Category: Review

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Live Rediscover Review

Gig Guide 2011: Honourable Mentions

1. Dean and Britta playing the songs of Galaxie 500

I’m not the biggest Galaxie 500 fan, I think it’s because I don’t understand why they’re categorised as shoegaze when I can clearly make out all the lyrics. Also, Dean’s voice sounds a bit off key to me, but no one else seems to notice so I wonder if I’m just imagining it. That hasn’t stopped me from enjoying their albums, however. Except I don’t enjoy them for the reasons I enjoy shoegaze. So you see they perplex my simple mind a great deal, and as a result I feel a bit guilty, somewhat fraudulent for not appreciating them as much as I ought to. Nonetheless, Dean and Britta put on an excellent show when they played. It was the sort of gig you step out of feeling satisfied. They played the right songs, the right mix of old/new, the vocals were just right, the sound quality was perfect, and we were just the right distance from the stage. A nice, refreshing, fulfilling show.

2. Primal Scream playing Screamadelica (support: Underground Lovers)

I had been looking forward to this show for months! Underground Lovers AND Primal Scream? Talk about two dreams coming true at once! 2.5 if you make the JAMC connection, but we won’t. Unfortunately, we all know what happens when you look forward to something too much. Something goes wrong. In this case, it was a poorly timed comment after I had bounced my feet off to Underground Lovers and was buzzing with anticipation for the next. I pushed to the front so Bobby Gillespie would be able to sing to me more effectively (I don’t do this standing middle-of-the-crowd thing). “Why?” I was asked “you don’t even like them that much!”.

Fizzle.

Sigh.

It was a great gig though – everyone in top form, and the wispy Gillespie weaving some sort of spell over the audience, well aware of his charisma. It didn’t make the top owing to the rapid sap of adrenaline, but hey! I am a delicate petal, what of it? Oh you agree, do you? Well why don’t you come over here and say that, eh?

Also a buzzkill: the encore was ‘Rocks’ and the crowd that had been so shockingly listless through all of Screamadelica, exploded. Jumping up and down, pushing their way forward, stomping on my delicate petal foot. More exitement for ‘Rocks’ than ‘Loaded’?! Damn lamestreamers.

 

Image nicked from Faster Louder

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Live Rediscover Review

Gig Guide 2011 #2: Alcest

I knew I had to go, but I was complacent – no one knows Alcest here. I’ll get tickets by-and-by.

The first show sold out.

Sheet.

Panic.

Second show announced.

It seems I had underestimated the number of attentive shoegazers in Melbourne. Needless to say, I booked my tickets at the speed of light.

I left beloved boyfriend’s birthday dinner early so I could get a spot near the front. This is the boyfriend who was going to be accompanying me to the same show, but I refused to wait for dessert (“Gaze Over Guys”, that’s my motto).

The doors opened later than they should’ve so by the time sweet-imbibing bf showed up the first band had only just started. Can I just reiterate that I gave up dessert for a band that wasn’t going to hit the stage for another two hours and can I also state that I have never sacrificed dessert for a human being in my entire life. I only do these crazy things for music. There should be an award for such heroism.

While milling about waiting for the first band to go up, I worked out why those tickets had sold out so fast. I was the lone shoegazer in a sea of metalheads. And Melbourne’s gotta lotta metalheads.

There were going to be two support acts before Alcest went up, so the show was in three stages. Each stage was marked by a smell.

The first band was a local metal group called Encircling Sea. I dug them, so I am assuming they were good. I hardly have the authority to comment, but I got into it, so did the people around me so there y’go. Unfortunately, this phase of the show smelled of Not Enough Deodorant. No fault of the chaps on stage, it was lurking somewhere within the audience.

All was saved when the second band took the stage. A local post-rock outfit called Heirs with a girl bassist. This is an important point to make because, as you might already know, girls like nice-smelling things. She placed an electric incense diffuser right at the foot of the stage where it sat quietly radiating a lovely, delicate scent as Heirs played some exceptional post-rock.Very tight, very pro, I don’t know why I hadn’t heard of them before (probably because I am not terribly cool)

But enough of that. Now it’s time for Alcest. I heard someone cry out “NEEJ!” as the band crept onstage and I did not cringe (so I get another award).

