Tag: shoegaze

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.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

After stints playing drums for acclaimed singer/songwriter Shilpa Ray and a list of other bands, Robert Preston Collum (guitar, vocals) stepped out into the spotlight with his solo project Pink Mexico. Preston self-released his 2013 full-length debut Pnik Mxeico, which caught the attention of Austin-based label Fleeting Youth Records, who then re-released the album the following December. 

Collum relocated to Brooklyn in the fall of 2014 to begin recording what would be his sophomore album. Following countless Brooklyn shows during the course of 2015, the project extended into a full-fledged band with the addition of Grady Walker (drums, vocals) and Ian Everall (bass). Collum’s Pink Mexico sophomore album, 2016’s Fool was released through Burger Records and French label Big Tomato Records. He and his bandmates supported the album with an opening spot for Honus Honus (a.k.a Mam Man) during that artist’s November 2016 tour. 

Pink Mexico’s third album 2019’s DUMP was released through Burger Records and Little Dickamn Records. Unlike the previously released albums, where Collum played all the instrumental parts, DUMP is the first album that features Everall and Walker on their respective instruments. 

The band’s fourth album, 2020’s Idiot Piss Illiterate was released through San Francisco-based label Broken Clover Records. 

Earlier this year, Pink Mexico announced their signing to Quiet Panic Records, who will be releasing their fifth album, Mirrorhead. Slated for a May 19, 2023 release, Mirrorhead was written and recorded during the period of its predecessor’s release. But while Idiot Piss Illiterate‘s material rode on a frantic garage rock undercurrent, the forthcoming album reportedly swaps out ragged pace for bruising waves of heavy sound, interspersed with moments of stripped back exposure. Thematically, the album’s material is rooted in a recollection of memories and experiences woven through the reconstruction of the self and a bold sense of experimentation. 

If you’ve bene frequenting this site, you might recall that earlier this month I wrote about Mirrorhead single “Dungeonhead,” a 120 Minutes MTV-era alt rock-inspired aural assault centered around layers of reverb-drenched, fuzzy and distorted power chords and thunderous power chords paired with Collum’s plaintive and ethereal lead vocal. But under the ironically detached delivery and enormous hooks, is a song that evokes a palpable sense of unease. 

Pink Mexico’s Robert Preston Collum calls “Dungeonhead,” “a track about never feeling comfortable in one’s own skin while reflecting on the obscurities of life during a time when the regular version of confusing and fucked up is even more fucked up and confusing.”

Mirrorhead‘s latest single “Shame” is a brooding bruiser built around layers of fuzzy and distorted power chords, thunderous drumming paired with Collum’s ethereal and achingly plaintive vocal. While continuing a run of material that sounds indebted to 120 Minutes-era MTV, “Shame” is imbued with a lived-in, bitter sense of shame, insecurity and self-loathing. “It’s a shame we as humans are so insecure and selfish that we’re incapable of having respect for one another,” Collum says. “The only undeniable certainties in this life are; no one decides to be born and we all die.”

The band will be playing an album release show at TV Eye on June 11, 2023 with TVOD, Substitute and a special guest TBA. Tickets and more info is available here.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Los Angeles’ Draag Shares Righteous Revenge Fantasy “Demonbird”

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. Acosta 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 — Jessica Huang, Ray Montes, Nick Kelley and Eric Fabbro — from the disparate musical worlds of underground punk, experimental jazz, no wave and classical to flesh out the project’s sound.  

The band 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. 

Building upon a rapidly growing profile, Draag’s full-length debut, Dark Fire Heresy is slated for an April 28, 2023 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 Dark Fire Hersey‘s latest single “Demonbird” sees 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. 

Directed by Tyler Bradberry and shot at LIMINAL Space warehouse, the accompanying video for “Demondbird” features the band playing the song in front of projections of the band’s Haung as the titular demonbird seeking revenge for those abused and silenced while in a corrupt, hypocritical cult that she uncovered when she left it. “Becoming the Demonbird character in the video was a way for me to find some sort of justice for the women who were silenced and discarded in the purity culture of my particular religious upbringing,” Huang says.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Los Angeles’ Draag Shares a Cathartic Ripper

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. Acosta 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 — Jessica Huang, Ray Montes, Nick Kelley and Eric Fabbro — from the disparate musical worlds of underground punk, experimental jazz, no wave and classical to flesh out the project’s sound.  

