friendly hooks and tape hiss “Demonbird” saw the Los Angeles-based shoegazers adding their name to a growing list of acts boldly pushing the genre’s sonic boundaries as far as humanly possible — while ripping extremely hard. 

Dark Fire Heresy‘s latest pre-release single “Good Era Doom” may arguably be the most 120 Minutes MTV-era like song on the entire album. Built around rapid-fire and propulsive drumming, jangling guitars dipped in gentle reverb paired with a dreamy melody and a soaring hook, “Good Era Doom” brings Souvlaki-era Slowdive and others to mind, but with a clean, modern production sheen and a weary sense of heartache.

Shot by Goon’s Kenny Becker, the accompanying video focuses on shadows on walls and windows, reflections of shiny surfaces and the like. “The video is through the lens of myself as an odd child who would obsess over liminal spaces, shadows on the walls and windows, imagining things coming to life that adults don’t register,” Draag’s Adrian Acosta explains.