Live concert photography of M for Montréal’s New Colossus Festival Party at Piano’s featuring Bodywash back in March 2022.
Tag: shoegaze
New Video: Germany’s Swirlpool Shares Stormy “Reimagine”
Formed back in 2016, the German-based dream pop/shoegaze outfit Swirlpool — Thomas A. Fischer, Markus Kraus and Chris Atzinger — have remained loyal to the “sounds better with reverb and distortion” maxim, and as a result they’ve managed to win over a loyal fanbase within the global dream pop and shoegaze scenes.
The German dream pop/shoegaze outfit’s highly anticipated full-length debut, Distant Echoes features material inspired by titans like My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive while breathing fresh life into the genre.
Distant Echoes‘ first single “Reimagine” is a classic era shoegaze-inspired track built around dense and towering layers of reverb and distortion-laden guitars, thunderous drumming, ethereal and yearning vocals paired with an enormous hooks and choruses. “The single was one of the first ideas Tom came up with on rhythm guitar,” the members of the German band explain. “The lyrics deal with our sometimes too perfectionistic songwriting process, where we would spend days writing new interesting parts and sometimes just get stuck in a loop. It is about the agony of slow change and the need for re-invention.”
The accompanying video by Daniel Dueckminor is a fittingly 120 Minutes MTV era-inspired video shot on cassette tape that features secures of the band’s core members walking around at dusk or in the dark together, performing the song in a suburban and very stylish house and in an abandoned garage. Throughout the video switches between grainy VHS-styled color and a gorgeous, cinematic black and white.
New Audio: Seattle’s Super Heavy Shares Trippy “Never Asked For Much”
Super Heavy is an emerging Seattle-based shoegaze project, led by an artist, who crafts material featuring eclectic arrangements, catchy yet dark melodic structures and earnest, stream of consciousness vocals.
Last year, the Seattle-based project released their debut single, “Neon Blu,” a hook-driven Death Cab for Cutie-like track with a bit more brooding menace just under the surface.
Super Heavy begins 2024 with ” Never Asked For Much” a trippy blend of My Bloody Valentine-meets Washed Out-like shoegaze with skittering beats, atmospheric synths and warbling distortion and some remarkably catchy hooks paired with a dreamy vocal. Play loudly and blissfully nod out on a wave of nostalgia . . .
Throwback: Happy 62nd Birthday, Robin Guthrie!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Cocteau Twins’ Robin Guthrie’s 62nd birthday.
New Video: We Melt Chocolate Shares Trippy Visual for Dreamy “Holy Ramen”
Florence-based shoegazers We Melt Chocolate can trace their origins back to the fusion of two different bands evanicetrip and Shades of Blue back in 2012. Since then, the Italian band over a handful of releases that includes a self-released demo, and an EP and their full-length debut through Annibale Records has firmly cemented a sound and approach that equally draws from the noisier side of shoegaze — i.e., My Bloody Valentine, Lush, and even The Sugarcubes.
The band has opened for a number of internationally renowned bands including The Shivas, Holy Wave, The Asteroid No. 4, The Underground Youth, His Clancyness, Magic Shoppe, Your 33 Black Angels and GIFT among a growing list of others.
Holy Gaze, the Florence-based outfit’s highly anticipated and long awaited sophomore album was released earlier this year through Miracle Waves and features guest spots from Francesco D’Elia, Rev Rev Rev‘s Sebastian Lugli and Sensitive Club‘s Ben Moro.
Earlier this year, I wrote about album single “No Meaning Man,” a song that 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. Thematically, the song speaks of disillusionment with superficial people, who base their entire lives on appearances and conceal their vapidity and lack of empathy towards others.
“Holy Ramen,” Holy Gaze‘s latest single showcases the Italian outfit at their dreamiest to date — with the song featuring swirling Slowdive and A Storm in Heaven-like guitar textures paired with a driving rhythm section and yearning, ethereal vocals.
The band explains that “Holy Ramen” is an exhortation to overcome daily difficulties, look at the sky and allow yourself a special, sacred moment just for you. “For us (particularly for the singer), one of these moments is indulging in a good hot ramen.” The band goes on to say that for them, “it is the simplest moments that become sacred.”
The accompanying video fittingly seems inspired by 120 Minutes-era MTV and feature some lushly shot visuals of a bowl of ramen being prepared and then serving as a mind-bending backdrop for the band — both while performing and even enjoying a comforting meal of the stuff, often while the sky races behind them.
New Video: Toronto’s SWiiMS Shares Dreamy and Optimistic “In Puzzles”
Toronto-based indie outfit SWiiMS — founding duo Mai Diaz Langou (vocals)and Colin Thompson (guitar) along with Cian O’Ruanaidh (bass) — can trace their origins back to 2018 when the band’s founding duo began writing songs together that blended Thompson’s fuzzy and jangling guitar swirl with Diaz Langou’s textured melodies and languid vocal. When O’Ruanaidh joined the band, he brought a unique blend of influences and hooky bass lines.
