View to the Future
Shoegaze electronica… personally I pretty much gave up on the genre when in the noughties everyone started mentioning Ulrich Schnauss as its new messiah. To me his material sounded like glorified elevator music that took the lameness of Slowdive’s overrated output to numbing new lows. Later I also held him responsible for a lot of the […]
The Blocks of the World
left: Sean Scully ‘Landline Blue’, 2014. Right: Sean Scully ‘Landline Grey Grey’, 2014. Oil on aluminium “I was always looking at the horizon line”, the painter Sean Scully has said about his recent ‘Landline’ series, “– at the way the blocks of the world hug and brush up against each other, their weight, their […]
Soon: Duelectrum
Offering their own interpretation of the introspective evanescence so integral to the shoegaze mindset, Duelectrum seem to barely exist. They are from São Paulo, Brazil, and include Filipe Albuquerque on vocals and guitar, Franklin Weise on vocals and bass, Lucas Lippaus on guitar and Elson Barbosa on drums. Formed in 1999 by Albuquerque and Weise, […]
Soon: You Walk Through Walls
The warm, crepuscular tones of You Walk Through Walls’ self-titled new album evoke a tender and reassuring yet somehow distant domesticity, like photos of friends and family pinned onto the fridge or letters written to loved ones back home from a mildly adventurous yet personally significant trip. The London-based band includes two former Air Formation members, […]
Soon: Stagnant Pools
“Maintain Consistency,” implored the guitarist and vocalist Bryan Enas on Temporary Room, the 2012 album he recorded with his brother, drummer Doug Enas. Stagnant Pool’s debut was a highly promising affair, a richly textured yet obdurately minimalist testimony to pain sung through pursed lips. Ironically, though, while the Indiana duo’s album was graced with some […]
The Space Interpreters
In tribute to the Germany footballer Thomas Müller, winner of the Golden Boot at the last world cup and one of the leading scorers at the current one, I thought I’d look at the treatment of space in some recent shoegaze releases. When once asked to list his best attributes, Müller described himself as a Raumdeuter – […]