shoegaze

A New Music Fix

/ Tony / 3 Comments

“Why do you need new bands? Everyone knows rock attained perfection in 1974.”

In my determination, as I march toward the middle of my fourth decade, not to become stuck in any kind of rut, especially musical, I try and keep my ear out for good new music as much as I can.

As much as there’s plenty of dross out there these days there’s still plenty of great stuff too. Though I guess that’s always been the case – as great as the ’90s were for music, Celine Dion still bought a few houses off the back of ‘My Heart Will Go On.’

Anyway, here’s a few from some new artists – as opposed to new stuff from known artists – that’s been keeping my fingers tapping on the Ferrari’s steering wheel.

The Last Dinner Party – Nothing Matters

Apparently Queen, The Sparks, Bowie and Kate Bush sit high in their influence list. All good and clear but these five young ladies from London bring something unique to the mix too and their new album Prelude To Ecstasy is bloody strong.

Whitelands – The Prophet & I

If this group of Ghana-born, London-raised chaps weren’t opening for Slowdive this year with their glorious take on shoegaze and dreampop then there would’ve been something wrong with the world. Each track I’ve heard so far has felt like a warm bath for my ears and I’m looking forward to finding their album on my doorstep next week.

Divorce – Eat My Words

Divorce describe themselves as an ‘alt-country/grunge(ish) band from Nottingham’ – I’d heard a few tracks over the last year but this is the one that sticks.

Sheer Mag – Moonstruck

Maybe not brand-spanking, still got that fresh new-band smell new as it turns out Sheer Mag have been around a couple of years but they haven’t got all that many miles on the clock. There’s a lot of different things going on in this track – some funk, boogie, great guitar, Prince, Kravitz even Jackson 5 (though I doubt the kiddie fiddler ever sang ‘son of a bitch’), but I love it all.

Softcult – Haunt You Still

My wife came home from her commute recently and said ‘I heard this band I think you might like.’ She was very much spot on. Canada’s Softcult are twin siblings Phoenix and Mercedes Arn-Horn and put out tunes with a sort of grunge meets shoegaze vibe. Not only do I dig the music but I love their DIY approach and the fact that you can only get their EPs on cassette (well, physical copies at least).

Thursday now, that’s such a crazy, lazy day…. current spins

/ Tony / 13 Comments

A whole month between posts…. this is getting pretty sporadic to say the best.

Thursday is a pretty good day really – the weekend is just a nad hair away and it’s time to load up on caffeine and hit up Mr Fyfe’s weekly quiz. It also feels like a good moment to cast an eye / ear over what I’ve been enjoying of late.

Pearl Jam – In My Tree (Live at Melbourne Park)

Record Store Day this year was a bit of a non-starter for me. I spent a couple of weeks of this last month barely able to walk thanks to severe knee pain – caused by what turned out to be something called a Baker’s Cyst* – so the notion of getting up at a dirty time of the morning and standing for hours was ruled out. Thankfully the one thing I had my eye on wasn’t this year’s big draw – seems like Pearl Jam aren’t as popular with RSD crowds as Taylor Swift or The 1975 – and I was able to wander down at a much more human time of 11am and find plenty of them left.

Give Way – the sign used in place of Yield in most places outside of the States especially Australia – is a live album that’s long been sought after. It was originally prepped for CD release as a freebie for early purchases of their ‘Single Video Theory’ but minds were changed at the last minute and 55,000 copies were ordered destroyed. Some escaped the cull and became massively valuable. Twenty five years later as part of Yield‘s anniversary (one of their finest and ranked fourth in my list way back when) and the concert – recorded March 5th in Melbourne Park – was unleashed for RSD.

A live Pearl Jam album is always worth wrapping your ears around and this one is another brilliant addition to their already strong selection – it’s a real showcase for Jack Irons’ drumming and the vibe his looser drumming style bought to the band. Sadly the run in Australia would be Jack’s last as he was battling a lot of mental health issues behind the scenes and would soon announce his decision to part ways with the band following the tour – he’d be replaced on the Yield tour by Matt Cameron, documented on Live on Two Legs.

Paul Westerberg – Mannequin Shop

My son is building up a Spotify list of his ‘favourites’ – though this is more any song that takes his fancy. We recently caught ‘Waiting for Somebody’ in the car and it made me dig out Westerberg’s 14 Songs for a spin – it’s still a solid listen but it’s the delightful take on the plastic surgery of the early ’90s that has been stuck in my head since. Much in the same way as I wonder how the writer of ‘Answering Machine’ would feel about today’s lack of real communication I’d have to wonder how Mr Westerberg would feel about the state of enhanced vanity in 2023. Unfortunately though, Paul seems to have gone to ground again.

