Tag: shoegaze

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Swimming Pool Shares Hazy “Wednesday Kinda Weekend”

Split between The Hague and Zürich, Swimming Pool — Klyl Shifroni and Seraina Fässler — can trace their origins back to when the duo met while studying at the Institute of Sonology, where they bonded over a shared passion for songwriting, digital synthesis and code-based composition. The project’s name is derived from a photography series featuring hurricane-damaged backyard pools, which they saw a s a metaphor for the overlooked, the fractured, and the quiet beauty of ruin.

Their collaboration was born from late-night DJ sets in abandoned garages. Those sets saw their sound expanding from instinctive improvisation intoned a layered process sharped by bowed bass textures, processed vocals and subtle sampling techniques. Through a bend of ambient minimalism, lo-fi and punk, the pair blend experimental electronics and emotionally direct songwriting to not only evoke a world that is both carefully constructed and deeply vulnerable, but also allows them to balance intimacy with abstraction and warmth with fracture.

The duo’s recently released EP Line Cuts is a slow-burning exploration of the tension between clarity and distortion, closeness and distance. Rather than delivering catharsis, the EP’s material lingers in the uneasy spaces between feelings. focusing on longing, memory, repetition and collapse.

Line Cuts EP‘s latest single “Wednesday Kinda Weekend” is a slow-burning and hazy track that features glistening, reverb-soaked shoegazer-like textures, thumping beats, a supple bass line, thunderous drum cracks serving as a lush and vibey bed for reverb and distortion-drenched vocals. While seemingly channeling Beach House, the song evokes disorientation — a sense of ethereally floating without recognition or acknowledgement of space or time.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Windsor, ON’s Talking Violet Shares “120 Minutes”-era MTV like “In Your Mind”

Windsor, ON-based quartet Talking Violet — Jillian Goyeau (vocals, guitar), Jayden Turnbull (guitar, vocals), Jeremie Brosseau (drums) and Dylan Iannicello (bass) — have quickly developed and established a sound that sees the Canadian outfit seamlessly blending elements of shoegaze, grunge and dream pop into what they’ve dubbed “dreamo.” Thematically, their work touches upon how we wrestle with the grief of personal change — especially in personal experiences.

Talking Violet’s latest single, the Justin Meli-produced, Will Yip-mastered “In Your Mind” is a breezy, 120 Minutes-era MTV-like anthem anchored around swirling shoegazer-like guitars, thunderous drumming and enormous hooks and choruses serving as a lush bed for Goyeau’s yearning delivery. Seemingly channeling The Sundays and Tallies, “In Your Mind” manages to capture a very specific sense of helplessness of loving someone through pain and uncertainty and not knowing what to do — or if you can do anything.

“I’ve had to learn over time that no matter how much you want to help people, so often it’s really out of your hands,” Talking Violet’s Goyeau says. “They have to be the ones to figure things out, but you can do what you can from a supporting line.” Interestingly, the new single continues upon the emotional thread of their recently released sophomore album Everything At Once, continuing to draw from the grief and complications of interpersonal change ,. “These tracks draw on a lot of grief of change, most specifically, the grief of relationship changes in our lives,” Goyeau explains. “I was going through changes that I now see as necessary but were incredibly painful at the time. It made me realize how much I had depended on my relationships with others for my identity. I had to slowly relearn who I was—and spent the next few years healing my people-pleasing baseline. It’s still something I work on every day.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: she’s green Shares Shimmering and Bittersweet “Willow”

Minneapolis-based outfit she’s green — Zofia Smith (vocals), Liam Armstrong (guitar), Raimes Lucas (guitar), Teddy Nordvold (guitar) and Kevin Seeback (drums) — specialize in crafting dreamy soundscapes that transport the listener to scenes of soft summer rain and fields of swaying wheat, infused with raw emotional intensity. 

With the release of their earliest singles “river” and “smile again,” the Minneapolis-based quintet quickly became a staple within the Midwestern alternative scene, while earning praise from Complex, Star Tribune and The Current. Their debut EP, 2023’s Wisteria saw the band establishing an honest and exploratory songwriting process and a reputation for being a force in the world of sonic surrealism. Adding to a growing profile, the rising Minnesotans have supported their material with tours throughout the Midwest and East Coast with the likes of Hotline TNT, Glixen, Friko and others. 

