domingo, 28 de outubro de 2012

Glifted

After the demise of the band Hum, which caused some buzz at 1995 with the song Stars (if you're about 30 years old now, you've probably heard of these verses: "She thinks she missed the the train to Mars/She's out there counting stars", the guitarist Tim Lash joined forces with T.J. Harrison and gives birth to Glifted circa 2000-2001, stepping away from the psychedelic-and-slightly-grungey Alternative Rock powerhouse of his previous band and diving into the noise madness that was mostly forgotten at the first years of the new millenium. Fortunately, not for Tim. Under and In, their first (and only) effort so far, is a insane sea of swirling guitars, segmented tape loops and experimentalisms of everything noise-related. Not surprisingly, this work was and still is very related with the My Bloody Valentine, Swirlies, Swervedriver, lovesliescrushing, Astrobrite and those masters of microphony we all learned to love and worship. For the last 5 or 6 years, this kind of sound has been "rescued" and revived for many bands around the Earth, however, only a few know anything about this project or even mention Glifted's existence. Even I did not have a clue about it untill a few weeks ago, until I listened to one of their song (The Scare, I think) on the whenthesunhits weekly broadcast transmission and looked for them immediatly, enjoying this work since the very first song and first listening. A true shame, to say the very least.

Therefore, I just have the urge to spread their name around, as the moment is more than favorable to anything related to the microphony worshipping. Enjoy! ;)


















get it! (new link from Mega)

quarta-feira, 24 de outubro de 2012

Old Magic Pallas

Old Magic Pallas, or just OMP, is one of Brazil's brightest lost gems of the glorious '90. They started earlier in this decaded, as a group of five friends from São Paulo, SP, Brazil, bonded by the love of the rising Shoegaze Bands (Ride, Slowdive, Pale Saints and such) and '60 Psychedelic Rock. By 1994, they went to a studio and recorded a demo called Pull My Daisy (if you're wondering, yep, the cover and the 'enjoy!' link right below belong to them), which was greatly received by the public, media and the noise mates, such that one year after, they appeared on Brazilian MTV with a video of the opening song, Stargazer, and right after recorded a split album with Speed Whale and Moonrise, which featured two songs that weren't included at the demo. When they were in the process of recording and creating new music to a full length, they just hauled their activities at about 1998, staying a decade in silence until the announcement of new live appearances, which happened mostly from 2008 to 2010. By 2012, we don't know what to expect from them, since they're not playling live and don't seem to be recording anything, letting a great cult followers (including me) thirsty for news...

About their music itself, as I mentioned before, can be classified by a nostalgic Dream Pop painted with microphony blasts and peppered with oneiric psychedelia, creating swirling soundscapes which are perfect to be enjoyed in a windy autumn afternoon when you're walking on a park when you just want to taste the air in your face.

With so many bad music filling the spotlight and the public ears (specially here in Terra Brasilis), they come as a fresh sweet breeze, whose name and songs must be spreaded around the Cosmos. I hope you enjoy it!






get it!

domingo, 21 de outubro de 2012

Tamaryn


Tamaryn is a San Francisco duo consisting of Tamaryn herself (who's originally from the kiwi land, New Zealand)and Rex John Shelverton, who joined forces about the early 00's and since then dedicates themselves to a refined amalgamation between a bittwersweet Dream Pop and nostalgic Psychedelia. Which means you'll hear a lot of flaming walls of noise painted with the vulnerability and tenderness that made Cocteau Twins, Cranes and Slowdive cult around the Earth. In their case, both their maiden record, The Waves and the brand new Tender New Signs are very much alike, with he latter being a bit stronger and more diverse due to the maturity and self-confidence they probably earned at the road and the  support from the public and media they're having since then. Deserved, I must say. Both albums have a fluid quality, in the sense the songs stream very smoothly as they pass by your ears, evolving the listener in some kind of swirling celestial trance such that s/he won't feel like to going down to Earth so soon.

Even if they aren't contributing with something new and groundbreaking at the music world, they're mastering the art of crafting lush tapestries of sound. They surely deserve your attention and your love, in case you never have heard of them or just haven't listened enoughly.


update: New link for Tender New Signs besides links for Tamaryn's other records: '10 The Waves and '09 Led Ashtray Washed Ashore EP.



















get it! (new link from Mega)

















get it! 










get it!

sábado, 20 de outubro de 2012

Mixtape #8 - Noisy songs for us rejects


Hello, guys!