Adé – Insomnies

I popped over the channel again this weekend past for a couple of days and have been keeping an ear to RTL2 since both to assist with the language learning and the variety of music – it seems hard to find a station here that plays as genuine a variety (though their obsession with Harry Styles and Ed Sheeran gets annoying) . Last summer I heard Adé’s ‘Tout Savoir’ a lot and, this trip, it seems that her song ‘Insomnies’ is the current radio player and another I’ve been enjoying.

Daughter – Be On Your Way

Daughter’s new album Stereo Mind Game is bloody good. Gorgeous sounds and arrangements with Elena Tonra’s vocals breathing through an album of lush shoegaze / moody indie-rock vibe.

Slowdive – When the Sun Hits

Speaking of lush shoegaze… I picked up Slowdive’s Souvlaki recently and have spent many a glorious spin lost in the warm blanket of sound it generates.

Silver Moth – The Eternal

One of those albums I hit pre-order on as soon as it was announced – Silver Moth are a band formed out of a few online conversations during the pandemic. Only members Stuart Braithwiate (of Mogwai) and his wife Elizabeth Elektra had met before they hit the studio on a remote Scottish island and recorded Black Bay in just eight days. It’s a bloody strong album – a multilayered beast of slow-burning yet immediate songs that combine its members’ shoegaze** and post-rock dynamics with two vocalists who’s vocals find a place between Kate Bush and Elizabeth Fraser.

Faith No More – Epic

Another one of those ‘hey, if you like this one, check this out’ conversations with the cub after picking up a 7″ of ‘Easy / Be Aggressive’ recently. There’s very little like this and it remains a fucking awesome tune some (gulp) thirty four years later.

Stevie Ray Vaughan – Texas Flood

Texas Flood is forty years old this year, which is as little a reason as I need to have been giving this one some attention.

*whether this is something first experience by a chap called Baker or those spend their time kneading dough develop the issue I don’t know.

**third and final mention.

Out of Europe: An Irish Top Five

/ Tony / 16 Comments

Of all the stupidity and upheaval that the colossal butt-fuck of an idea called ‘Brexit’ that so many fools were goaded and misled into voting for is likely to cause, one of the biggest potential quagmires is the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, thrown into even greater murk by that soulless banshee May’s desperate tactic of clinging to power by giving a massive bung to the D.U.P in utter disregard to the issues it throws up with the Good Friday Agreement.

As such I thought it fitting for this Out of Europe series to draw up a quick Top Five from Ireland who, while we continue to be lead blindfolded into a dead end, will remain in the blissful embrace of Europe. And, as we’ll be tearing Northern Ireland down with us, acts from that island’s north east tip don’t qualify.

My Bloody Valentine – Only Shallow

Formed in Dublin in 1983(!), My Bloody Valentine’s opus Loveless took two years to record (that’s nothing, it would be 27 years before they followed it up) and its extensive production costs got them dropped from their label but, fuck me, it’s amazing.

God Is An Astronaut – Forever Lost

A post-rock band who’s sound, according to that fabled source Wikipedia, “employs elements of electronic music, krautrock, and space rock.” I cannot for the life of me remember how I found them but I’d often listen to their second album – which this is from – at the gym.

Damien Rice – Rootless Tree

Success is often a real fucker. Look at what it did to Kurt Cobain. Damien Rice seems similarly unimpressed by it. When songs like ‘Canonball’ and ‘Blower’s Daughter’ pushed his solo debut O into so many peoples’ cd collections he withdrew and pushed against the tide. He’d only wanted to make the one album but his label pressed him into releasing 9 (from which this is taken) which leaned a little darker and met massively mixed reviews. It would be another 8 years before he dropped anything else. I like the line “fuck you, fuck you, love you and all we’ve been through.”

The Frames – Revelate

Dublin’s Glen Hansard is a busy chap. Aside from a solid solo career and frequent touring supporting and playing with Eddie Vedder he’s part of the folk-rock duo The Swell Season and continues to front the Irish rock band The Frames which he started in 1990. Oh, and he acts too – he starred in the film ‘Once’ and some other film called ‘The Commitments‘.

U2 – Until The End of the World

This band is certainly more of a cult act, probably little-known outside of Ireland. Despite what I can only assume are poor-to-middling sales they’ve been around a while now occasionally flirting with some good write-ups in the local press, bad haircuts and have even played a few venues outside of their native Dublin despite their singer’s clearly shy and introverted demeanour.

Honourable mentions to the blues of Rory Gallager and The Cranberries’ Dreams