Earlier this year, she’s green recently signed to New York-based Photo Finish Records, who will be releasing the band’s highly-anticipated Henry Stoehr-sophomore EP Chrysalis on August 15, 2025. The EP will feature the previously released  Souvlaki-era Slowdive-like “Graze,” which I wrote about earlier this year.

The EP’s third and latest single “Willow” is a shimmering, rousing The Sundays-meets-A Storm in Heaven-like showcasing the band’s penchant for rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses paired with Zofia Smith’s dreamy and ethereal delivery floating over thunderous drumming and swirling and hazy, shoegazer guitar textures. While arguably being one of the more energetic songs on the new EP, “Willow” is underpinned by a bittersweet and uneasy longing over something that you’re slowly losing — and that you can’t possibly stop.

“‘Willow’ reflects on our dying relationship with the natural world—a relationship that’s not always loving, but formative nonetheless,” the band explains. “It’s an energetic song that we love playing live.”

The accompanying video features the band’s frontperson Zofia Smith wandering through a forest, looking towards the dappled light shining through the tree canopy. While there’s longing and sadness in there voice, the light on her face also suggest that there’s hope just on the other side. But as the video ends, the viewer’s viewpoint becomes increasingly blurry as she sings about uncertainty and melancholy.

singer/songwriters by William Ruben Helms
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News/Announcements: FME Announces 2025 Venue Showcase Lineups

FME announces the venue showcase lineups for the 2025 edition.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Tan Cologne Team Up With Trentemøller on a Minimalist and Dreamy Rework of “In Resin”

Enigmatic Taos, NM-based duo Tan Cologne — Lauren Green and Marissa Macias — released their third album Unknown Beyond last month through Labrador Records. Unlike their previously released material, Unknown Beyond sees Green and Macias reaching for the heavens and an intangible greater existence; the infinite and unexplainable while embracing the beauty of timeless uncertainty. 

Written, performed and recorded entirely by the duo at their Taos, New Mexico-based home, the album found the pair seeking solitude and retreat as they attempted to come to terms with the personal loss of family, friends and childhood homes — within a relatively short period of time. The album’s creative process quickly became a therapeutic outlet for grieving, dealing, changing and understanding new life transitions and ways of being, with each track being a part of the story of the entire album. 

The album’s material is centered around a more spiritual process. “We looked for signs and signals during the recording process” the duo says in press notes. “If we saw a shooting star, imagined a fire burning on a hill, or remembered an old satellite dish in someone’s yard, we explored that lyrically. Those visual guides became our pathways to the album. They were the signs to move forward.”

Interweaving and layering hypnotic beats, hazy shoegazer textures, abstract live drum patterns and sounds of searching for signals — of comfort and communication — from the invisible web, Unknown Beyond may arguably be their most immersive and emotive work to date. 

In the lead up to the album’s I written about three of the album’s previously release singles, “Cloud of Mirrors,” “Infinity“ and “Cool Star.”

The duo recently teamed up with Trentemøller on a reworking of Unknown Beyond closing track “In Resin.” The album track is a slow-burning and hazy tune featuring swirling, almost painterly, reverb-drenched, shoegazer guitar textures. While recalling A Storm In Heaven, the arrangement serves as a lush bed for Green’s and Macias’ dreamily ethereal harmonies.

The Trentemøller reworking retains the duo’s dreamily ethereal harmonies but replaces most of the shoegazer guitar textures with a looping, twinkling and eerily beautiful piano figure, which emphasizes the mysterious vibe of the song while giving it an old-timey feel and sound.

“In Resin” encapsulates the entire project thematically, as well as the duo’s experiences over the lat few years. “It talks about being everything once and then being it all again, and living several lives at the same time,” the band says. “‘In Resin’ is a special track that we spiritually found ourselves oscillating between leaving it as a rare gem to discover on the album or presenting as a focus,” they continue. “We opted for the mystery, but Trentemøller dove into it.”
 
