Shoegaze – Page 12 – 7th Level Music

Review: Hum – Inlet

Everyone knows that 2020 has been a crappy year, but there have been some pleanst surprises this year: Drive-ins made a spectacular comeback, pets adoptions skyrocketed, Dungeons and Dragons became more popular than it has been since the early 1990s, Crayola released crayons with colors that better reflect all the different skin tones in the world, people saved money, read books, and learned how to cook again.

Also, Hum released a new album – Inlet.

For those of you unaware, Hum are a heavy shoegaze / space rock band who released four albums between 1991 and 1998. Their single, “Stars,” from the 1995 album You’d Prefer an Astronaut, was a mainstay of MTV and modern rock radio at the time. They were one of those bands that everyone found intriguing, but who somewhat disappeared after poor sales of their 1998 album, Downward Is Heavenward, and their touring van getting wrecked in 2000. There were occasional reunion shows now and then, but they were few and far between. Then, Inlet was released on June 23, 2020 and floored everyone.

It quickly proved that Hum hadn’t lost any of their power. Opener “Waves” unleashes a wall of sound in the first thirty seconds as lead singer / rhythm guitarist Matt Talbott (whose voice seems to have not aged a day) sings about the power of nature and drummer Bryan St. Pere sounds like he’s beating his snare drum through the floor. The loud, heavy, yet clear sound bassist Jeff Dimpsey gets on “In the Den” is a thing of wonder. It carries the track while Tablott and lead guitarist Tim Lash unleash electric guitar chugging like two growling tugboats pulling a barge loaded with UFO parts.

Dimpsey’s bass somehow gets heavier on “Desert Rambler” – which is over nine minutes of fuzzy, shimmering space rock. “Where is the bottom? I wouldn’t know,” Talbott sings. This seems to be about depression and heartbreak, but it could also be about whatever’s inside a cosmic wormhole. The song reminds me of alien landscapes drawn by Moebius.

“Step into You” is the shortest song on the album at just over four minutes in length, but it’s no less fuzzy. The lads in Hum have this amazing ability to create a sense of gravity being in flux around you with their sound. It’s difficult to describe, but it almost becomes tactile when you hear it. “The Summoning” ups the buzz-saw guitars so they sound like a swarm of super-intelligent bees.

It seems appropriate that they have a song called “Cloud City” on the album since many of the tracks seem to lift you into the upper atmosphere and beyond. “I don’t feel anything,” Talbott sings, perhaps because he’s weightless by this point from the sheer power of he and the rest of Hum are generating to get to escape velocity.

“I want to stay next to you. I don’t remember your name. Do you feel the tremors here?” Talbott asks on “Folding” – a soaring song about love and knowing when to let go of it when it’s gone. The song melts into a psychedelic whale song-like drone for over a minute at the end. Lash really gets to strut his stuff (as if he hasn’t been throughout the entire record) on the closer, “Shapeshifter,” which has him flying like an eagle over a barren desert one moment and then roaring across that same desert in an experimental rocket car the next.

It’s a stunning record and a welcome return from Hum. It’s a wonderful escape from the chaos of 2020. Put on your headphones, sit in a place where you can watch nature, and let it do the rest.

Keep your mind open.

[I’d hum a happy tune if you subscribed.]

Review: King Hannah – Tell Me Your Mind and I’ll Tell You Mine

Tell Me Your Mind and I’ll Tell You Mine is an EP by King Hannah that I wasn’t sure about at first. It didn’t immediately grab me, but I could feel something there I couldn’t quite describe. Was it a batch of dream pop hooks? Vocal craft from a synthwave torch singer lounge? I’m still not sure after listening to the EP multiple times, but I’m sure that it gets into your body and settles there like a warm cat on your chest that now and then likes to nibble on your fingers.

The EP opens with the lush, somewhat dark “And Then Out of Nowhere, It Rained.” Hannah Merrick‘s voice is like a ghost drifting toward you across an English moor and the synths and acoustic guitar riffs are like a fog that’s gone just as you notice it, blending into “Meal Deal” – which has a bit of an Americana / western sound to it with its mix of steel guitar and electro-drone.

I don’t know who “Bill Tench” is, but Merrick says, “I think you’re cooler than most,” at the beginning of the track, so he must be at least an interesting fellow. The song has a great bass groove and shoegaze guitars throughout it. “I need you so bad,” Merrick sings on “Crème Brûlée” – a haunting, sexy track in which she also admits, “I think I like you too much.” David Lynch could drop this into the soundtrack of his next film and no one would bat an eye.

