Shoegaze rock legends RIDE, fresh off the success of their excellent return album The Weather Diaries, are already preparing a new EP, Tomorrow’s Shore, due out this February 16th. The newest single from it, “Catch You Dreaming,” is out now and mixes dreamy riffs with their uplifting lyrics. 2018 is already setting up to be a good year for shoegaze.
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I reviewed close to 60 albums this year. Post-punk made a big comeback for me this year, as did electro. Let’s get this countdown started!
#30 – Ancient River – O.D.D.S. II
I’ve been listening to this psych-rock duo for years now, and they deserve to be better known to the world at large. O.D.D.S. II was a wild, crazy record with heavy fuzz, vocals covered in so much reverb as to make them almost incoherent, and a mix of live and electronic beats.
#29 – Tinariwen – Elwan
These Tuareg musicians make music for desert landscapes, yet it fits in anywhere you are. You could be in Antartica, the Amazon, or at the middle of Randolph and Michigan in downtown Chicago and this album’s haunting vocals and superb craftsmanship will make you feel your surroundings in a different way.
#28 – Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor – Lavender Blood
In a perfect world, this Detroit psych-rock trio are headlining music festivals. This album, heavily influenced by a near-death experience shared by all three members during a flight to Greece, is their trippiest so far and might be the best Velvet Underground album never released.
#27 – Partner – In Search of Lost Time
This is probably the best debut album of 2017. Josee Caron and Lucy Niles come out guns-a-blazin’ with this fine piece of power pop that contains heavy riffs, fun lyrics, and razor sharp song craft. It’s loud and proud.
#26 – RIDE – The Weather Diaries
RIDE came back this year with one of the best albums, shoegaze or otherwise, I’d heard in a long time. Shoegaze is enjoying a great resurgence right now, and it’s due in part to albums like this. It’s a stunning piece and a record we didn’t realize how badly it was needed until we heard it.
Who’s in the top 25? Stay tuned!
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This has been a good year for shoegaze. Two legendary British shoegaze bands returned after long absences with great records. One of them is RIDE (Andy Bell, Loz Colbert, Mark Gardener, and Steve Queralt), whose newest record, The Weather Diaries, is a welcome return and a sharp piece of work.
Opener “Lannoy Point” has the layered, echoing guitars you love from RIDE and lyrics about being wiser with the passage of time. They’re ready to get a lot of stuff off their chests. You can’t help but think the hard-hitting “Charm Assault” is about certain politicians on both sides of the pond. Lyrics like “Your charm assault has scarred the world. It looks so ugly as your lies begin to unfurl.” and “Privilege abused at every turn. Serious as a heart attack, he’s standing. He sets fire to your world and lets it burn.” hit as hard as the drum beats.
“All I Want” was one of the first singles off the record, and the decision to make it so was a no-brainer. It blends shoegaze and electro very well (and those drum beats are jaw-dropping), and the lyrics cover familiar shoegaze ground – loneliness and the urge to improve one’s lot in life. “Home Is a Feeling” is lovely dream pop, and the title track could be about global warming, but I think it’s about being overwhelmed by media (“When I was younger, it was simple. You didn’t have to question everything.”) – and the guitars build to a static-like roar by the end.
The name of “Rocket Silver Symphony” pretty much sums up the way the song sounds. It’s electric, bold, bright, and bursting with energy. “Lateral Alice,” a song taken from some of Andy Bell’s dreams, is a kick-ass rocker. “Cali” is Bell’s love letter to surf, sand, and sun in the U.S. The guitars in it are as wonderful as you hope they’ll be in such a song, and the vocals get ahold of your mind and won’t let go. You’ll want this on every summer playlist you make now.
“Impermanence” is a beautiful song about the end of things – life, relationships, even random physical objects like windowpanes. Bell tries to cope with the end of a relationship (while guitars soar all around his vocals) by meditating on the impermanence of all things, but it doesn’t help him much. “White Sands” (another song referencing beaches) muses on illusions we create and our struggles to let go of them. It’s hypnotizing in many ways, as is most of the record.
Good shoegaze always hypnotizes you. It causes you to get lost in dreamscapes and to notice the moment around you. It’s nice to have these musical Zen masters back among us.
Thanks to RIDE for being groovy cats when I met them at Pitchfork Music Festival earlier this year.
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Day three of the Pitchfork Music Festival started out a bit chilly as the Windy City was living up to its nickname, but we soon got our sweaty groove on thanks to a great set by Chicago house music legend and pioneer Derrick Carter.
For those of you who weren’t dancing during his set, please see a doctor because something is wrong with you. He put on a house music clinic. It was a great way to start the day.
We also heard a bit of Colin Stetson‘s set. He plays this wild, droning, hypnotizing saxophone music that is difficult to describe but quite mesmerizing. We had plenty of time before Ride‘s set, so we met up with my college pal and his husband again before heading off to do a little shopping and eating.
Ride put on a good set of shoegaze that was a great switch from all the hip hop, electro, and funk we heard during the festival. Unfortunately, they had a shortened set due to some early technical difficulties, but they played new and old material and blasted all of us with the final song of their set. It was a loud, distorted, fuzzed-out assault. “I needed that,” said one man next to me by the time they were done.
Ride did a signing at the record fair afterwards, and I scored a signed copy of their newest album, Weather Diaries (review coming soon). They were happy to meet everybody, and I’m happy to report they had a long line of fans there.
Mandy caught Jamilla Woods‘ set, which she enjoyed very much, after she’d been moved from the Blue Stage to the Green Stage due to the Avalanches cancelling their performance. According to their Twitter feed, a family member one of the band members had some sort of dire medical emergency. My college pal came to the festival mainly to see them, so he was more than annoyed they weren’t playing. He and his husband learned via a Google search that the Avalanches are about as finicky as Morrissey when it comes to performing.
Thankfully, Nicolas Jaar put on an excellent set of his experimental electro / trance music that was both psychedelic and dance-inspiring at the same time. At about the halfway point of his set, a guy in front of me turned to his friends and said, “This is the best set I’ve seen all weekend.” and then left.
We split after that, beating the crowds and stopping to meet artist Jay Ryan so we could get one of his posters. He does really neat and cute art for a lot of bands and other projects. We already had a Bob Mould tour poster of his hanging in our living room, and now Mandy has a “It’s Time to Read” poster that will go in her office featuring bears, cats, and a wooly mammoth reading books.
I walked out with a new pair of sunglasses and CD’s by Screaming Females, Vacation, Waxahatchee, Tycho, Priests, Slowdive, She-Devils, Ride, and Wavves, and even a cassette by a band called Diagonal. I’ll have reviews of all this stuff in the coming months.
All in all, the Pitchfork Music Festival was a good time. We’d go back if the lineup was good and we could stay close to the festival. As it’s been for the last few festivals I’ve attended, VIP tickets don’t look worth the money. It’s not as laid back as a Levitation festival, but still fun. It also could’ve used a little more rock, in my opinion, but it was worth the trip.
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Influential British shoegaze band Ride broke up in 1996 after just six years and a couple albums, but they got back together in 2015 and have a new album, Weather Diaries, out this year. Ride’s performance at the Pitchfork Music Festival on July 16th will be one of the highlights of the weekend, as not many expected a Ride reunion, let alone a new album or tour. They sound like they haven’t lost anything after 20 years, so don’t miss their set if you’ll be in Chicago that weekend.
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