The sound was a bit shaky at first. We can’t hear you, Neige! we moaned after they’d opened with ‘Le Secret’. Neige kindly asked the sound guy to crank up his vox. What’s that… They’re maxed out? Nothing to do but shrug and carry on. Neige and crew played ‘Souvenirs’, ‘Printemps’ and ‘Iris’ off Souvenirs. From Ecailles, they played ‘Ecailles 1 & 2’ and gave me a pleasant shock when they also played ‘Solar Song’ – the song from my Least Likely List. They played a new song, and there were also one or two others in there that I can’t recall anymore. They mostly pandered to the metalheads and as the gig progressed I gradually accepted that seeing ‘Ciel Errant’ live would remain a dream as of course, the shoegazers were the less valuable faction of the audience. A justifiable situation as there are fewer of them. The crowd screamed for ‘Elevation’ as the encore which left me disappointed because – don’t get me wrong, ‘Elevation’ is a great song – it just doesn’t feel like Alcest – it doesn’t have the heart that Souvenirs does. Nonetheless, the inclusion of ‘Solar Song’ makes up for the absence of ‘Ciel Errant’ and I think of it as a little treat just for the gazers in the crowd.

This phase of the show smelled of David Jones.

Who?

If you walk down Bourke Street in Melbourne, you’ll find a department store called David Jones between Swanston and Elizabeth Streets. The perfume department looks out onto the street. I walk past it en route to my tram and whenever I do I am hit by a blast of warmed up, muddled up, designer (?) fragrances.  I was taken aback when Alcest turned on and this lovely, if somewhat overpowering, scent wafted through the air. Where was it coming from, though I, turning my head left and right in desperate search of the source.

Turns out these metal kids take serious care of their hair. It was a headbanger getting his whiplash on just a row ahead of me. That’s got to be some mean conditioner.

Image Source: Robotichead (all rights reserved )

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Live Rediscover Review

Gig Guide 2011 #3: Mono

Part of the Melbourne Festival. Mono played with a 23-piece orchestra (the Holy Ground orchestra, to be precise) putting on an unsurprisingly spectacular performance. The sound was, not just enormous, but majestic. It was royalty. It was ruined by the jerks at a table over from us who mistook the gig for a social occasion, and Mono for the “live band” that plays languidly in the background while you and your friends toss your head back and laugh over a tinkling glasses of booze. The blame for the misfortune of having such individuals in the audience is twofold (not counting the people themselves). 1. The choice of venue: there are booths, the booths have tables, the tables hold drinks and the seats that wrap around the table hold people. This is v. likely to result in the illusion that the show is, in fact, a an excuse for a social outing and it is thus acceptable to yap away cheerily as the band plays on. The likely culprit for this aggravating situation is 2. the price of tickets – a mere 35 quid. How it hurts us to admit this but perhaps a higher price would have meant only those who really loved the music turned up.

But, let’s not forget, this is Mono, and they don’t need us to shoot glares at noisy fellow patrons. Mono can look after themselves. Mono know how to fill a hall, even one as expansive as the Forum, with weighty vibrations so all waggling tongues are crushed under their weight if they so much as quiver when they ought not to.

Shockingly, my own favourite aspect of the show was the between-acts music. Mono must have done the choosing because I wouldn’t expect Gorecki to be an Australian decision. Less so would I imagine anyone but the band giving Symphony No. 3 the respect due to it by playing it – all three parts of it – in its entirety, fade in to fade out. Sure, people tried to talk over this too, but Symphony #3 is sorcery which is why by the time it hit the coda, the room was stunned, struck dumb.

Thus Mono come in at #3 foiled by their own, perfect, choice of filler music.

Image Source: The AU Review

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Live Rediscover

Incoming: Gig Guide 2011

I saw my last gig of the year a couple of weeks ago. 2011 has been good for gigs. It put up an admirable fight with APTBS- and SSPU-infused 2010. I thought I’d take the time out and document my most memorable. The ones that only a few years ago, I had accepted I would never see in my life. Wa-hey, dreams come true, who knew?

Up next, a bit about my top 3 shows of 2011.