The band 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.

Building upon a rapidly growing profile, Draag’s full-length debut, Dark Fire Heresy is slated for an April 28, 2023 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 and

Dark Fire Hersey‘s latest single “Demonbird” sees 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.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Bodywash Shares Woozy and Buzzing “Perfect Blue”

Montréal-based JOVM mainstays Bodywash — Chris Steward and Rosie Long Dector — can trace their origins back to when the pair met while attending McGill University. But when they met, the pair didn’t immediately share a common musical language: Steward grew up in London listening to celestial dream pop while Dector grew up in Toronto listening to folk and Canadiana. The music they began writing together saw the pair bridging their influences. With the release of 2016’s self-titled EP and 2019’s full-length debut, Comforter, the Montréal-based duo firmly established their sound — slow-burning and dreamy material centered around ethereal vocals, intricate guitar lines and pulsating synths. 

The Canadian shoegazers’ sophomore album I Held the Shape While I Could is slated for a Friday release through Light Organ Records. When touring to support Comforter was cut short by the pandemic, the duo used the unexpected hiatus to write new material, which was darker, more experimental and more invigorating than its predecessor. The new material also manages to reflect on Steward’s and Long Dector’s separate and shared experiences of losing a sense of place, the way something once solid can slip between your fingers, and their attempts to build something new from the psychological and emotional fallout. 

Over the past handful of months I’ve managed to write about the forthcoming album’s first three singles: 

“Kind of Light.” the sophomore album’s expansive first single. Beginning with a slow-burning and elegiac intro featuring glistening organ and a skittering yet propulsive kick pattern that slow builds up and breaks into a high energy boom bap-like breakbeat paired with scorching guitar squealing and wobbling bass synths. Long Decter’s ethereal and achingly plaintive vocals expressing profound, heart-wrenching despair — and hope. The song suggests that while loss is natural and sadly expected there can be hope; that there are only a handful of things in our lives that are truly permanent. And that ultimately for the most part, it can get better. 

“I wrote ‘Kind of Light’ in bed,” Long Decter says. ““It was the fall of 2018 and Chris and I were both going through experiences of learning not to trust what feels like home. He sent me a plugin for a new organ sound, suggesting it might provide inspiration. I sent him back chords, a kick pattern, and some vocals about trying to pull your legs back; trying to take your energy out of the wreckage and put it into yourself. The process of deciding what’s worth keeping, what can be reworked and what gets tossed in the fire. A process that is devastating and also weirdly invigorating, because you can see new possibilities opening up in front of you. And you can start to look for light somewhere else.”

“Massif Central” a woozy track that features glistening synth bursts, shimmering and angular post punk-meets-shoegaeze-like textures paired with a relentless motorik groove, stormy guitar feedback and Steward’s ethereal whispers recounting an experience of Kafka-esque, bureaucratic purgatory: a typo in a government letter caused Steward to lose his legal work status in Canada. The song manages to evoke the sensation of having your life flipped upside down, then being hopelessly stuck and having no say or agency in your situation. 

“After eight years living in Canada, in the Spring of 2021, a government clerical error caused me to lose my legal status here,” Steward explains. “As a UK national, I lost my right to work. My savings trickled away during months where I could do little but pace the corners of my apartment. I was prepared to pack my bags and leave as the life I’d hoped to construct for myself seemed to vanish into a bureaucratic abyss.”
 
“‘Massif’ is the sound of wailing into a cliff and not knowing if you’ll hear an echo,” continued Steward. “The spoken word is inspired by a squirrel that was trapped in the wall behind my bed, clawing its way to salvation. With the help of friends, family, music, and a few immigration lawyers (and the rest of my savings), I’m now a permanent resident here. But this song remains as testament to my experience with an exploitative institution.”

“No Repair” is a slow-burning and melancholy ballad featuring strummed acoustic guitar, Long Dector’s achingly tender, bruised delivery, Country Western-tinged percussion by Ryan White, atmospheric synths and swelling bursts of lap steel by Micah Flavin. The end result is a song that’s a gorgeous mix of classic country and brooding shoegaze rooted in the lived-in, confusing experience of heartbreaking loss — in particular, the lingering ghosts despite their newfound absence. 

