Mew is a band from Denmark, with a musical style that is best described as a combination of indie rock and progressive rock (with shoegaze and dream pop influences).
The band consists of Jonas Bjerre (vocals), Bo Madsen (guitar), and Silas Utke Graae Jørgensen (drums). When on tour, Mew is supported by Dr. Nick Watts (Headswim) on keyboard, and Bastian Juel on bass.

Download: Frengers

And The Glass Handed Kites

Web: Myspace Page , Website

The sound of July Skies is about… lost youth, fractured memories of the 1970’s, pylons across fields, abandoned airfields, endless childhood summers, dappled sunlight through leaves, forgotten England, the romance of the heavens well after closing time, countryside, mornings in May, ruins, faded innocence, post-war Britain, skies of all seasons, trudging coastlines, Super8, Festival of Britain 1951, memories made with a Polaroid Landcam, Henry Moore, overgrown follies, East Anglia, time spent amongst long summer grasses, kissing under motorway bridges, grey English rain filled skies, concrete precincts and tower blocks, suburbia, better days ahead, the sound of children playing faraway, old Ordnance Survey maps, lost airmen, Orford Ness, rustic charm, John Nash, playgrounds of the city, Avebury, icy mornings and clear blue skies, poppy day, a half remembered smile, “There’s no comfort in this world”, 1960’s artwork by Harry Wingfield, John Berry, Martin Aitchinson, C F Tunnicliffe, Ronald Lampitt, BST, municipal parks at dusk, love, infatuation and loss

Download: The Weather Clock

Web: Myspace Page , Website

Woodenspoon

Souff Souff 12' (Warp 1996)

http://www.mediafire.com/?l0emjfz3mvi

If you've read this blog since its beginning, you may know that i am somewhat obsessed with Seefeel and all of its related side projects. Well, scratch the last few Scala records from that statement and then it will be true. I chickened out of buying this ep when it came out in the hopes that there would be an eventual album, but it never came to be.

Woodenspoon was one of Marc Clifford's projects after the dissolution of Seefeel. He also released an ep and Lp for Warp as Disjecta. Disjecta wasn't too far removed from the direction Seefeel took on their last two albums, but Woodenspoon provided Clifford an outlet to explore drill and bass, dub and occasionally something approximating dancehall shoegaze. Now, I don't expect Capleton or the many Ranks to come knocking on his door, but this ep definitely tries something new. It doesn't always work, but it is interesting to hear him shake loose from his influences. In this day and age, I have lost all interest in any of the drill and bass of the late 90s and its masturbatory usage of rhythm. Just because you can pack so many beats into a minute doesn't make it it more enjoyable. However, Clifford does incorporate some ethereal drones straight out of Quique to accompany the spasms of beats and it works here. It doesn't make me want to reevaluate that era, but it is a nice twist on the dub/shoegaze/electronic tomfoolery he perfected with Seefeel.

Overall, it isn't going to floor you, but any fan of Seefeel should check this ep out since it is interesting to hear their musical inspirations translated into a different arena. Good, but not great.

Moose

Sonny and Sam(Virgin 1992)

http://www.mediafire.com/?nizl3ybht94

During my teenage years, I became obsessed with shoegaze and faithfully trekked to Philadelphia's 3rd St. jazz and Rock to pick up any ep or cd remotely associated with this poorly named genre. I'm not trying to come off as some precocious wisenheimer since I also purchased albums by 24-7 Spyz, Hoodoo Gurus and 3rd Bass. However, I heard a track from My Bloody Valentine's Isn't Anything on WKDU and spent by bicycle messenger salary on every NME, Sounds and Melody Maker to search out similar sounds. Through these delightful and sometimes ridiculous rags, I fell in love with Slowdive, Swervedriver, Lush and other bands that adopted MBV as an influence and spun it in their own kaleidoscope of feedback and buried melodies. These three acts among others achieved relative success and are still fondly remembered by fans today. However, there were many worthwhile bands that fell through the cracks or lost their bearings after a brilliant single or ep. England's Moose definitely fell into the latter category even though they released a few albums afterwards.