Pic of Mono’s setup from Mess & Noise

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Album Discover

This Was Tomorrow – An Interview With Sway

Back in 2010 when Sway first released the followup to the now classic Millia Pink and Green EP, I offered to review it for him on this here blog. Many a draft was started, but I wasn’t quite able to express the everything about This Was Tomorrow that made it so special. This Was Tomorrow‘s USP is its complete and utter departure from The Millia Pink and Green and this has, unsurprisingly, left a few of the old-school gazers confused. Me, I see Millia Pink and Green and This Was Tomorrow as entirely different, uncomparable pieces of work. However I think think the poor purists would like an explanation. So putting my electrogaze tendencies aside I decide to ask The Man Himself (hi Andrew!) a few Qs about the album so we can get all your perplexedness cleared up.

I’m quite happy I took so long to get around to this because just last month, Sway signed up to Saint Marie Records and so This Was Tomorrow had a fresh release on the 7th of June this year. That’s enough excitement and goings-on in the Life of Sway to make up an entire interview, I thought. So here you go:

The St. Marie Records signing was something like 6 months after you independently released This Was Tomorrow. What’s the story behind that? Is TWT going to be out in many formats? CD, Vinyl, tape, 8-track… Also what would you consider the official release date?

This Was Tomorrow was initially intended to be a “digital only” release via iTunes, Bandcamp, etc. I really only wanted to have it out in that format as I’m very much on-board with the idea of digital distribution of music. I love it. I totally understand the desires of many music fans that want a tangible copy of an album, but for me the most important thing is getting people to hear my music in the easiest and most convenient way possible. I really kind of feel that compact discs are on the way out. The album actually was released as a download only in November of 2010, and a couple of months after the release Saint Marie Records hit me up to do a CD release of the album. I had received so many emails asking about when TWT would be released on CD that I was planning to do a special limited run, and the Saint Marie offer came just in time. So, for now, you have TWT as a digital download and a CD. I suppose I consider June 7th, 2011 to be the official release…

TWT is totally different from The Millia Pink & Green EP. I know there’ve been some “you’ve abandoned us!” reactions from the purists because (I think) it’s far more electrogaze than classic shoegaze. Much more digital than analog. I’m just speculating it was the 8-bitter in you that compelled you to make the record. You know better so tell me – what were you thinking about when you made each record?

Well, when I guess it’s pretty obvious that my influences are bands like Slowdive, Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine, Lush, etc. When we did The Millia Pink and Green, I wanted to do a very swirly album that would set us apart mostly from a lot of stuff that was going on locally here on the West coast (US). At that time, there really weren’t many bands doing the kind of stuff we were around here, and I really wanted to do something that would be just a million miles away from all of the other albums coming out.
I have always been obsessed with things that sound lost and blurry in music. Things that sound beautiful but strange, that’s why I was drawn to dreampop early on. I always loved Enya and ethereal sounding stuff, and I like my pop music that way too.
With The Millia P&G, I was just looking to make a blurry, floaty, windy EP that would be a reminder of what Sway was doing live at the time. When people came to our shows (we played a lot back then, believe it or not) they would usually be somewhat confused by the sounds we were putting out and I’m sure wondered if most of it were intentionally done, you know? So, this was like a reminder or proof that, yeah, we actually made music that sounded that way, and meant to.

I’ve always been a gamer. All of the Sway kids were. We all grew up with Atari and Nintendo stuff. There is something about 8-bit sounds and all that, that really gets my nostalgia machine working. For me, part of the whole dreampop thing is this weird nostalgic daydream feeling that’s induced by swirly guitars. I realized a few years ago that those retro game sounds also have the same effect on me, perhaps even more so, so I had to squeeze them in there. In my opinion, it totally works. I’m not trying to abandon all of the people that are faithful to the textbook shoegaze sounds or anything, I just feel there’s room for new sounds in this “genre”. I’m actually kinda bummed that it’s far easier for most bands these days to more or less emulate Slowdive or My Bloody Valentine twenty years later and have people eat it up. That bugs me. I honestly love the classics and steal from them all day long in my own way, but I constantly feel pressured to not go too far when it comes to borrowing from them and their sounds or songwriting. TWT is a dreampop album that uses plenty of my influences, and adds some new stuff that you might not expect for this kind of music. It’s good to mix it up a bit. I think if people give this album a real listen, they’ll appreciate it more. I made this for the listeners, the people that put on headphones and like to lose themselves in the music.