The band expands, “A few years ago, Trentemøller connected with us and our sound. Now into the present and future, he offered to rework one of our tracks from our new album and selected ‘In Resin.’ He finished the new interpretation while we were on tour together in Europe. We feel our music is a communication and we are honored to continue ‘In Resin’’s sonic conversation with Trentemøller.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Besnard Lakes Share Woozy “In Hollywood”

Acclaimed and beloved Montréal-based shoegazers The Besnard Lakes — husband and wife Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas, along with Kevin Laing, Gabriel Lambert and Sheenah Ko — recently announced their seventh album, The Besnard Lakes Are the Ghost Nation. “I feel like it’s a very formidable title, symbolic of the times,” the band’s Jace Lasek says. “It’s talking about the death of nations, the threat of Canada being the 51st state. There is the desire to be left alone, to let community be community, all of those things that feel like they might be under siege; that’s what the ghost nation is.”

Slated for an October 10, 2025 release through Full Time Hobby, The Besnard Lakes Are the Ghost Nation was recorded at Lost River Studios. During the course of the five-day session, the band experienced creative solitude in the woods with some of their family members accompanying them while the band experimenting and compiled the album’s material. The Besnard Lakes’ forthcoming seventh album reportedly sees them creating their most playful yet thoughtful and heartfelt songs to date.

The acclaimed Canadian shoegazers admit that this was partly in response to 2021’s The Besnard Lakes Are the Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings. “The last album was so heavy,” the band’s Jace Lasek explains. “There was so much weight and heavy themes, like my dad dying. It was just death everywhere on that record. This album doesn’t really seem to be that. To me, it seems very playful.”

The Besnard Lakes Are the Ghost Nation‘s first single “In Hollywood” is a slow-burning dirge anchored around woozy, reverb-drenched guitars, the Montréal-based band’s penchant for rousingly anthemic hooks paired with dreamy vocals and a twangy, psilocybin-tinged solo. Sonically, “In Hollywood” sounds a bit like a synthesis of 2010’s The Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night and The Besnard Lakes Are the Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings but with a woozy, synth-driven coda.

As the band’s Olga Goreas explains, “The first cut lifted from the album ‘In Hollywood’ dates back to 2010 and…are the Roaring Night era. It’s a melody that was circulating in Jace’s mind for many years. Unable to let it go, Jace sat with it and finally brought it to light. Written in a dropped D tuning, ‘In Hollywood’ is atypical in the Besnard canon. Some very creative synth work from Sheenah in the outro. A beautifully bizarre guitar solo from Gabriel. This one shows off Jace’s vocal stylings and has an intriguing lyrical journey for the listener to discover.”

The accompanying video features edited, old-timey, Super 8 and black and white footage of Golden Era Hollywood that emphasizes the dreamy vibe of the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Slow Crush Shares Stormy and Swooning “While You Dream Vividly”

After a frenetic and overwhelming touring schedule to support their first two albums, 2018’s Aurora and 2021’s Hush, the acclaimed Belgian shoegazers Slow Crush — Isa Holliday (vocals, bass), Frederik Meeuwis, Jelle Ronsmans (guitar) and Nic Placlé — took a couple years off from touring, which allowed the quartet the space to breathe and create new material.

Slow Crush’s highly-anticipated third album, Thirst is slated for an August 29, 2025 release through Pure Noise Records. Recorded at Southampton, UK-based The Ranch, the Lewis Johns-produced album reportedly sees the band’s dynamic textures, propulsive rhythms and gauzy riffs shimmer as brightly as ever — but the album sees the band adding a bit more grit and grime to their sound. The album features arguably the heaviest riffs they’ve ever recorded, as well as some of Holliday’s dreamiest and most vulnerable vocals to date. During the recording process, there were sons she couldn’t record without dissolving into tears.

Thirst‘s overacting theme is what Holliday describes as “the romance of being with a loved one.” Although being away from loved ones for long periods of time might put a strain on that relationship, the return can feel euphoric and the connection can be feel almost like it were brand new. Throughout the album, the members of Slow Crush set out to create the feeling of being tethered yet simultaneously weightless, absorbed in the beauty of quiet moments with that special someone.