“The Sea Has Stretch Marks” is easily one of the most intriguing titles I’ve heard all year, and the song rolls along like slow waves on a pebble stone beach. The album ends with “Reprise (Moving Day).” It’s an intriguing track full of shoegaze bliss, heavy bass, strange samples about (I think) Greek gods, and stuff you’d hear strolling the streets of San Futuro, California before it metamorphoses into quiet dream pop.

King Hannah tells us their mind throughout this EP, but we’re left wondering many things. It provides more questions than answers, which makes us eager to hear more from them – as any good EP should.

Keep your mind open.

[Don’t forget to subscribe before you go.]

[Thanks to Kate at Stereo Sanctity.]

Review: Holy Wave – Interloper

Austin dream-psych rockers Holy Wave‘s new album, Interloper, is a great blend of surf drones, shoegaze touches, and mind-trip riffs. The weird album cover art sums up the sound of the album fairly well – abstract to a degree, expanding and shrinking at the same time, and full of riddles.

Opening with a song called “Schmetterling” (German for “Butterfly”) is a good choice for the record, as the song spreads its silky wings and flutters out of your speakers with a happy, warm, Zen groove (“The sound of destruction sounds just like creation.”). “R&B” sings R&B lyrics (“I knew I wanted to be with you when you kissed me, and now these lips are just for you. I only have eyes for you.”) over psychedelic guitar chords and synthwave keyboards.

The Beatles-influenced title track is an ode (or possibly a lament) to the different worlds of touring the world and hanging out at home. The prominent synth work on it is quite good. “Maybe Then I Can Cry” is great psychedelia and a song about lost loves and holding onto memories. “Escapism” has the band hushing us as the psychedelic butterfly wings warm in the Texas sun and then take flight across an herb garden in some lovely hippie woman’s backyard.

However, on the next track they declare “I’m Not Living in the Past Anymore.” It’s a hot synth-rock track and a highlight of the record with the band pleading for us (and themselves) to stay in the present and embrace all there is, was, and will be. “No Love” is a dreamy track, not unlike a Slowdive tune (who are known influences on the band) with its vocals and instruments sounding like that butterfly now gliding along a lazy river that flows near a club playing a mix of acid jazz and psych-rock.

The title of “Hell Bastards” sounds like it’s going to be the theme song to an obscure European WWII movie from the 1960’s, but it’s actually a cool krautrock song. The beats of “Buddhist Pete” (the longest track on the record) get into your shoulders and make you move. The closing track, “Redhead,” drifts into your ears, settles in your brain, and stays there like a butterfly perched on your arm.

An interloper is someone who becomes involved in a place or situation where they’re not wanted or don’t belong. It’s easy to feel like that, especially in 2020, and even in a “normal” year if you’re in a touring band. Holy Wave probably felt like interlopers scores of times while touring, and Interloper is a great narrative of them being out of place at home and abroad.

Keep your mind open.

[You’ll never be an interloper if you subscribe.]

Review: October and the Eyes – Dogs and Gods

New Zealand’s October and the Eyes is a one-woman show. Perhaps the Eyes mentioned in her “band’s” name are the eyes of the world, or the Creator, or Big Brother. I don’t know the answer, but that’s okay. Sometimes the mystery is more intriguing than the answer itself, and “intriguing” is a good way to describe October’s Dogs and Gods EP. She calls her music “collage rock,” meaning she blends influences ranging from krautrock to house music to dub and garage punk. It all works, and the fact that all this sound is produced by one person is damn impressive.

Opening track “Playing God,” for instance starts off with industrial beats and guitars and soon blows your speakers onto their backs with psychedelic reverb-laden vocals reminiscent of Siouxsie Sioux emerging from a dark cave. “All My Love,” a tale of love and lust, is a gothic shoegaze masterpiece with sexy robot beats and synth-bloops doing a striptease alongside October’s vocals that sound like she’s singing through an FM radio dug up in a post-apocalyptic junkyard that can somehow access broadcasts from the early 1980s.