What is a day in the life of Sway – are you a rockstar, an oversized kid, or just a normal 9-to-5-er?

Definitely as far from a rockstar as can be. I’m a dad, a husband, and I have a full time job at a place that is totally unrelated to music, art, or anything remotely creative at all. I’m older now, and I’m very busy and tired. I don’t love music any less than I used to. It’s torture to not have many chances these days to just create music the way I used to and took it for granted, but I still find time every now and then, and that’s fine. It will never let me achieve any huge popularity or fan base from touring and doing all the promo work that “successful” bands do, but I think I’m okay with that. I love the fact that new people are always finding out about Sway on the internet and from friends.

Even the most dedicated shoegazer likes more than just shoegaze. What completely different music does your alterego(s) like?

I honestly don’t listen to much “nugazer” stuff these days unless I’m exposed to it by friends, or people I meet or whatever. Most that I do hear though, I really like a lot! I don’t actively seek out new shoegaze bands. I do listen to all the classic stuff from time to time to feed my cravings. As far as other styles that I like, I know it may sound cliché, but I do listen to tons of jazz. My first instrument was the saxophone, and I still play every now and then. I love the freedom of jazz improvisation. I love the experimental and sometimes dissonant chord progressions of avant-garde jazz and “new thing” jazz. I also love modern “classical” composers and electronic art stuff. I like crazy Japanese noise/electronic stuff. Anime soundtracks. Minimalist classical, anything experimental and pretty. I’m not into that much electronica unless it’s ethereal and not too…electronica-ish. I grew up in the 1980s so I kind of have a soft spot for late 70s and 80s pop stuff. I have very fond memories of being a little kid and listening to my walkman all night to some of the top 40 stuff through out the mid and late eighties. I mention it a lot, but one of the reasons that I’m drawn to dreampop is memories of falling asleep with my headphones on, and waking up late at night, in a sleepy haze and hearing Pet Shop Boys or Lionel Ritchie or Swing Out Sister or something, whispering to me in my ears. I love the Beatles. I’ve always loved Michael Jackson’s music. “Human Nature” is one of my all time favorite songs. The older I get, the less I like hip, cutting edge “alternative” and “indie” music. It’s all starting to sound like noise to me now, and not so much in a good way. It’s weird but true. Is that sad, or what?

Do you want to know how I first heard about Sway? It’s not super-interesting, but I thought you might like to know since it was not thru the internet (shock!).

Sway: Hmmmm… not through the internet, huh? I’m very curious! I doubt that you took a leap of faith and bought a Sway CD from Tonevendor without a recommendation or something… or did you? A friend?

Me: Well I guess it was indirectly the internet. But I think it’s cool because I wasn’t a part of the Shoegaze Collective at the time (because it didn’t really exist to the extent it does now). I only knew a handful of shoegazers from the internet and one of them I’d known since I was in India and he lived in Australia. So a couple of years after I landed in Melbourne we worked out we weren’t too far apart and decided to meet for the first time. He’s like shoegaze bourgeoisie. I don’t know where he gets his info from but even the most thorough scouring of the internet doesn’t reveal to me the stuff he knows as soon as he knows it. He left me with a few names on our first meeting and was positively RAVING about the Millia Pink and Green. Till This Was Tomorrow I always associated Sway with “Fall” and, I don’t know if you know this, but it’s a classic now. Anyway, I think it’s pretty cool that the first time I heard about Sway was via FACE-TO-FACE CONVERSATION omg.

———
This Was Tomorrow needed a bit of creator input so that listeners can understand it better and see it as less of an abandonment of the classic sounds of shoegaze and more of an evolution of Sway’s own work. I called it Chillgaze when I first heard it, can we make that a genre? See if you think otherwise and pick up This Was Tomorrow here.