“In my early 20s I found myself in a disastrous love triangle,” Long Dector explains. “It was a mess of bad decisions and repressed queer longing and those things you chase because you hope they will prove you are real. I found myself writing repetitively about light and air and the absence of tactility. ‘No Repair’ came from the decision to let all that go…”

I Held the Shape While I Could‘s fourth and latest single “Perfect Blue” is arguably the most My Bloody Valentine-like song of the entire album. Built around bursts of fluttering synths, buzzing power chords and paired with a chugging motorik groove and Steward’s aching falsetto, “Perfect Blue” is a tumultuous storm, evoking the churn and wooziness of a deeply internalized conflict; the sort held by those who share a part of different cultures and are never fully fit in either.

“‘Perfect Blue’ takes its name and its inspiration from Satoshi Kon’s 1997 animated film,” Bodywash’s Chris Steward explains. “The themes of internal conflict and losing one’s sense of self really resonated with me when I first watched it during the winter of 2021. ‘Perfect Blue’ (the song) is an exploration of the many facets of my own cultural identity. Being both British and Japanese has often felt like a compromise. While it might be easy to romanticize this duality, the reality is that it’s impossible to wholly belong to either culture. What has brought me some solace in the past is their shared appreciation for shoegaze and ‘Perfect Blue’ is an ode to this common cultural heritage. We stacked breathy digital synths (inspired by Masahiro Ikumi’s ominous soundtrack) atop a wave of viscous fuzz guitars, in search of a “perfect blue” – a color the shade of renewal.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New VIdeo: Bodywash Shares Heartbreaking “No Repair”

https://youtu.be/sR3IFjv-YgA

This week will be extraordinarily as I’ll be covering the fourth edition of The New Colossus Festival this week. Look for various portions of my coverage to be coming within the upcoming weeks — including some potential interviews, live concert photography and other thoughts. But I’ll be trying my best to squeeze in my regular coverage of all things within my world — musically and otherwise.

So let’s to business, right?

Montréal-based shoegazers (and JOVM mainstays) Bodywash — Chris Steward and Rosie Long Dector — can trace their origins back to when the pair met while attending McGill University. But when they met, the pair didn’t immediately share a common musical language: Steward grew up in London listening to celestial dream pop while Dector grew up in Toronto listening to folk and Canadiana. The music they began writing together saw the pair bridging their influences. With the release of 2016’s self-titled EP and 2019’s full-length debut, Comforter, the Montréal-based duo firmly established their sound — slow-burning and dreamy material centered around ethereal vocals, intricate guitar lines and pulsating synths. 

The Canadian shoegazers’ sophomore album I Held the Shape While I Could is slated for an April 14, 2023 release through Light Organ Records. When touring to support Comforter was cut short by the pandemic, the duo used the unexpected hiatus to write new material, which was darker, more experimental and more invigorating than its predecessor, and managed to reflect on Steward’s and Long Dector’s separate and shared experiences of losing a sense of place, the way something once solid can slip between your fingers, and their attempts to build something new from the psychological and emotional fallout. 

Over the past handful of months I’ve managed to write about the forthcoming album’s first two singles:

“Kind of Light.” the sophomore album’s expansive first single. Beginning with a slow-burning and elegiac intro featuring glistening organ and a skittering yet propulsive kick pattern that slow builds up and breaks into a high energy boom bap-like breakbeat paired with scorching guitar squealing and wobbling bass synths. Long Decter’s ethereal and achingly plaintive vocals expressing profound, heart-wrenching despair — and hope. The song suggests that while loss is natural and sadly expected there can be hope; that there are only a handful of things in our lives that are truly permanent. And that ultimately for the most part, it can get better. 

“I wrote ‘Kind of Light’ in bed,” Long Decter says. ““It was the fall of 2018 and Chris and I were both going through experiences of learning not to trust what feels like home. He sent me a plugin for a new organ sound, suggesting it might provide inspiration. I sent him back chords, a kick pattern, and some vocals about trying to pull your legs back; trying to take your energy out of the wreckage and put it into yourself. The process of deciding what’s worth keeping, what can be reworked and what gets tossed in the fire. A process that is devastating and also weirdly invigorating, because you can see new possibilities opening up in front of you. And you can start to look for light somewhere else.”