“Wander Girl” continues the goth-synth vibe with Dum Dum Girls and, I’ll say it, Cyndi Lauper-like vocal stylings. “I’ve only been waiting my whole life for you,” October sings on the peppy “You Deserve It” – a song that seems aimed at herself and her potential lover at the same time. “The Unraveling” is a flat-out shoegaze rocker designed to rattle your home walls or the roof of your car. The closing track, “Dark Dog,” is dreamy synth-wave that has a slightly creepy feel to it as October sings about a man best left alone.

This is one of the coolest-sounding (and sexiest) EPs I’ve heard all year. I hope we hear more soon.

Keep your mind open.

[I’ll send all my love if you subscribe.]

[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Rewind Review: Warm Drag – self-titled (2018)

I couldn’t tell you where I first heard Warm Drag (Paul Quattrone and Vashti Windish), but I can tell you that I was immediately hooked by them when I did hear them. Two people making so much powerful psychedelic stuff couldn’t be ignored, and their self-titled debut is a top-notch record.

Opening track “The Wander” (not a cover of the 1950s classic) gets the album off a thudding beat you feel in your jugular veins and enough distortion to probably cause your houseplants to shrink back from the speakers for fear an earthquake is rumbling through your living room. “Cave Crawl” was the first track I heard from Warm Drag and the song that stopped me in my tracks. Windish’s vocals bounce off the wall behind you and creep up on you like a vampire while Quattrone’s beats sound like a spaghetti western soundtrack record that’s been left in the sun a bit too long.

Windish is looking for love on “Cruisin’ the Night,” which blends girl-group rock with David Lynch film beats. “End Times” pours out of your speakers like some kind of venom that saps your willpower and entices you to lie down and let it carry you away with its filtered reverb effects, industrial drumming, and psychological thriller film synths. “No Body” ripples with krautrock beats and Windish’s vocals are pure shoegaze beauty.

“Sleepover” could fit in a horror film, a romance film, a compelling drama, or a spaghetti western. Windish’s lullaby vocals are a perfect match for Quattrone’s haunted saloon synths. “Lost Time” continues the sensation of being in a dusty ghost town street while the long-dead residents of that town shamble out of the shanties to stare at you with hollow eyes.

Quattrone’s synths and beats on “Hurricane Eyes” buzz like a beehive and Windish is the queen commanding all of us drones with her breathy delivery. “Someplace” is like honey dripping from a spoon into yerba mate spiked with peyote. Quattrone takes his time with the beats on it, not rushing anything so as to let the guitar and Windish’s sorceress-style vocals stretch out like a pair of leopards on a hot rock. The album ends with nearly eight minutes of “Parasite Wreckage Dub.” I love a good dub track, and this one doesn’t disappoint. It mixes dub with krautrock, industrial, and synthwave. That’s not an easy task, but Warm Drag makes it sound like they can do it in their sleep – and it’s a great soundtrack for dreams.

The entire album is, really. These are songs from dreams, hallucinations, illusions, hauntings, and seductions. It’s an album you’ll never tire of hearing because you’ll find something new in it every time, and the feel of the album will change as you listen to it in different locations. I hope it’s not the one and only Warm Drag record.

Keep your mind open.

[Crawl over to the subscription box before you go.]

Smut release “Fan Age” ahead of new EP due November 20th.

Smut announces their new EP, Power Fantasy, out November 20th on Bayonet Records, and shares an official lyric video for the explosive lead single “Fan Age.” The Chicago-based band, originally hailing from Cincinatti, is comprised of Bell Cenower, Andrew Min, Sam Ruschman, and Tay Roebuck.

Uniting crunchy guitar tones and swirling synths, Smut embraces a liminality and experimentation that pushes the boundaries of pop music. They blend melody and moodiness to yield to a droney and percussive sound, taking influence from shoegaze, 90s hip hop, and trip-hop. Smut have conquered national tours with acts like Nothing, Swirlies, and Bully. Previously working as an actor, Roebuck’s performance is uninhibited, reflective of the stage presence of Blur’s Damon Albarn. Roebuck’s caustically sung, meditations on grief, guilt, and growing into oneself hover over a wall of sound, making us nostalgic for shoegaze bands past.

On Power Fantasy we find Smut in a state of transition. “Fan Age” begins in a dreamscape of guitar chords as Roebuck sings of climbing the backs of giants. About a minute and a half in, Smut has their feet firmly planted as “Fan Age” transforms into an infectious, self-assured anthem – “I don’t feel bad, I hold no guilt.” Power Fantasy demonstrates a new direction for the indie outfit, one characterized by continued self-reflection and sonic renewal.