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Rediscover Review

Obligatory Year-In-Retrospective Writeup

Everyone’s got to do one. I am not everyone but I am going to do one anyway. There are two ways of going about putting together a retrospective:

1, Make a lot of lists

2. Do a recap of all major events – like a neutron-star newsfeed

But then I am not a pro-blogger, I don’t necessarily keep up with news or new releases unless it is something I know I like, or expect to like or something that has been recommended to me by someone who knows what I like. See it’s all about what I like so no lists or news, just the highlights of this year in shoegaze. For me.

NB: The real reason I’m not doing lists or news is because I am too uncool to keep up well enough to form an opinion

In this edition – shoutouts to my  favourite albums of the year. Disclaimer: This is not a list. I just happen to like a few albums from this year a lot. A lot a LOT. In no particular order:

Soundpool – Mirrors In Your Eyes

You’ve already seen me compose an ode to this album on here and with good reason. I love it. Soundpool sound better than ever and they have really, really come into their own here. They’ve managed to finally, finely sculpt their very own discogaze genre into a marvellous glittery, slightly blurry Studio 54 dance floor and it is marvellous. I am as enraptured with ‘Makes No Sense’ now as I was when I first heard it. Splendid.

Me You Us Them – Post-Data

Thanks to my comrade-in-arms Talha for forcing me to listen to them. You know how Kanye-fever appears to have gripped the world? Indie kids everywhere can’t tear their ears away from his album. Everyone around me – because I am surrounded by indie kids – is stumbling around in a strange Kanye trance mumbling his lyrics under their breath unable to speak of anything else. That album came out last month, did it not? Post-Data was out in April, I think, and it did the same thing to me and is STILL carrying on. I cannot get over the professionalism in conjunction with the fact that this is a debut. Every song is flawless and every song is different – the segueways and contrasts are perfect and the most jaw dropping bit is the fact that the unconventional variety (by shoegaze, or even indie rock standards – towards which this record really appears to lean) doesn’t appear to injure any of the tracks in any way. It’s even got meaningful lyrics – specifically on the unintentionally anthemic ‘Drugs’. Though it keeps changing, I think I’ve settled on ‘Loving Like Lawyers’ as my favourite track. I simply cannot say enough good things about this album and the reason I’m going on about it is because Talha’s the one who reviewed it (as he should have) (lucky thing!)

Butterfly Explosion – Lost Trails

I was a super mega excited worm about this album – having only heard ‘Chemistry’ off a shoegaze compilation and downloaded their EP I’d already classified them as one of those ‘These Guys Cannot Fail’ bands. A dangerous thing to do, but it has served me well in the past. Lost Trails did not disappoint and I maintain Butterfly Explosion are one of the most unfairly ignored (relatively speaking) bands even within gazer circles. Maybe it’s because they’re so good everyone takes their excellence for granted. Maybe it’s because they don’t appear to socialise in shoegaze circles though I do know they have an association with Soundpool up there. Whatever the case, the reason I like them so much is because they make songs that are strong – and, like caffeine, I like shoegaze to be strong without being bitter or harsh. And Butterfly Explosion nail it. They’re like the custom blend of coffee that cuts through the wet foam of expertly steamed milk when it’s placed before you in its ceramic mug so that neither overpowers the other and you’ve got a delicate, yet uniquely flavoured cup of ground-bean extract. I’ve become a bit of a caffeine fiend lately – expect analogies!

A shoutout also goes to my homies Highspire who delighted me by a) continuing to exist and b) releasing an album out of the blue. Aquatic is nothing like Your Everything lacking its predecessors pop sensibilities and well and truly living up to its name. Clearly, Highspire lean towards the sink side of the float/sink shoegaze spectrum. It was inspired by The Cove and is loaded with secrets like easter eggs – my favourite being the little note in the liner that reveals “no drum hardware was used in the making of this record” – whaaaaat.

There are other notables as well but I would rather not just randomly list them without providing a bit of a story for each. Besides, I’m hiding in my room from a forty degree day and must make myself look less like melted wax prior to heading out the door to legitimise New Year celebrations by not being home for it. New Year celebrations are always amusing – so much celebration for one motion of one hand of a clock. Humans are bizarre. Have a happy 2011!

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Album Review

Tears Run Rings – Distance (2010)

It started with ‘Mind The Wires’.