“Massif Central” a woozy track that features glistening synth bursts, shimmering and angular post punk-meets-shoegaeze-like textures paired with a relentless motorik groove, stormy guitar feedback and Steward’s ethereal whispers recounting an experience of Kafka-esque, bureaucratic purgatory: a typo in a government letter caused Steward to lose his legal work status in Canada. The song manages to evoke the sensation of having your life flipped upside down, then being hopelessly stuck and having no say or agency in your situation. 

“After eight years living in Canada, in the Spring of 2021, a government clerical error caused me to lose my legal status here,” Steward explains. “As a UK national, I lost my right to work. My savings trickled away during months where I could do little but pace the corners of my apartment. I was prepared to pack my bags and leave as the life I’d hoped to construct for myself seemed to vanish into a bureaucratic abyss.”
 
“‘Massif’ is the sound of wailing into a cliff and not knowing if you’ll hear an echo,” continued Steward. “The spoken word is inspired by a squirrel that was trapped in the wall behind my bed, clawing its way to salvation. With the help of friends, family, music, and a few immigration lawyers (and the rest of my savings), I’m now a permanent resident here. But this song remains as testament to my experience with an exploitative institution.”

I Held the Shape While I Could‘s third and latest single, “No Repair” is a slow-burning and melancholy ballad featuring strummed acoustic guitar, Long Dector’s achingly tender, bruised delivery, Country Western-tinged percussion by Ryan White, atmospheric synths and swelling bursts of lap steel by Micah Flavin. The end result is a song that’s a gorgeous mix of classic country and brooding shoegaze rooted in the lived-in, confusing experience of heartbreaking loss — in particular, the lingering ghosts despite their newfound absence.

“In my early 20s I found myself in a disastrous love triangle,” Long Dector explains. “It was a mess of bad decisions and repressed queer longing and those things you chase because you hope they will prove you are real. I found myself writing repetitively about light and air and the absence of tactility. ‘No Repair’ came from the decision to let all that go…”

Directed by Derek Janzen, the accompanying video sees Bodywash’s Long Dector cleaning up the mess of a party — by herself. There’s a sense of sad, wearied determination. In a surreal turn, we see Long Dector move some of her possessions out into a snowy — and very cold– Montréal winter.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Lauren Lakis Shares Yearning “Take My Hand”

Lauren Lakis is a Baltimore-born, Austin-based singer/songwriter and musician, who specializes in a brooding and churning take on shoegaze centered around authentic, honest lyricism. Lakis and her backing band have extensively toured across the West Coast, sharing bills with Ringo Award-nominated rocker Tracy Bonham. She has also played in front of sold-out crowds at Doug Fir Lounge and at Santa Cruz’s The Catalyst.

During the pandemic, Lakis performed several live-streamed shows, partnering with Bandsintown, Jam in the Van, B-Side TV, Rock to End Rape Culture, KXLU, ACLU and JuJu Live.

Recorded at Seahorse Sound, the Baltimore-born, Austin-based artist’s Billy Burke-produced Daughter Language was released by Green Witch Recordings in 2021 to critical acclaim from Flaunt, Wonderland, Earmilk, Ladygunn, Buzzbands LA, Grimy Goods, Atwood Magazine and more.

Daughter Language‘s highly-anticipated follow-up, the Carey McGraw-produced A Fiesta and a Hell was recorded in Austin and is slated for a Fall release through Green Witch Recordings. The album’s first single “Take My Hand” is a brooding and stormy bit of shoegaze built around an alternating quiet and loud sections featuring glistening guitar textures for the verses and swirling, stormy power chord-driven choruses paired with Lakis’ achingly yearning vocal. The single, as Lakis explains is about “forgetting what you thought you knew, letting go, bravely opening your mind to something radically different. She adds “What if you were wrong? Are you able to admit it? Can you shift with the ever-changing landscape of reality, or are you stuck in your ways? I found myself stepping into the unknown in many ways the past few years, forced to entertain the notion that maybe I didn’t know everything, and in that I found freedom.” 

Shot in Rapid City, South Dakota and Badlands National Park, the accompanying video follows the rising singer/songwriter hanging out with a large tortoise, going through a dinosaur park, dancing on a dinosaur statue and more. It’s a surreal yet highly symbolic romp through the wilderness — both natural and constructed.