“We want people to let themselves go and feel embraced by the music, so that they can experience it in 4D,.” Slow Crush’s Isa Holliday explains. “That’s what we hear a lot from people who come to see us live, or people who’ve listened to our previous albums, is that we take them to another dimension. I think that’s something that we miss in this day and age with everything that’s going on in the world, making us very aware of everything outside, but not allowing us to just be in the moment as much as you should. We want to let people take a moment for themselves and let the music take them wherever they would like to go.”

Thirst‘s first single “While You Dream Vividly” is a slow-burning and hypnotic tune anchored around swirling and painterly guitar textures, thunderous drumming that serve as a stormy bed for Holliday’s ethereal and yearning delivery singing “true blue” lyrics like an echoing promise. The result is to leave the listener swooning and desperately yearning — seemingly forever.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Tan Cologne Shares Celestial “Cool Star”

Enigmatic Taos, NM-based duo Tan Cologne — Lauren Green and Marissa Macias — have released work rooted in terrestrial and earthen landscapes: Their debut, 2020’s Cave Vaults on the Moon in New Mexico explored the topography of cultures and subcultures on the surface of New Mexico. Their sophomore album, 2022’s Earth Visions of Water Spaces was inspired by past, present and future water and waterways, embodying the power of water and how it has shaped our planet. 2023’s Pescetrullo (soundscapes) captured a series of on-site instrumental and field recordings made in the remote architectural Pescetrullo in Puglia, Italy, immortalizing the contrasts of ancient buildings, new bold structures, insects, and lapping water of the surrounding environment.

The New Mexico-based duo’s third album Unknown Beyond is slated for a Friday release through Labrador Records. Unlike their previously released material, Unknown Beyond sees Green and Macias reaching for the heavens and an intangible greater existence; the infinite and unexplainable while embracing the beauty of timeless uncertainty. 

Written, performed and recorded entirely by the duo at their Taos, New Mexico-based home, the album found the pair seeking solitude and retreat as they attempted to come to terms with the personal loss of family, friends and childhood homes — within a relatively short period of time. The album’s creative process quickly became a therapeutic outlet for grieving, dealing, changing and understanding new life transitions and ways of being, with each track being a part of the story of the entire album. 

The album reportedly sees Green and Macias seeking a more spiritual process. “We looked for signs and signals during the recording process” they say. “If we saw a shooting star, imagined a fire burning on a hill, or remembered an old satellite dish in someone’s yard, we explored that lyrically. Those visual guides became our pathways to the album. They were the signs to move forward.”

Interweaving and layering hypnotic beats, hazy shoegazer textures, abstract live drum patterns and sounds of searching for signals — of comfort and communication — from the invisible web, Unknown Beyond may arguably be their most immersive and emotive work to date. 

In the lead up to the album’s release later this week, I’ve written about two of the album’s previously release singles, “Cloud of Mirrors,” and “Infinity.“

The album’s third and final pre-release single, the slow-burning and celestial album opening track “Cool Star” features swelling, billowing and swirling guitar textures serving as a lush bed for the duo’s dreamily delivered lyrics describing seeing a shooting star — and the belief act that you can communicate with the beyond; that there are signs and signals all over, if you’re paying attention. “It’s also our sensory transmission of the shade, tide, and temperature shift from the moon and planets as they orbit, and the coolness and pull made by them,” they add. 

The accompanying video features lost, found and archived imagery that’s be been carefully edited and stitched together by filmmaker and frequent collaborator Carly Short. Fittingly, it features cosmic imagery, cars drag racing and more.
 
The duo have a handful of Stateside dates, which you can check out below.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Tan Cologne Returns with Meditative and Trance-Inducing “Infinity”

Enigmatic Taos, NM-based duo Tan Cologne — Lauren Green and Marissa Macias — have released work rooted in terrestrial and earthen landscapes: Their debut, 2020’s Cave Vaults on the Moon in New Mexico explored the topography of cultures and subcultures on the surface of New Mexico. Their sophomore album, 2022’s Earth Visions of Water Spaces was inspired by past, present and future water and waterways, embodying the power of water and how it has shaped our planet. 2023’s Pescetrullo (soundscapes) captured a series of on-site instrumental and field recordings made in the remote architectural Pescetrullo in Puglia, Italy, immortalizing the contrasts of ancient buildings, new bold structures, insects, and lapping water of the surrounding environment.