‘Mind the Wires is a song off Tears Run Rings’ first album. It is one of the most exquisitely understanding, most sympathetic songs I have ever had the privilege to hear. I am (unsurprisingly) not quite sure what they’re saying, and while I would like to know, I am quite happy in my lyrical ignorance thanks to a comforting Discernible Lyric Template that ensures the involuntary filler lyrics you insert can do no damage.

You do want to know, though. A template that looks like this:

“Mind the wires, let your love…

Slow down – slow down, be careful

A million stars…”

And also includes:

“Say goodbye…

… stay a while.”

leaves you craving the words you miss every time you listen.

Tears Run Rings don’t get enough credit. Even within shoegaze circles they are oft overlooked and perhaps the most unfairly ignored of all neo-gaze bands. This might be because they don’t appear to travel in the same incestuous musical circles* as several of the others appear to. But they are easily somewhere at the top of the pile in terms of expertise and expression. You can see their honesty manifest itself in their delicately vague song titles, the hazy abstractness obvious in such detached album names as Always, Sometimes, Seldom, Never and even more glaringly so in Distance… which is what I’m supposed to be talking about, by the way. Sorry, ‘Mind The Wires’ always distracts me from the task at hand.

‘Happiness 3’ is a lovely way to start Distance and is, in my humble but somewhat reliable opinion, better than its prequels. It is a stunning, twilit vocal waltz – two voices swirl in each others’ metaphorical arms melting into one another in the kind of blinkered love that leaves you oblivious to your surrounds. Lost in themselves, twisting elegantly into a dewy double helix.

‘Intertia’ is the song with the most personality on the album thanks to some rebellious drums that develop a mind of their own mid-verse and wander off  the set path for a few liberated seconds before snapping out of their reverie, gathering their bearings and reining themselves back in. And ‘Reunion’ is surprisingly psychedelic, radiating the echoes the Jesus and Mary Chain trademarked. The only song I find myself not such a fan of is the much hyped (by TRR standards, of course) offering, ‘Forgotten’. Don’t misunderstand me, ‘Forgotten’ is a great song. But I am left slightly cold by the jarring in-and-out-ros, the guitars screaming a little to harshly to follow the cradle set up by Happiness 3 and appearing out of place in the song itself.

I’m having some trouble adequately expressing how transcendent the title track is. ‘Distance’ the song is an absolute gem, with a melody and words tender enough to coax even the most ardent insomniac to, if not sleep, at the very least a state of out-of-body other-worldly suspension. “We are tired but we can’t go to sleep” – you couldn’t have asked for a more compassionate statement. Tears Run Rings say the words for you and then – “here I am” – say the words to you. You can feel them gently stroking your hair right up to the magnificently crashing close that unfailingly sends ripples through your bloodstream.

It’s quite obvious how much I am in love with this song isn’t it? It’s a seven minute long track and I listened to it five times in the course of writing the preceding paragraph. 35 minutes. I may as well have blinked.

‘Distance’ is followed by the unsettlingly sweet-sounding ‘Divided’. “I try to scream…” says a voice of icy, crystal honey that you know is incapable of such an unmelodious act – and this very thought is what makes the song so disquieting.

I’m quite happy with TRR’s relative elusiveness. It’s not just a matter of having a band you love all to yourself. It goes beyond the mere selfish protectiveness we tend to coat our favourite possessions with (though, no doubt, I am rather pleased with how much more mine this makes them). No, I am also in favour of this because it means there’s less pressure on them.  You know? As in, I’d imagine they’re their own strongest influence. Distance takes its time to unfurl. It’s unhurried and natural – untouched by expectations from peers or industry. Like its predecessor, it’s unadulterated.

[*I love how those incestuous circles are so reminiscent of the original ‘Scene That Celebrates Itself’ mentality. It’s like an involuntary homage to classic shoegaze.]

Categories
Album Review

The Fauns – The Fauns (2010)

I think this album is psychic.

I’m usually all about maximum feasible objectivity when discussing an album, trying not to let what I feel get the better of me and instead aiming to express what I think the music is meant to sound like. However, in this case, I am writing for myself, because The Fauns‘ self-titled album can read minds.

