Categories
Rediscover

Blind Mr. Jones

“Oh it’s another mess of a day

I’m lifeless and I’m sick and tired of what you’ve got to say”

Blind Mr. Jones – the shoegazers’ favourite obscure band. Obscure only because no one’s heard a peep out of them or about them since about 1994 when they vanished sans trace after releasing one of my favourite Classic Shoegaze albums – a gem called Tatooine.

“oh it’s another waste of a day.

I’m listless and I’m so, so bored of what you’ve got to say.”

Tatooine which had on it an arrestingly beautiful song called ‘Hey’ which was the song that had me captivated the first time I heard it.

“Hey, ey”

Do you think they know how much they’re loved? Do you think they know how much we miss them? Do you think if we scattered Tatooine-striped milk cartons across the United Kingdom they might chance upon one, decide to log on to Facebook, do a vanity search, find their fan page and post a message on the wall saying ‘hey, sup, so we found this milk carton…’?

Because if there’s any chance of that happening, I think we should do it.

I hope they’re still around, I hope they’re alive and well, and I hope they know they’re adored.

Hey.

Categories
Rediscover Track

Feel The Same – Millionyoung (2009)

Chillwave is a natural companion to shoegaze if you think about it. Both genres share the same fuzziness, the same distant, drowning echos, the same viscosity. Chillwave just happens to be slightly more synthetic – you can taste the chemicals that give it its flavour, while shoegaze is much more analogue – more silky. Nonetheless, they go together well. Which is why I don’t feel it is out of character to have a bit of a discussion about Millionyoung here.

Well, not even Millionyoung – just this one song by him. Being a relatively new genre, its proponents are a bit sparse with the albums and so you make do with just a smattering of tracks per artist.

So, yes, the song in question happens to be this tropical midnight number called ‘Feel The Same – it’s all about hollow plinkity-plinks with jingly percussion grated over it. Or that’s how it opens anyway: the parmesan synths tickling the back of your neck like friendly ants. Then something you assume is the bassline owing to its passing resemblance to the rhythm of a ‘regular’ bass guitar honks its lumbering way in offering its squishy brick wall support to the starry voice that’s been murmuring all this while.

It starts to cushion its pulse, showing itself to be more of a beat and less of a bass, and then the song morphs – the first transformation of three – into an unbelievably outer spacey 1980s guitar solo. Soon, this breaks up as well as it changes into a myriad of wah-wahs before the entire track collapses upon itself recapping its entirety in reverse order. By the time you reach the end, you’re right where you began, wondering if you just imagined the entire immobilising interplanetary journey.

PS: Click the image to download the Sunndreamm EP. Click here to download ‘Feel The Same’. Both totes legit.

Categories
Rediscover Track

Epic45 – Ghosts On Tape (2009)

I’m a little bit in love with this song. ‘Ghosts on Tape’ is the last song on Epic45‘s mini-album In All The Empty Houses. I love Epic45 even more for releasing a ‘mini-album’. Everything is a little more endearing in miniature.

Now ‘Ghosts on Tape’ starts off all innocent-like with a little bit of string-picking. Then this wistful, disembodied voice comes in and says “I’ll always remember you/you’re in my heart/forever.” Ordinarily I’d roll my eyes at such op-shop lyrics but these convey such heartbreaking hopelessness as they absent-mindedly sketch a fond memory before sinking into an acceptance of loss – “Now we’re just… ghosts on tape” – that they are immediately granted the right of way on the cliche superhighway, should such a thing exist. The song is so full of unhappy longing, it makes you want to wrap it up in a blankie and give it some spiked cocoa with the aim of snapping the glaze out of its unfocused eyes.

Because ‘Ghosts on Tape’ is effectively just an extended childhood reminiscence punctuated by unwelcome jolts back to cruel adulthood. The video fits perfectly too and you see it complement the steadily melancholic song as protagonist goes through fits of rage, defeated helplessness and ultimate submission.

But it’s not a depressing song. There’s a magical crash halfway through which transforms the melancholia of the track into something wonderfully uplifting. By the time we reach the end we’re no longer wallowing dejectedly in the past. I’d say we’re accepting the present and embracing the future instead, but it’s really more like we’ve figured out a way to go back in time and relive our favourite bits over and over again.

Image Source

Categories
Album Rediscover

Sweet Trip – Velocity : Design : Comfort (2003)

Album Cover

Imagine all the sounds you’ve ever known and all the sounds you think you’ll know, now break them up into a musical barcode and you’ll get a visual of what Sweet Trip might sound like. The album art definitely gives you an image of what you’re about to step into, because this band is not just musically diverse, ethnically they come from three different parts of the world and have managed to create this giant super sundae of shoegazey guitars, electro-break beats, insane sound samples and melancholic dreampop vocals.

Velocity : Design : Comfort – my first Sweet Trip record – defines their sound for me. The album is produced to perfection laying down layers of dense, thin, chunky liquid and presenting it in a flawless manner for your ears to delve into making sure the contrasts fill up all the sound cravings in your head and reach that perfect point of balance.

The opener track ‘Tekka’ is in a way an overture of the madness that lies in the rest of the record, taking you on a trip from a wall of beats and crisp sound samples to a lo-fi, 8 bit screech stop and then driving you back into the buzz of little flurries and beat washes. Another track to watch out for is ‘Fruitcake and Cookies’ which expands on the notion set by the opening track, giving you more of the beat driven madness with Valerie Reyes’ vocals providing you with a rope to hold on to as you make your way through the density laid down by front man Roberto Burgos and his machines.

The track that got me hooked was ‘To All the Dancers of the World, A Round Form of Fantasy.’ It’s all your nostalgia and hope crammed into one track. The way the syncopated beat structure keeps your head bobbing in a state of disbelief at a steady tempo is unlike any song I’ve ever heard. And just when you thought things were going all lazy calm and lo-fi, you’re introduced to the sweetest wall of noise and you cant help but sink into it. Progressive is an understatement, it’s almost bipolar.

Sweet Trip has taken the best of all of the indie world and made it their sound, don’t be surprised if you’re putting five stars on each track in the record. This will be a hook you don’t wanna get out from. Sweet trip? More like sweet submission.

Categories
Rediscover Track

A Place To Bury Strangers – Sunbeam (2007)

REDISCOVER

Sunlight filtering through rustling leaves. An intoxicated voice clumsily groping at a synthetic melody. Despite its slurred words (“schtrolling… schtruggling”), it remains unexpectedly bright eyed. The artificiality of the percussion is apparent, yet it is perfectly in harmony with your blood beats. Find a stray late afternoon ray of sunlight to park yourself in as you listen. Move if you feel like it – sway in a blur of narcotically swirling limbs. Or stay tranquilly immobile – feel it flow through veins and explode marvellously in the centre of your system. Become the song, because Sunbeam effortlessly turns into you.

Find It On: A Place to Bury Strangers (Bonus Track)

Photograph © Luc Viatour GFDL/CC