Sonically, the Canadian trio draw from a diverse spectrum of artists and elements including 80s New Wave, 90s Shoegaze, indie rock, Brit Pop and Dream Pop to create a sound that’s uniquely theirs.
SWiiMS’ debut EP, 2019’s Through Waves was released to critical praise and landed on the North American College and Community College (NACC) charts. Building upon a growing profile, the trio’s full-length debut, Into The Blue Night officially dropped today.
Last month, I wrote about “All I Die For” saw the Canadian indie outfit firmly cementing their sound with fuzzy and swirling guitar textures paired with glistening synth arpeggios, a propulsive rhythm section and languid vocal melodies. The result is a song that manages to be simultaneously dreamy, uplifting and moody while channeling 120 Minutes-era MTV alt rock.
Into The Blue Night‘s latest single, album opening track “In Puzzles” is a breezy, uplifting song built around swirling shoegazer textures and a propulsive rhythm section paired with Diaz Langou’s languid and ethereal vocal. Continuing a run of decidedly 120 Minutes-era MTV alt rock-like indie and early shoegaze-inspired material, “In Puzzles” manages to evoke the swooning sense of excitement and optimism in a blossoming romance.
The accompanying video for “In Puzzles” is set in a dreamy, mind-bending Memento-like world in which we see the band’s Diaz Langou bearing gifts of roses and balloons — both going forward and in reverse down a suburban street.
New Audio: Portland, Maine’s Crystal Canyon Shares Slow-Burning and Shimmering “Sierra”
Founded by Detroit-born Lynda Mandolyn (vocals, guitar), who spent her formative years fronting the all-female punk outfit Inside Out; and The Baltic Sea’s Todd Hutchinsen (guitar, engineering) back in 2015, Portland, ME-based shoegazers Crystal Canyon were formed with a simple mission: to call upon the spirit and vibe of the tradition of late 80s and 90s shoegaze without rehashing the formulaic gestures or strictures of the genre. The band also features a collection of Northeast indie scene veterans, including Hutchisen’s The Baltic Sea bandmate Jeremy Smith (bass).
The Portland shoegazer’s third album, the recently released nine-song, Stars and Distant Light was recorded at Hutchisen’s Acadia Recording Company studio — and features the band’s newest member, multi-instrumentalist Nate Manning, who primarily contributes drums, along with guitar and other instrumental work throughout the album’s material. The album’s more explosive moments, as the band explains is a direct result of the fresh perspective to their sound that he brought to the sessions.
Sonically, Stars and Distant Light sees the band being true to the classic shoegazer stereotype of being obsessive about their gear, with the album featuring sounds that could only be produced following the trial and error of dozens of guitar tracked meticulously onto analog tape. Overall, the album sees the band’s members taking all of their combined professional experiences to craft material that fuses their previous experiences and influences in a way that sounds unlike anything any individual member has done before. “We formed a band that sounded like the music we listened to,” says Mandolyn. “In the process, we’ve become a band we’d want others to hear.”
The band’s Hutchisen explains, “We started out demoing about sixteen or seventeen songs then finally narrowed down the songs to the nine that are on the record,” while citing the inclusion of more synth and keyboards being not just one point of departure from their previous releases, but a refinement of their established commitment to lush soundscapes.
Stars and Distant Light‘s latest single “Sierra” is a slow-burning, Souvlaki-era Slowdive-meets-Twin Peaks-like bit of dream pop built around shimmering and swirling guitar textures, thunderous drumming paired with Mandolyn’s dreamy delivery and big, swooning choruses. The song sees the band managing to balance cathartic release with restraint, which is important for a band that has a penchant for being loud.
The band notes that the song is a tribute to the late Julee Cruise, who was best known for her work with composer Angelo Badalamaenti and director David Lynch in the late 1980s — especially on Twin Peaks.
Led by songwriter and producer Aaro Seppänen, emerging Helsinki-based indie outfit Favourite Colours has quickly developed a unique sound featuring reverb-drenched guitars, lush synths, catchy melodies that draws from ’80s and ’90s dream pop and shoegaze, as well as punk and hip-hop while being rooted in strong emotions, ranging from bittersweet melancholy to heavenly euphoria.
Favourite Colours’ full-length debut, Summer ’13 was released last Friday. The hazy and nostalgia-including album features three previously released singles “Better,” “Through the Night” and “Remember That Day.” The album’s fourth and latest single “Play It Loud” is a brooding yet gorgeous song built around atmospheric and twinkling synths, reverb-drenched shoegazer guitar textures, enormous and rousingly anthemic hooks paired with a plaintive and yearning vocal. Sonically, the song seems to nod at A Storm in Heaven-era Verve, Love Is Here-era Starsailor — with clear nods to Brit Pop.