I remember feeling a bit low when I first played it. It’s a bit of a risk exposing yourself to a new piece of music when you’re in a negative frame of mind. Actually, it’s a bit of a risk exposing the music to you, because it might wind up irreversibly tainted by your black mood and beautiful shoegaze doesn’t deserve that at all.

Then again, maybe that is precisely why I subjected the Fauns to me. Already familiar with their brand of blisspop, I wasn’t the least bit surprised when they sympathetically enveloped me in their shimmery fuzz, understanding and forgiving me the mistakes I’d made that had put me in this sticky, muggy mood.

It was easy enough, of course, to zone out and drift along with the current. Before long, however an arresting phrase wafted in and out of focus. “Calm down/It’s going to be all right” it said. An involuntary public frown – it had vanished so quickly, maybe I’d imagined it? No, there it was again. I looked down to see what this windswept song was called making a note calling ‘Road Meets The Sky’ the Psychic Song.

Two tracks later, it was re-tagged The First Psychic Song when ‘Come Around Again’ dropped the unsettlingly sympathetic line “stay calm/no harm/will come/to you.”

And when I listened to the album again, it was re-re-tagged One Of The Psychic Songs. This was when the incredibly, overpoweringly, so-very-genuinely supportive ‘Understand’ caught my attention with the disguised profundity in the simple lyric “When hope is gone/I’ll understand” –

Yet how could the Fauns NOT understand? They’ve been there and beyond. They know what you’re feeling because they’ve felt the same and they helplessly, belatedly reach out to you with ‘Fragile’ – the only moment on the album they devote to their own desolation. ‘Fragile’ is beautiful in its precision – through limiting each line to a two-syllable mantra, it manages to convey everything about a single sad instant – right down to what time of day of the week it is. Juxtaposing a phrase like “perfect/moment” seamlessly with “fragile/…broken” it is filled with tragic splendour. It closes with the same false disaffection that launched it, murmuring with a fatal sort of dejection “heartbeat/slowing” and finally “inside/broken.”

Like I said, I usually strive to be neutral. But this album is a shape-shifting empath, therefore I can only offer you an interpretation of what it says to me. Hopefully, you hear what I do, in which case… phew – objectivity prevails.

Categories
Album Review

Me You Us Them – Post-Data (2010)

In all my shoegazing discoveries this year, none has satisfied me to such an extent as Me You Us Them‘s debut LP has. This album sounds NEW from the first track in, and you had better get your rating finger ready for some serious 5-star clicking. Order in a neck brace as well, the riffs and melodies have a hook enough to get your head bobbing through-out the record till its done.

My first impression of Post-Data had me preparing myself for post-punk onslaught, but as I listened to the album over and over, the dense chords lying in the back made their way up and I was introduced to the wall of sound reminiscent of I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness‘ textural driving buildups. There’s enough swerve in the guitars to fill up your brain’s drone capacitors only to be complimented by the driving grooves that keep your feet busy for, say, about the length of the entire album?

The album’s only just started and already “Any Time’ has you hooked – full of enough key elements to keep the gazer in you more than satisfied. Elastic chords suspending you from the pivot point of the beat while the bass provides all the tension. Each track that follows builds up your appetite for the next. There’s a distinct two chord swerved out riff which I find myself holding on to as a bookmark for each track.

The track that instantaneously stands out is “Drugs’ – it takes you up in with the atmospheric sound wash in the back only to drive you to the edge of a cliff where you hear the words “chin up child, don’t give up”, and it just keeps getting higher from there on. “iQuit’ takes the role of building up to the self titled track, and here’s something interesting – the groove hasn’t let go of you and we’re about 7 tracks down.

It’s this constant driving force in their sound that keeps pushing you further and further still, till you activate your drift and you’re caught in the current . Post-Data transitions from light to dark as you progress from the first track on to the last, but it doesn’t leave you in the shadows once you’re done cruising your way to the end. It only deprives you of their sound when it closes and there really is nothing much you can do but rewind and find yourself stuck in this endless circle of Me You Us Them.