The New Mexico-based duo’s forthcoming third album Unknown Beyond is slated for a June 20, 2025 release through Labrador Records. Unlike their previously released material, Unknown Beyond sees Green and Macias reaching for the heavens and an intangible greater existence; the infinite and unexplainable while embracing the beauty of timeless uncertainty. 

Written, performed and recorded entirely by the duo at their Taos, New Mexico-based home, the album found the pair seeking solitude and retreat as they attempted to come to terms with the personal loss of family, friends and childhood homes — within a relatively short period of time. The album’s creative process quickly became a therapeutic outlet for grieving, dealing, changing and understanding new life transitions and ways of being, with each track being a part of the story of the entire album. 

The album reportedly sees Green and Macias seeking a more spiritual process. “We looked for signs and signals during the recording process” they say. “If we saw a shooting star, imagined a fire burning on a hill, or remembered an old satellite dish in someone’s yard, we explored that lyrically. Those visual guides became our pathways to the album. They were the signs to move forward.”

Interweaving and layering hypnotic beats, hazy shoegazer textures, abstract live drum patterns and sounds of searching for signals — of comfort and communication — from the invisible web, Unknown Beyond may arguably be their most immersive and emotive work to date. 

Last month, I wrote about “Cloud of Mirrors,” a woozily meditative track, featuring swirling and painterly, shoegazer-like guitar textures and Green’s and Macias’ soaring harmonies ethereally floating over a bed of pulsating, metronomic-like drum machine click. Sonically, “Cloud of Mirrors” marks a sonic and thematic shift for the New Mexico-based outfit as they embrace a richer blend of electronic elements to their sound, all while seemingly recalling A Storm in Heaven and Souvlaki-era shoegaze. 

“’Cloud of Mirrors’ is about life happening to you and having to deal with whatever is handed to you – a chemtrail above, being ‘over it,’ knowing we are all interconnected and a part of the disaster and the beauty,” the duo explain. “The idea that we are a mirrored image of the sky – manmade or natural, or even simulated. A reflection of everything around you being internally present.”

Unknown Beyond‘s latest single “Infinity” is a trance-inducing, meditative song anchored around gently swirling, reverb-based shoegazer guitar textures serving as a lush and hazy soundscape for the pair’s dreamy, reverb-soaked vocals. The rack ruminates on shifts in form as we move through life — and the untold end that all physical beings will inevitably face.

“‘Infinity’ is about an endless drift into the infinite,” the band explains. “The lyrics ‘All pass through known’ evoke the comfort of knowing we all enter and leave, though the definitive dimension is the unknown beyond.” The duo continue, “We understand the passage through physical form, and take into account the infinite depth outside of our comprehension.”

Directed and shot by the duo in Taos, the equally meditative, accompanying video for “Infinity” follows their friend Ricardo de Jesus Tejada, walking around Taos for a stop to check in on his horse Lupita, before heading back home.

“Our music video circles a day or dissolving timeline of a man on a walk and how he finds himself in a meditative drift with a horse, and then returns to the beginning and also the end,” the duo explain.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: PANIK FLOWER Shares Brooding and Uneasy “rearview”

Formed back in 2022 through a combination of chance introductions and long-time friendships, Brooklyn-based indie outfit PANIK FLOWER — Sage Leopold (vocals), Mila Stieglitz-Courtney (guitar, vocals), Jordan Buzzell (guitar), Max Baird (bass) and Marco Starger (drums) — have firmly cemented a sound that mixes dream pop with an understated heaviness. The result is a unique soundscape featuring soft and dreamy harmonies, hard-hitting instrumentals and cutting lyricism that evokes the hazy nostalgia of distant memories of love, loss and identity.

Through playing shows around the New York Metropolitan area, the band quickly developed a fanbase and reputation for their live show. Building upon a growing reputation, the band released their Carl Bespolka-produced debut EP, 2023’s Dark Blue.

