dream pop
Track: San Mei – Heaven
Following up on her debut single “Wonder” earlier this year, Emily Hamilton, working under the name San Mei, has just released a fitting follow-up in “Heaven”. This is a somewhat more poppy and less abrasive San Mei, yet it still has a spine of fuzz and understated distortion below the surface of synths. “Heaven” is …
Album Review: Soft Science – Maps
Soft Science warned us with their first two double A singles from ‘Maps’ that something very special was on its way and, in ‘Maps’, something special has been delivered. Hailing from sunny California, Soft Science have gifted an album rooted to some extent in a very British shoegaze cloak that is yet somehow imbued with …
Track: A Shoreline Dream – Waitout plus EP news
A Shoreline Dream epitomise shoegaze dream pop at it’s most vibrant. Their new single ‘Waitout’ mixes a Ride-like vocal layers over an instrumentation that recalls The Stone Roses – rolling waves of shimmering guitar over a solid rhythm track. Waitout induces a dream-like reverie with shards of crystalline guitars weaving wave after wave of melody-infused …
Track: Barrie – Tal Uno
There is something about melancholic dream pop that seduces me. It is the bittersweet nature of the music – layers of beautiful bright often upbeat sounds sometimes contrasting and at times augmenting wistful downbeat vocal refrains filled with a sense of longing. Barrie, a band based in New York but with an international mix of …
Album Review : Beach House’s ‘7’
It took me a bit before I truly could appreciate the magic of Beach House’s music. The Baltimore band’s appeal eluded me their first couple records. What I’d heard off of Teen Dream and then Bloom was nice in a passerby sort of way, but I didn’t know what all the accolades were about. What …
Track: Soft Science – Sooner/Paris (Double A Side)
Soft Science are continuing to produce some of the most exciting music out of the US West Coast with their unique take on shoegaze/dream pop. Following close on the release of their brilliant double A side singles ‘Undone’ and ‘I Don’t Know Why I Love You’ reviewed by us last month, the band are releasing …
Album Review : Moon Loves Honey’s ‘You Drift Away From Me’
As soon as you hit play on Moon Loves Honey’s debut record You Drift Away From Me there is an instant tilt in the atmosphere. The world’s axis seems to turn slightly, causing a slight dizziness. A woozy high envelopes your head and all seems mildly good once again in the world, even if for …
Album Review: The Amazing – In Transit
‘In Transit’, the newly released album by Swedish band, ‘The Amazing’ is a unique blend of shoegaze/dream-pop that at times diverts into the lush indie/folk vibes of bands like Belle and Sebastian or Sufjan Stevens. This is a remarkable piece of work – eleven layered, dreamy and evocative songs that somehow manage to capture within …
See: Polychrome – Final Kiss Video, plus album and tour news
The silkiest, smoothest hook-laden glory that is ‘Final Kiss’ by Polychrome, reviewed here last month has now been augmented further by the release of a new video: a series of luminous neon lights that evoke the vague eighties feel of this brilliant song. This is, for me, one of the stand out singles of the …
Track: Hatchie – Sugar and Spice, plus announcement of debut EP
While there was much excitement in Australia following the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games last night in Brisbane, Backseat Mafia’s antipodean outpost was more enthralled by the news that Brisbane’s other great product, and one of our favourites, Hatchie, released a new track along with news of her debut EP, both entitled ‘Sugar and …