To celebrate the release of Power Fantasy, Smut will livestream a performance via Baby’s All Right’s BabyTV on November 20th. Tickets are available here.
Watch “Fan Age” Lyric Video

Pre-order Power Fantasy EP

Power Fantasy EP Tracklist
1. Fan Age
2. Power Fantasy
3. Perfect Dark

Keep your mind open.

[You can be a fan by subscribing.]

[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Soft Kill team up with Tamaryn for “Floodgate.”

Portland post-punk five piece Soft Kill share their third single, ‘Floodgate” featuring singer-songwriter Tamaryn, taken from their forthcoming November 20th album release “Dead Kids, R.I.P. City”, the long-awaited follow up to 2018’s ‘Savior’. Says the band’s Tobias Grave, “Floodgate is about unraveling mentally and pushing away your lifelines. It’s about being trapped in solitude, suffocating in a world you created.”

The band have shared two other singles these past few weeks; “Pretty Face”, which encapsulates listeners with its steady pulse of bass and cinematic-like guitar melodies, taking a slightly left field approach to post-punk with its triumphant and upbeat energy. That followed the lead doom and gloom pop single “Roses All Around‘, which is dark yet luminous in every sense, from its driving percussive beats, harmonic grooves and melodies, while also creating an opportunity to openly discuss its sociopolitical message that is especially prominent now as Portland became the epicenter of unrest these past few months.

Soft Kill had been growing with pretty much every record – but a deep maturation, achieving a level of emotional intensity that, even for a band known for exactly that, was nothing short of awe-inspiring and inarguably a high water mark. The question then, was how do they possibly follow that up? Well, here we are, two years later with Dead Kids, R.I.P. City, and we can all set down our worry beads. Soft Kill, Tobias Grave, Conrad Vollmer, Owen Glendower, Daniel Deleon and Nicole Colbath, have in fact put any such concerns commandingly to rest.

Two years in the making, desperate, redemptive, its contrast of light and shadow favoring the latter, Dead Kids, R.I.P. City is like no other album in the genre, featuring the brave and abandoned, the tender and the afflicted, all teetering in memory on the edge of the city. For all the sadness and pain of addiction haunting it, however, the record, by its very existence, proves that hope doesn’t necessarily win but that, even if at great cost, it can. It’s what makes Dead Kids, R.I.P. City so powerful beyond just the scope of its dark luminous sound and indelible melodies, and is one of the many reasons you’ll carry it with you.

Keep your mind open.

[Don’t forget to subscribe before you split.]

[Thanks to Jo Murray.]

Soft Kill share new single – “Pretty Face” – from album due November 20th.

Today, the post-punk five piece, Portland’s Soft Kill share their second single “Pretty Face” from their forthcoming November 20th album release Dead Kids, R.I.P. City, their long awaited follow up to 2018’s ‘Savior’. Says the band’s Tobias Grave, “‘Pretty Face’ was written immediately after finding out about the loss of our friend Zachary Delong. It recounts some time we spent together on the edge of oblivion, late 2011 into the first weeks of 2012. Survivors guilt pouring out into song form” – ‘Relax your pretty face boy, the pain has left you.’

“We shot this to be a lyric video but we worked in some scenes, starting in Washington and traveling into the far north section of Portland, stopping by the abandoned dog track at Portland Meadows and ending at the motel made famous by Drugstore Cowboy. The imagery will resonate with some, I’m sure. The song is one we’ve played live for two years and it’s got a big cult following without ever having a studio version circulating.”

“Pretty Face” encapsulates listeners with its steady pulse of bass and cinematic-like guitar melodies, taking a slightly left field approach to post-punk with its triumphant and upbeat energy while still channeling the doom/gloom sound Portland’s Soft Kill has built their identity around. The song reflects the darker side of what the band has experienced the past few years. The single follows Soft Kill’s return last month when they dropped the lead doom pop single “Roses All Around.” It’s dark yet luminous in every sense, from its driving percussive beats, harmonic grooves and melodies, while also creating an opportunity to openly discuss its sociopolitical message that is especially prominent now as Portland has become the epicenter of unrest these past few months.

Keep your mind open.

[It would be pretty cool if you subscribed.]

[Thanks to Jo Murray.]

October and the Eyes profess “All My Love” on first single from upcoming EP.