This brand new mixtape is somewhat different from anything we did before when it comes to compiling songs. I was just scrolling down my music folder and saw a lot of stuff I didn't know or wasn't able to remember how it sounds like, so I just put them in my media player and gave them a listen. I realized immediatly that I have some long-forgotten gems in my playlist, so I quickly thought, "why not creating a mixtape with them?", and here it is, 14 songs composed of deeply obscure acts dedicated to Shoegaze, Noise Pop, Dream Pop and all its variations, as the Grunge-fueled Shoegaze of Smashing Orange, the sweeetness of Velocity Girl (for anyone into Lush, they're pure cream) and Swoon 23 (criminally underrated act that is mandatory for anyone into Slowdive and Cocteau Twins), Blind Mr. Jones with a flute-based (yes, flute!) Dream Pop-esque sound, the orientals gazers Astreal (Singapore) and Hartfield (Japan), the newcomers The Sunshine Factory and The Cherry Wave, just to give you a "small" sample.


All this underappreacited stuff makes me wonder why such bands are just sadly forgotten by almost everyone and shitty bands receive all kinds of praise and acclamation. Life is not fair, as everyone older than 5-6 years old know, and quantifying the reasons why didn't any of them become big or at least drew some cult following is a impossible mission, but, well, why not giving them space here and do my part of spreading their names as far as I can? 

So, here they are. Just drown into the fuzz madness and have some fun!






Velocity Girl - Copacetic
The Sunshine Factory - Head Becomes The Tomb
LSD And The Search For God - Starshine
A Sunny Day In Glasgow - Shy
Blind Mr. Jones - One Watt Before Darkness
Lilys - Black Carpet Magic
Astreal - Blush Response
Starflyer 59 - Hazel Wound
Glifted - Last In Line
Swoon 23 - Lunatic
Smashing Orange - Remember Kendra
The Cherry Wave - Godzillabloom
Hartfield - True Color
The Ecstasy Of Saint Theresa - Swoony



enjoy! 

Be Forest

Be Forest is an italian trio assembled around 2010, which means they're still very young (orly?!). However, only a few would expect them to release a full album when they were just one year old with an astonishing quality as they did with Cold! So, let's talk about it: Cold consists of a 9-piece collection of songs in a Post punk-meets-Coldwave (this redundance is unavoidable, guys) quality who's not afraid to drown in Shoegaze bliss or even putting some electronics here and there when they feel like to. That means you'll listen many lost melodies coming from Echo And The Bunnyman, early Cocteau Twins and, surely, Joy Division. Despite all the old school vibe, they're very skilled in absorbing this influences and turning them into 21st century-faced soundscapes, which means they're way more than just a pastiche and relate them tightly with modern gloomny acts like Motorama and I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness, just to give you an example.


Well, the message is here, and there's a link right below. I hope you enjoy it as much as I and Paloma did! ;)





enjoy!


quarta-feira, 17 de outubro de 2012

Mixtape #7 - The Subway Songs

Hello, travelers and gazers. It's been over a month since the last two mixtapes, way too long, to say the least, but here we are. This time, me and Paloma created a mixtape together, whose theme is about the songs and bands that capture the grey-ish, concrete-painted landscapes of the subways that many of us ride everyday to go to our work, college, school, friend's home or whenever. I know many people really dislike this, after all, we all relate subways to those crowded, sweat-soaked places, rush hour, and all those unpleasant problems big cities around the world face, with the remark that we can't even have a nice landscape outside to look at, only those never-ending walls and tunnels. However, I think there's a sort of bleak poetics concealed between the railways, which can be enjoyed in an appropriated mood.

At the end, we compiled fifteen songs we think that fit this atmosphere pretty well, and that are also capable to relieve those stressful days at crowded wagons. There's a larger amount of late gems of the Shoegaze-and-peripheries realms, for example: Lower Dens, Deerhunter, Exitmusic, Motorama, Blouse, but, of course, there are still room for those classic people we always love and enjoy, like the good ol' Joy Division and the already-became-classic Fever Ray. At the end, we have approximately an hour of pure cosmopolitan bliss.

That's it, guys. Enjoy it well!


#Mixtape #7 tracklist:

Deerhunter - Desire Lines
KVB - Dreams
Be Forest - NTR
Belong - Perfect Life
Lower Dens - Brains
Motorama - Ghosts
Fever Ray - Mercy Street
Alligator Indian - Dark Fruit
Exitmusic - The Sea
Twin Shadow - When The Movie's Over
Blouse - Ghost Dream
Skywave - Don't Say Slow
Joy Division - A Means To An End
Kammerflimmer Kollektief - Neumond Inselhin
Screen Vinyl Image - Night Trip


enjoy!

Communicate - The Mediafire issues

Well, guys, I imagine some of you must have noticed the bad news that our mediafire acocunt was blocked yesterday due to violating the terms of service. I talked about it on the facebook's page of this blog. I really apologize for this inconvenience, but we will not stop. We will upload our files in other servers from now on.