The rising Brooklyn-based outfit’s sophomore EP, the recently released. six-song rearview is deeply rooted in intentional juxtaposition. Thematically, rearview EP sees the band looking inward to explore identity; namely the dichotomous nature of uncertainty and self-acceptance paired with a lush yet jagged soundscape.

“This EP felt like a lot of us finding ourselves as a band — our sound and how we perform,” the band’s Max Baird shared. “Sage’s spoken word has become such an important part of that and we really wanted to explore it in this project. It contributes a lot to the push-pull dynamic of our music, often adding another rhythmic element on top of an already lush, sonic landscape. Many of the bones of these tracks were brought to us by our drummer Marco, who was our missing piece up until early last year.”

The EP’s latest single, EP title track “rearview” is a stormy and uneasy take on 120 Minutes-era MTV alt rock anchored around a wall of shimmering and swirling shoegazer-like guitar, explosive hi-hat driven drumming paired with Leopold’s unhinged wailing. And at its core, “rearview” explores a barely contained simmering rage over being taken advantage of, of being made a fool, and of having to maneuver in the aftermath of an embittering, humiliating experience.

Directed by Harleigh Shaw, the accompanying video for “rearview” is a brooding, horror movie-influenced visual that at one point that features the band’s Leopold as a “final girl” being chased by a relentless pursuer.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The KVB’s Coldwave Remix of A Place to Bury Strangers’ “Bad Idea”

New York-based JOVM mainstays A Place to Bury Strangers — currently Oliver Ackermann (vocals, guitar), John Fedowitz (bass) and Sandra Fedowitz (drums) — released their seventh album Synthesizer last year.

While Synthesizer is the album’s title, it’s also a physical entity, a synthesizer specifically made for the album — and a synthesizer that you too, can own (in part), if you buy the record on vinyl. The album’s cover art doubles as a circuit board and functional synth for curious and enterprising fans. “It’s pretty messed up, chaotic. But it feels really human,” the band’s Oliver Ackermann says. 

In an era of making music where so little is DIY and so much is left up to AI, never setting foot in a practice room or a home studio, making something that feels deliberately chaotic, messy, and human, is entirely the point. The album celebrates sounds that are spontaneous and natural, the kind of music that can only come from collaboration and community. 

The writing sessions for Synthesizer started in the band’s Queens studio, shortly after the release of 2022’s See Through You. The band’s new lineup which features Ackermann and his friends John and Sandra Fedowitz was especially inspiring for Ackermann. “It felt like a fresh new thing,” he says. “I wanted to write songs everyone was excited about playing.” 

The album captures the band at a place of reinvention, where they take a carefully honed sound and approach and crack it wide open to gut its then reimagine it. And of course, to ever so slightly reinvent one’s sound, one must also built a new instrument — the synthesizer at the core of the album’s overall sound. 

Synthesizer is arguably one of the band’s most live-sounding albums to date, accurately capturing the rawness and explosiveness of the band in a live setting, which is a fitting for a band that is best in a live setting, where the material takes on a new energy in the presence of a crowd. “We’re artists,” Ackermann says, “Going to shows and bringing that imperfect and beautiful DIY ethos is important.” 

Album single “Bad Idea” is anchored around a simple yet hypnotically looping drum beat, woozily oscillating feedback-driven guitar lines. John Fedowitz’s plaintive yet punchy delivery weaves in and out of the stormy and soundscape, which helps to evoke the vacillating, almost nauseating unease of self-doubt. 

“Bad Idea” showcases the raw creativity of the band’s bassist John Fedowitz. “He came to the studio with a simple looping drum beat, thinking he didn’t have any good ideas — thus, this song was his ‘bad idea,’” the band’s frontman Oliver Ackermann says. “We each penned some lines on paper, and he sang the ones that resonated. After a few instrumental passes, the recording was complete. The result is an innovative track born from spontaneous collaboration and a touch of self-doubt, turned into something uniquely captivating.” 

Manchester, UK-based JOVM mainstays The KVB gave “Bad Idea” the remix treatment, turning the woozy chaos of the original into a brooding and hypnotic bit of coldwave that channels Depeche Mode, John Carpenter soundtracks and the like while being simultaneously headphone and dance floor friendly.