Lakis will be playing at next week’s The New Colossus Festival. I’lm looking forward to catching her.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montréal’s Bodywash Shares Woozy and Uneasy “Massif Central”

Montréal-based shoegazers Bodywash — Chris Steward and Rosie Long Dector — can trace their origins back to when the pair met while attending McGill University. But when they met, the pair didn’t immediately share a common musical language: Steward grew up in London listening to celestial dream pop while Dector grew up in Toronto listening to folk and Canadiana. The music they began writing together saw the pair bridging their influences. And with the release of 2016’s self-titled EP and 2019’s full-length debut, Comforter, the Montréal-based duo firmly established their sound — slow-burning and dreamy material centered around ethereal vocals, intricate guitar lines and pulsating synths. 

The Canadian shoegazers’ sophomore album I Held the Shape While I Could is slated for an April 14, 2023 release through Light Organ Records. . When touring to support Comforter was cut short by the pandemic, the duo used the unexpected hiatus to write new material, which was darker, more experimental and more invigorating than its predecessor, and managed to reflect on Steward’s and Long Dector’s separate and shared experiences of losing a sense of place, the way something once solid can slip between your fingers, and their attempts to build something new from the psychological and emotional fallout.

Late last year, I wrote about the sophomore album’s expansive first single, “Kind of Light.” Beginning with a slow-burning and elegiac intro featuring glistening organ and a skittering yet propulsive kick pattern that slow builds up and breaks into a high energy boom bap-like breakbeat paired with scorching guitar squealing and wobbling bass synths. Long Decter’s ethereal and achingly plaintive vocals expressing profound, heart-wrenching despair — and hope. The song suggests that while loss is natural and sadly expected there can be hope; that there are only a handful of things in our lives that are truly permanent. And that ultimately for the most part, it can get better.

“I wrote ‘Kind of Light’ in bed,” Long Decter says. ““It was the fall of 2018 and Chris and I were both going through experiences of learning not to trust what feels like home. He sent me a plugin for a new organ sound, suggesting it might provide inspiration. I sent him back chords, a kick pattern, and some vocals about trying to pull your legs back; trying to take your energy out of the wreckage and put it into yourself. The process of deciding what’s worth keeping, what can be reworked and what gets tossed in the fire. A process that is devastating and also weirdly invigorating, because you can see new possibilities opening up in front of you. And you can start to look for light somewhere else.”

I Held the Shape While I Could‘s second single, the woozy “Massif Central” features glistening synth bursts, shimmering and angular post punk-meets-shoegaeze-like textures paired with a relentless motorik groove, stormy guitar feedback and Steward’s ethereal whispers recounting an experience of Kafka-esque, bureaucratic purgatory: a typo in a government letter caused Steward to lose his legal work status in Canada. The song manages to evoke the sensation of having your life flipped upside down, then being hopelessly stuck and having no say or agency in your situation.

“After eight years living in Canada, in the Spring of 2021, a government clerical error caused me to lose my legal status here,” Steward explains. “As a UK national, I lost my right to work. My savings trickled away during months where I could do little but pace the corners of my apartment. I was prepared to pack my bags and leave as the life I’d hoped to construct for myself seemed to vanish into a bureaucratic abyss.”
 
“‘Massif’ is the sound of wailing into a cliff and not knowing if you’ll hear an echo,” continued Steward. “The spoken word is inspired by a squirrel that was trapped in the wall behind my bed, clawing its way to salvation. With the help of friends, family, music, and a few immigration lawyers (and the rest of my savings), I’m now a permanent resident here. But this song remains as testament to my experience with an exploitative institution.”

Directed by Jordan Allen, the accompanying video for “Massif Central” is a dizzying collage of live footage, directed by Brandon Kaufman, distorted VHS-like visuals and eerie. retro-futuristic -inspired graphics. “With ‘Massif Central,’ we wanted to encapsulate the panic and urgency that Chris experienced, and have the abstracts portray the anxiety and hopelessness one can feel at the hands of bureaucracy,” Allen explains. “I chose graphics that heavily leaned into feelings of being lost in a maze, with towering structures and horizon lines pulling you into them. The idea was that the camera would be both a CCTV view of the band, but also glitching to reveal the more emotionally internal visual aspects.”