New Zealand-born, London-based singer, songwriter and producer October and the Eyes announces her debut EP, Dogs and Gods, out November 20th on KRO Records. October recently signed to the label following an introduction by fellow musician and friend Yves Tumor. Today, she shares the lead single and video “All My Love,” a track that lures you into a warm embrace of October’s coy and breathy sweet-nothings.

“’All My Love’ is unfortunately a love song – something I told myself I would never write, yet here I am,” says October. “But it’s not all sweet. In fact, I would call it more of a lust song. It’s about being in love but lusting for something more. It’s about desire, greed, and infatuation with a stranger. The song became strangely prophetic in recent months as I watched the one I once loved self destruct from afar ‘in tin cans and other crumbs of temporary self satisfaction’ – a line I wrote before I could even comprehend that it would become remotely true. Because of this, the song is now tainted with a strange sadness that I’ll carry with me every time I perform it.”

Watch “All My Love” Video

October is no newcomer to music – despite only being 23, the New Zealand born musician has been involved in musical pursuits since she was a child. Heralding from a musical family, the prospect of pursuing music in one form or another was almost inescapable: A classical pianist mother, fanatic music fan father, and two older multi-instrumentalist brothers who were always holding their band practices in the family playroom. Having grown up in a small rural town in New Zealand’s wine country, she turned to songwriting as a means to stave off boredom, teaching herself how to record and produce her own music.

After moving to East London, October wrote and produced the Dogs and Gods EP, a dizzying, darkly kaleidoscopic, and dauntless collection of music. Thematically, the EP explores the complex dynamics of love, lust and infidelity in the 21st century.

Self-describing her music as “collage-rock,” October pulls musical inspiration from the likes of Bauhaus, Bowie, Siouxsie Sioux and Suicide, then squeezing her influences through the gauze of modernity and electronics. With nods to acid rock, psychobilly and post-punk, October and The Eyes’ music is equal parts nostalgia-drenched as it is future forward, employing layers of ambient synth drones, crunched guitar, jagged organ parts, and October’s theatrical voice, creating something entirely her own.

Watch “All My Love” Video:
https://orcd.co/octoberallmylove

Pre-order/pre-save Dogs and Gods:
https://orcd.co/octoberandtheeyes

Dogs and Godstracklist:
1. Playing God
2. All My Love
3. Wander Girl
4. You Deserve It
5. The Unraveling
6. Dark Dog

Keep your mind open.

[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Review: Holy Motors – Horse

At first blush, you’d never guess that Holy Motors is from Estonia. Their music sounds like shoegaze made by a band that grew up in the American southwest and spent their teen years making out with their respective lovers atop red rock mesas during sunsets and then spent the night drinking spiked yerba mate and counting stars.

Yet, they are from another continent. Their love of Americana and psychedelia is evident from the first track of their new album, Horse. On “Country Church,” lead singer Eliann Tulve tells a tale of a cowboy facing a moral crisis and looking for guidance, but the “country church is only open on Sundays, but the night comes down on me every day.” The guitars shimmer but have a dusty edge to their riffs throughout the track.

“Endless Night” would fit right into a David Lynch film with Tulve’s reverbed vocals, the hazy guitar chords, and the distant drum beats in the tale of lust and theft in a seedy roadside motel. The sad country blues guitar of “Midnight Cowboy” adds a classic touch to Tulve’s tale of unrequited love (“You’re the stream I never swam in…”). “Road Stars” has two tired people realizing they could be tired together if they could get past their vices and egos.

“Matador” is another spooky road story as Tulve sings of being on the run from creepy men in her hotel room and spending every cent she can get on gas so she can keep moving. The guitars on the track go deep into psychedelic visions during the chorus and the simple drum beat is almost a tribal chant. The guitars turn into mesquite smoke on “Come On, Slowly.”

The guitars on “Trouble” bring spaghetti western scores to mind with their mix of bold chords and echoed soft touches. The stunning instrumental closer, “Life Valley (So Many Miles Away),” is like a long lost Velvet Underground or Traffic cut that sinks deep into your veins and carries you away from whatever you’re dealing with at the moment.

Horse is one of those records that lures in the back of your head once you hear it and emerges in serene moments. It’s a record that, if you hear part of it in passing, will stick with you and make you seek it.

Keep your mind open.

[Don’t forget to subscribe before you go.]

[Thanks to Tom at Hive Mind PR.]