The graphic designer in me really likes the whole retro-modern album art. The hand made silk screened cover is made to look like an old floppy disk, with the pixelation on the record visible through the negative spaces. It’s a perfect depiction of nostalgia and innovation, which is pretty much the sound this band has managed to create. I’ve checked on all the boxes on my shoegaze list and given 5 stars for each track… EACH TRACK! Post-Data is a compilation of all your favorite songs that you haven’t heard yet. I’ve only managed to catch a few videos off of youtube and I can clearly see them rocking out major shows pretty soon in the future! Go ahead check them out yourself… http://meyouusthem.com/

Categories
Album Review

Soundpool – Mirrors In Your Eyes (2010)

I’ve had the new Soundpool record on repeat for most of the past week. At the start of the year I had no idea they were even planning on releasing an LP, so when Mirrors in your Eyes dropped, I was pleasantly surprised since I’d already been charmed senseless by On High and Dichotomies and Dreamland.

Listening to it, I think of the music critic cliché often used to describe a pleasing follow-up attempt by a band: ‘mature’. Bands ‘mature’, they develop a more ‘mature’ sound and create an album more ‘mature’ than its predecessors.

What does that even mean?

Is a band mature when it creates an album with an expertly engineered playlist crafted to ensure the songs seamlessly flow into each other like semi-set jelly? Surely not – they must need to be able to skilfully include some sort of distinction amongst the tracks – they must be able to demonstrate an ability to work with a myriad of styles and variations without faltering or appearing to be paddling hopelessly out of their depth.

I hadn’t pondered the meaning of that single word when used in the context of writing about records till I listened to Mirrors in your Eyes. I listened and then I listened again. And the I listened a few more times because I could hear something in it. I could hear maturity.

It’s easy enough to be a well-loved shoegaze band – the core sound structures of the genre are so inherently beautiful that even the most derivative ensembles can produce pieces of sheer magic. Piggybacking on influences is not a concern, it is usually welcomed and warmly rewarded. The more you manage to sound like Slowdive, the more we will love you.

Only Soundpool aren’t doing that. Anymore. They’ve abandoned the camouflage of their last albums and thrown themselves into gazer territory that I have never seen charted before:

Discogaze.

Yep, straight of the bat we’re hit hard on the head with a spinning mirrorball that establishes the album as one TO BE SHARED. This is not introspective music you beg for comfort as you to curl up in a dark corner of your barely-lit room when you’re going through one of your emo phases. This is music you haphazardly pogo stick to in the middle of a barely-lit club while psychedelic light stencils flash erratically over you and your posse.

I’d like to make an exception for ‘Makes No Sense’, however. The polish of production has significantly glossed up the version we were so far familiar with. This is a song I want to keep to myself, all to myself and not share with anyone. I love the early 90s college mixtape feel of it. I love the blissfully fuzzed out vocals. I love the guitar that crashes over Kim’s voice in the second verse – her completely incomprehensible words remaining disaffectedly stoic despite the wonderfully rude interruption. And I love the slippery hook that lasts the duration of the song manifesting itself in every facet of the song, repeating itself over and over and like some sort of white powder – sugar, salt or cocaine – leaving you craving more, leaving you positively aching to sing along, but helpless to do anything more than hit ‘repeat’.

It’s followed by a sweet little number that calls itself ‘Sparkle in the Dark’ (can’t have a gazer album without a word like ‘sparkle’ in one of the tracks). It’s the perfect comedown after its brain-blending predecessor – a thoughtfully chosen dessert wine that drops you lightly back onto the Studio 54-y dancefloor. And that’s where you remain as your night draws on. Even a song like ‘I’m So Tired’ leaves you swaying lazily, head tossed back, as you allow your body to recharge.

Incredibly comforting, ‘That Sunny Day’ propels itself along on the wheels of a semi-distant fade in/out bada-bahbah-bah-BAH hook. They must have sensed your second wind because final tracks and possible cousins ‘Shelter’ and ‘Listen’ swoop in at just the right moment offering your weary but still mobile self exceptionally shimmery melodies with beats perfectly timed to ensure you remain happily mobile and conveniently ignorant of how they’re winding you down at the end of the night.

No, no – no mopey faces. The album’s over, but remember that ‘repeat’ button you have at your disposal. I’m using mine to drown in ‘Makes No Sense’ again, but feel free to release the prismatic evening as many times as you like.