Stay tuned!

quinta-feira, 11 de outubro de 2012

Candyaudionline

Candyaudionline was born at the distant lands of Philippines at the also (and already!) distant year of 1997, dedicating themselves to crafting sweetened songs washed in fuzzy-fueled paranoia, relating them closely to the more "primal" side of Shoegaze and Noise Pop universe such that Isn't Anything-era My Bloody Valentine, Going Blank Again-era Ride, Swirlies, and you know the rest of the list are easily summoned as the tracks run, sparkle and fade. Although they have been over 15 years on the road, they've never released a full-length, only a compilation of unreleased tracks at 2004, Saved It For Torture Reference, and a demo called Away We Go, which was released last year containing some demos. Their songwriting is very much of the same in both records, probably the later work being a bit noisier and a bit more refined in its construction.

A delicious obscurity, to say the least. One of the better surprises I had in the last several weeks, and I still wonder why I took so long to drop here. For anyone who has (good) issues with microphony, that's an ear-candy! (sic). Enjoy! ;)


















get it! (new link from Mega)




















get it! (new link from Mega)

sábado, 6 de outubro de 2012

Alligator Indian



I'm still trying to remember how I came across Alligator Indian at last.fm. I was just drifting through the artists page, when they suddenly appear. I found the band's name interesting, noticed they have free tracks on there, and gave it a try. When the song "Dark Fruit", probably their most succesful so far, streamed through my ears, I had, immediataly, that silly smile we draw when making a great discovery. Later on, I tried to find their full albums and saw they dropped their latest work, Spring, I'm in, at the name-your-price scheme at their bandcamp, and got it right away, and greatly happy to do that. 

At this point, you might ask me: "Why making such buzz about them?" "What do they have that makes them so special?" Well, they might not fit in the definition of genious or breakthrough-ers artitsts, but they were able to create something quite different from what we usually listen in a natural, easy-listening way. Matter of talent from them, plain and simple. Their musicanship is hard to label, and, sincerely, it's not needed. But if you want some references, imagine an Garlands-era Cocteau Twins stuck an vault of some kind of lysergic substance peppered with A Capella bursts of vocals and cooked in electronic beats. Despite of this, they're not some kind of frozen gloomy vamps. They're still able to open the vault sometimes and venture at the outdoor realms healthly, get some sunlight and put some Lo-fi/Surf Rock/Noise Pop/Post-whatever paranoid much in the vein of Vivian Girls or Teen Daze at their microcosmos. 

So, could you picture them out, by this description? Me neither. But I don't mind about that and so should you. Just check the link right below and have some fun! ;)







enjoy! (bandcamp)

Love Culture


About Love Culture, that's an excepert taken from their bandcamp page:

"Built on the aesthetic detachment of early shoegaze and Britpop and raised through the live visceral lens of modern indie rock, Love Culture creates an aural experience that rests more upon your fallen angel than your constant demon".

Many of bands description we see around can be quite obnoxious or even misleading, but that is not the case; it surely portrays what's Love Culture is all about, which means you will hear a lot of fuzzy screaming guitars driven by sweetened, delicated melodies, creating a strong link between what UK made in those golden years of the late-80/early-90 and what U.S. made at that same epoch, as if My Bloody Valentine and Smashing Pumpkins (at the early days) joined hands and walked at a park on partly cloudy day. 


Sounds exciting, huh? And that gets even better the more you listen. If you want to get their real flavour, there's their bandcamp link right below with name-your-price records (Aquamarine and Drag) at your orders. ;)






enjoy! (bandcamp)



enjoy! (bandcamp)

quinta-feira, 4 de outubro de 2012

Sundaze

Hailing from Portland, USA, Sundaze has come to life by the hands of June, John and Thuy-Duong at the fall 2011. Yeah, that means Sundaze one year old, only, and they already have a release under the sleeve, called Snowfall. It's a 7-track EP full of all those elements we know and love: reverberation, haziness, daydreaming and deliriums. But we can realize a strong groove driving their songs, which peppered with sexy atmospheres and guitar lines gives them a warmer, more colourful feeling than most  Shoegaze acts usually possess. Of course, comparisions with old school acts like Jesus and Mary Chain are unavoidable, as well as comparisions with more recent bands such as Raveonettes, Black Ryder or a slowed-down version of Ringo Deathstarr, howerver, in their case they are more than healthy and welcomed, since they do not just borrow their sound, just implement them into new unexplored horizons. 

At overall, that's a deliciously pleasant EP to listen, taste and enjoy at sunny saturday evenings (or warm weekend nights...) and will surely draw a smile on your lips while putting your ears into it. ;)






enjoy! (bandcamp)



update: Sundaze changed their name to Soft Shadows.