Sonny and Sam collected tracks from their first two eps and added a couple odds and ends in the hopes of attracting an American audience. It's a pretty concise summation of what made them stick out from their peers. Moose's music adhered to the shoegaze blueprint, but there was something tender and habitually heartbroken about their music that set them apart as the sad sacks of the scene. That's why I loved them since their romantic odes to butterfly collectors and a lover's morning gaze appealed to the maudlin side of me. Plus, they knew when to turn off the spigots of feedback and toss in a minimal ballad that wouldn't sound out of place on Sarah or Creation records. They had some diversity and their music wasn't constantly drugged and distant. Moose wanted to be loved and wallow in noise as well as their alienation and woe. Now, their later albums focused more on the alienation and woe instead of noise and that made them less interesting. Sonny and Sam captures a moment when they didn't know whether they wanted to be a brit-pop band or something more ragged and intriguing.

Sigur Rós is an icelandic slow-motion rock band (according to the band’s own definition) with post-rock and shoegaze elements. The name is derived from the name of lead vocalist Jónsi Birgisson’s little sister Sigurrós. According to their website, it is pronounced “si-ur rose”. They hail from the same creative and vibrant Icelandic music scene as múm and Amiina. They released their first ever foray into film-making with their tour documentary, Heima in late 2007.

Download: Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust

Hvarf-Heim

Takk

( )

Agaetis Byrjun

Von

Web: Myspace Page , Website

Frakkur

After thoroughly listening through Person Pitch, Noah Lennox's third solo album, several times, three things ultimately struck me most.

The first was how quickly this album seemed to pass by. On the first listen, I passively lent it my ears while doing other busy work. I knew I liked what I heard, but it seemed to have ended after fifteen minutes. After looking through the tracklist, I realized that over forty five minutes had passed in actuality. And on many listens since then, I have also felt similarly, even though I have been paying very close attention to the music, that it seems like it must go by in under a half hour.

I can attribute this strange phenomenon to a number of factors, the first of which is Panda Bear's wide use of sampling and repetition throughout the album. When I saw Animal Collective live at Pitchfork, I found it quite interesting that the show was really just shy of a laptop show; all three members of the band were at one point in front of a soundboard, the Geologist actually for the entire show. Avey Tare was actually quite versatile, sometimes on a guitar or drums. Panda Bear spent most of the show in front of his soundboard, but picked up on percussion a couple times.

What is interesting about Panda  Bear's behavior as an electronic artist, and I firmly believe he can be considered some type of electronic artist now, is that he actually doesn't sample more than a little bit throughout the album. But when he does, he combines his sample choices with concocted or found sounds, and he never lets the album be completely electronic or completely organic. He builds up layers of sound much like Animal Collective did on Strawberry Jam, although somewhat less violent here, and then places them carefully over his rhythms. Many of his loops end in dissonant or floaty chords, thus making them that much more versatile and fluid. What many of them reminded me of before anything else was the album Pygmalion by Slowdive, and its accompanying demo sessions. It is only marginally likely that Panda Bear was ever actually influenced by this album, but judging by his use of these floaty vocal loops and many of the subtle melodies buried beneath the surfaces of many songs, it sure wouldn't surprise me. In any case, all of these elements come together to make a rhythmic result that begs for the listener to do two things at once, relax and listen. In this sense, time is not a concern. Panda Bear does what he needs to do, and lets the songs end on their own. Sometimes it takes twelve minutes, and sometimes four. Perhaps the juxtaposition of long songs next to shorter songs has something to do with my loss of sense of time while listening to this album.

The second thing that surprised me was how accurately the album cover depicts the sound of the album. I can think of several other albums that have done such just as effectively, but none of those other album covers were quite as complex as the one for Person Pitch, making it that much more impressive.

The meat of the album are the layers of sound built in each song. Sounds are built upon each other, sometimes used for one time, several bars, or the rest of the song. The samples and effects come from all different directions, parts of life. Some may sound like the sound of water in a bubble bath, while others may sound like animals, the clattering of chains, the sound that Pop Rocks make in your mouth, fireworks going off, doorbells, and whatever else Panda Bear has found or created. The effects, however, are treated with so much watery reverberation that deciphering them becomes difficult. I can liken this to the experience of seeing Animal Collective live, and not really being able to tell what was going on in the music simply because it was so thick, loud, and confusing. This may have been somewhat of a flaw live, but it sure made the music sound that much more awe inspiring, and on record it isn't a problem. However, I do find myself unable to pick out what I am hearing much of the time while listening to this album. It begs to be turned up, because you can never really hear exactly what is happening. After you turn it up, you still can't really make sense of things, but this is an album that grows in power exponentially with volume simply because for every notch on your knob you turn, you are that much more submerged in the music and what is going on.

