shoegaze
Track: Brisbane’s dream pop queen Hatchie is back with another incandescent shimmering single ‘This Enchanted’ and news of singing with US label Secretly Canadian
There’s a frisson of excitement in Backseat Mafia’s antipodean offices. It’s been two years since Brisbane’s dream pop queen Hatchie graced us with her presence with her album ‘Keepsake’ (see my review here), and while she has raised her head above the parapets with a few collaborations (including her duo on the stunning Rinse single …
EP: Silk Cut shapes a gorgeous, shimmering cloth in debut EP ‘astronaut’, with tracks that sparkle like stars in the firmament
Silk Cut is a magical Auckland dream pop/shoegaze band that has just released their debut EP ‘astronaut’, and while the band is a brand new piece of clothing, it is formed from vintage material. Singer/guitarist Andrew Thorne has played with Modern Chair – a collaboration between him and another veteran of the NZ music scene, Wayne …
News: Indie legend Dean Wareham (Galaxie 500, Luna, Dean and Britta) announces solo album and unveils a scintillating and evocative video for opening track ‘The Past Is Our Plaything’.
There is no doubting the legendary status of Dean Wareham, whose band Galaxie 500 in the late eighties defined a gentle low-fi poetic brilliance and melodic genius that influenced and enhanced the shoegaze/dream pop genre. After Galaxie 500 burned ever so brightly between 1987 and 1991, releasing three landmark albums in the process, Wareham formed …
Premiere: On the 20th anniversary of their debut album, Pia Fraus give us a sneak listen to their new recording ‘Now You Know, It Still Feels The Same’: fresh interpretations of youthful brilliance.
Hailing from Tallinn, Estonia, Pia Fraus have proven to be one of the most fascinating and enduring shoegaze bands of the past twenty years, made all the more unusual by the fact that they emerged from Eastern Europe, an area not known for this genre. Their debut album, ‘Wonder What it’s Like’, was released in …
Track: Auckland’s Silk Cut unveil an immersive shoegaze dream pop debut in ‘Getting In Close’ and announce new EP
Andrew Thorne has graced these pages under a few different guises. He first came to my attention in Modern Chair– a collaboration between him and another veteran of the NZ music scene, Wayne Bell. Modern Chair can best be described (and indeed have been) – as dirty, stomping squalls of pure joy laced with a …
Track: Cardiff’s Inland Murmur release the delicate and fragile ‘Waterline’
The intricate layers and wistful air of ‘Waterline’ creates a delicately organic piece of music that is ethereal and dreamy. Created by Cardiff band Inland Murmur, the result is something that captures the essence of vulnerability and, indeed, anxiety that defines our current times. The band says the single was the product of the early …
EP: Sydney’s DMA’S release surprise EP, the euphoric ‘I Love You Unconditionally, Sure Am Going To Miss You’ featuring shock and awe shoegaze single ‘We Are Midnight’
After a hectic past 18 months with the release of the album ‘The Glow’, a live double LP of their gig at Brixton and winning a slew of awards at the Australian Independent Record Labels Association (AIR), DMA’S have just released a surprise new EP entitled ‘I Love You Unconditionally, Sure Am Going To Miss …
Track: Brisbane’s sparkling Cheap Date unveil a dreamy poppy delight ‘Woman to You’, and announce launch gig.
Proving itself yet again to be a hotspot for unbounded talent of the shoegaze/dream pop variety, Brisbane has produced another dreamy dream pop delight in the band Cheap Date, whose new single ‘Woman to You’ is a gloriously shimmering immersive slice of heaven. Punctuated by crisp dappling guitars and wry, humourous lyrics, singer Lara Dee’s …
Track: New Zealand’s Nik Brinkman’s new single ‘Sugarland’ is a delicious shimmering wonder.
With a theme running to the sweeter side, New Zealand’s Nik Brinkman follows up ‘Candy’, premiered by us back in June with another languid, hazy delight, ‘Sugarland’. The crystalline guitars form a crisp, crunchy background to the dreamy haze of the song with its recurring riffs and floaty atmosphere. Brinkman’s magical vocals are evocative and …
Track: Sydney’s Moody Beach swaggers in with the shoegaze blitz of ‘Plastic Love’
Sydney’s Moody Beach (the work of Melissah Mirage) has been catching the attention of Backseat Mafia this year with her dirty, scuzzy brand of shoegaze dream pop, delivered with a shot glass full of swagger and a black leather jacket draped attitude. Two earlier singles this year, ‘Chance’ and ‘The Other’, set the radar blinking, …