Tag: Slowdive

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Drab Majesty Shares Shimmering and Cinematic “Cape Perpetua”

Initially known for his work drumming in Marriages, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Clinco founded  Drab Majesty back in 2011 as a way to create music as a solo project, with him recording every instrument himself. Clinco created the androgynous character Deb Demure for himself, as the face of the project. Alex Nicolaou, a.k.a. Mona D (keys, vocals) joined on in 2016, expanding the project into a duo.

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.” 

Released earlier this through their longtime label home Dais Records, and clocking in at 32 minutes, the duo’s latest release An Object in Motion sits somewhere between an EP and mini-album while also marking a new chapter in the project’s 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. 

I’ve managed to write about three of the EP’s singles:

  • The effort’s first single, “Vanity,” featuring Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell. Built around shimmering, reverb-drenched, 12 string guitar and gated reverb-soaked drum patterns. Demure’s plaintive yet commanding baritone is paired with Goswell’s imitable and expressive vocal, which seamlessly intertwine in an uncannily gorgeous, swooning harmony. To my ears, “Vanity” seemed 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 Skin and The Glove,” 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. 

  • Clocking in at a little over 15 minutes, An Object in Motion‘s closing track, the expansive “Yield To Force” is built around glistening, cycling strings, ominous slide guitar and shimmering synthesizer. The result is a composition that’s intuitive yet meditative with the instrumentation that spirals, sways, crests and ebbs like waves crashing into the shore.

Coincidentally, the EP’s last single “Cape Perpetua” is also the second instrumental track on the effort. Built around sparkling acoustic finger-picked guitar melody played through delay pedal, “Cape Perpetua” sonically is one-part brooding flamenco, one-part reverie, one-part raga with melodies and mood crash, congeal and dissipate throughout. The result is a something gothic, melancholy and cinematic.

Direted by John Elliott and shot on Super 8, the accompanying video for “Cape Perpetua” is a fittingly a brooding slow-burn that’s meditative, and mind-bending.

“‘Cape Perpetua’ is a slow-rolling track with tessellating psychedelia which inspired me to channel my Joseph Cornell and late-era Brakhage appreciation,” John Elliott says. “The goal was to capture simple objects moving in and out of stillness reflecting the ebb and flow of the widescreen guitar patterns. Upon discovering a partially dilapidated cemetery near my house, I found spinning pinwheels askew in the ground and late blooming flowers laced with synthetic flowers, all against a backdrop of partly cloudy skies and autumnal foliage. We explored this simple and profound surrealism by performing in-camera lap-dissolves and double exposures in an attempt to marry the ethereal magic of the song with the film we shot. The simplistic nature of Super 8 camera lenses paired with the imperfect nature of Super 8mm film creates a window into a world that feels like a distant cluster of memories, or a dream-like state complete with blurred edges and extemporaneous world-building.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Slowdive Shares Shimmering and Yearning “alfie”

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 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 life 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.

In the lead-up to the album’s release on Friday, I’ve managed to write about three 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 slab,” one of the album’s heaviest songs and arguably one of Slowdive’s heaviest songs they’ve written or recorded in some time. Built around skittering and thunderous percussion, layers of reverb-drenched guitar fuzz and menacing synths, the song features Halstead’s plaintive delivery buried in the mix, seemingly desperately to burst out from its confines.

The album’s fourth and final pre-release single “alfie” is a breathtakingly gorgeous song that harkens back to the band’s 2017 self-titled album with the track featuring layers of shimmering guitars paired with a steady backbeat, Halstead’s yearning reverb-soaked vocal and the founding duo’s uncannily precise harmonies.

“‘alife’ is one of the first tunes we finished for the record,” Slowdive’s Halstead says. “Shawn Everett did a really nice job with the mix. We tried so many times to figure out a good mix by ourselves and couldn’t do it . . . it sort of had us beaten until Shawn stepped in. We decided if he could handle that one he could probably do the whole record. Our friend Jake Nelson did a really nice animation for this song; it takes some of the imagery from the artwork and digs a little deeper into that.”

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: 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

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: 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

Lyric Video: Cincinnati’s Sungaze Releases a Lush and Anthemic New Single

Cincinnati-based dreamgaze married duo Sungaze — Ian Hilvert and Ivory Snow — can trace its origins back to rather humble origins as Hilvert’s solo recording project: After leaving his long-time gig in a metal band, Hilvert wanted to try his hand at writing more dreamy and introspective material. Snow initially joined the band as a temporary keyboardist, but as the act began to play more shows, her influence on the band grew, helping lead to stronger and more confident songwriting — and eventually to the couple writing much more collaboratively and sharing vocal duties. The end result is a unique sound and songwriting approach that mixes each individual member’s artistic influences and passions. Interestingly, their sound features elements of shoegaze, psych rock, dream pop and a tinge of twang.

Generally, their material is written from personal experience and thematically focuses on human nature, while occasionally touching upon the metaphysical and spiritual. But much of their inspiration comes from a sense of place and a desire to capture the landscapes and spaces they both find enchanting.

The Cincinnati-based duo’s full-length debut, 2019’s Light In All Of It was released to praise from The 405, Austin Town Hall, Cincinnati CityBeat and others. The album eventually landed at #91 on the North American College and Community Radio Charts (NACC), remaining on the charts for more than six consecutive weeks. Building upon a growing profile, Sungaze’s sophomore album This Dream is slated for an August 13, 2021 release.

This Dream’s second and latest single “Body In The Mirror” finds the duo further establishing their sound. Centered around lush layers of shimmering and jangling guitars, a rousingly anthemic hook and Snow’s breathy cooing, “Body In The Mirror” is a seamless synthesis of Slowdive-like shoegaze and Mazzy Star/Still Corners-like dream pop — but while lyrically and thematically focusing on the hard self-reckoning that many of us battled with during the height of the pandemic.

Video by William Ruben Helms

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

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

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

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

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

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

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Glow Releases an Expansive and Trippy Single

Best known for being a member of Purchase, NY-based lo-fi act LVL UP, Mike Caridi stepped out into the limelight as a solo artist with his solo recording project The Glow Caridi released his The Glow debut 2019’s Am I and in the subsequent years since that album’s release, the project expanded into a full-fledged band with the addition of LVL UP bandmate Greg Rutkin, Hellrazor’s and Potty Mouth’s Kate Meizer and Doe’s Nicola Leel.

The addition of the project’s new members necessitated change in musical and thematic direction — and the band offered a glimpse of that new direction with the recent release of the “Love Only”/”Heavy Glow” double single. “‘Love Only’ and ‘Heavy Glow’ are the first two songs written by The Glow, sorta,” Caridi says in press notes. “I’ve been releasing music under The Glow moniker since 2016 or so, but until now I’d considered it a solo outlet. The Glow live band came together around the 2019 record Am I, and somehow I got lucky enough to play with a bunch of musicians who I’ve known and admired for years; Greg Rutkin, Kate Meizner, Nicola Leel, and Madeline Babuka Black. To be surrounded by so much talent and not be open to collaboration would have been a major misstep on my part. There’s so much joy in collaboration that I missed a lot while trying to do things on my own. ‘Love Only’ is about reflection and growth; I feel extremely lucky to be playing music with my friends, and with these two songs The Glow feels like it’s just beginning to bloom.”

Interestingly, this sense of openness may arguably be most apparent on “Heavy Glow,” the newly minted quartet’s first entirely collaborative song: The track sees Kate Meizner taking on vocal duties on in expansive track centered around dizzying tremolo and fuzzy power chords, Rutkin’s metronomic-like drumming and Leel’s driving baselines. The seven minute-plus track finds Caridi and collaborators at their most dynamic and layered with the track subtly nodding at the textured soundscapes of shoegaze — think of Slowdive, My Bloody Valentine and The Verve — but with a power pop penchant for infectious hooks.