Lastly, I have been simply amazed at how happy it makes me to listen to the album.

People seem to have forgotten to harmonize their voices with one another. They are getting better with it lately (See Fleet Foxes pretty swell release this year that has been lapped up by the hipster crowd this year, with very good vocal harmonies. Actually, they played on the same stage as Animal Collective at Pitchfork.), but still, people forget that vocal harmonies sell. Panda Bear isn't the freaking Mamas and Papas, but he harmonizes with himself in lovely ways that we don't hear often enough. And his smooth, playful vocals are really what make this album the pop gem it is.

Lyrically, Panda Bear has the balls to sing about things that actually matter. And at that, values that his audience might actually need to hear. And the main theme of the album is so basic, so fundamental that most everyone, including myself, have glazed over it in our minds a long time ago. Be yourself. Don't let anyone else tell you what is cool, what you should listen to, or make you feel inferior. Good Girl/Carrots seems to be the most prevalent in this philosophy. After the whimsical and fun run of "Good Girl," the next movement "Carrots," after a heartwarming reference to Mitch Hedberg, rouses a widespread defense against the kind of people who try to tell you what to listen to, to make you cling to a scene. The kinds of people that try to make themselves feel superior by collecting "all those first editions." Possibly the most affecting line is an indirect put down against "those mags and websites who try to shape your style," like perhaps Pitchforkmedia.com, or better yet, this website right here. The best and most representative line, however, is sandwiched in the middle of this song; "All I need to know, I knew so early." These are the kind of lyrics that we heard when we were small children on TV. Why doesn't anyone sing about these issues anymore?

But what really makes this album special is that it doesn't falter even once. All of these elements come together to make a collection of seven lovely, moving songs that keep their momentum. The opening Comfy In Nautica sounds like a glorious call over a cliff to some canyon. Then, Take Pills' two separate movements end up being as wonderful as one another, the first a slow relaxing piece, and then a marching, so-catchy-it-should-be-illegal second piece. And then of course comes the main song on the album, the sprawling Bros, for which my praise cannot be effectively articulated into written word. The almost tropical sounding aural cascades of I'm Not act as the keystone of the album. Good Girl/Carrots comes after it, and is just as moving as Bros. In the final stretch of the album, we have possibly the two most digestible and overall lovely pieces on the album, the ambient sound collage Search For Delicious, and a tiny, quite moving lullaby type song, Ponytail, which addresses the difficulties and wonders associated with change.

I think this is the one album of 2007 that I feel I can be unnecessarily enthusiastic about. It really is that good. Saying it is important or groundbreaking might be a little premature. But what seems to be the trend in pop music lately is either going toward the extremes of wildly experimental or almost ridiculously palatable. Sometimes we get people hitting pots and pans in complex polyrhythms, and sometimes we get The Jonas Brothers. Pop music has become a hedgemaze, and people seem to think that they need to base their decisions on which way to go according to how much is going to sell. Panda Bear, it seems, doesn't really care. He was just taking a walk, and he stumbled upon the beautiful garden in the center. If any album could introduce free form and experimentalism into the world of glorious catchy pop music, Person Pitch is that album.

alamedas choram musgo
por entre as pedras
abertas nessa estação.

myspace

キンギョ

This is a story about love. It begins on the side of a mountain in Alaska with a 7 yr old boy named, Eric Howk. His dad knew one song on the guitar and his mom could strum a few chords and that was a good enough start for Eric who then taught himself how to play. Six bands later and at the age of 18, he’d done all he could do in Alaska. Radio play in Anchorage was hitting the roof in AK, and that had been done. When a good friend attending the Art Institute in Seattle, WA sent him a recording of live KEXP sessions; Eric’s world turned upside down. He moved to Seattle with a guitar and little else to begin answering ads which landed him a handful of unsatisfying gigs in jazz fusion bands. He got a job at the Levis store downtown and one day a new employee came on named Ben Clark. Ben, better known as Ben Lashes, invited Eric to join The Lashes and history was made. A deal with Columbia Records was struck, celebrity was had, and several years of non-stop touring later; Eric got a vacation and went back to Palmer, AK for a visit.

Visiting all of his old high school pals in Alaska got him thinking about what would have happened to him had he stayed. How would his life be different from the celebrity status he now enjoyed as one of the nation’s most beloved pop stars and rock guitarists? Most of his friends were already young parents, hard laborers, and still playing the same bars he had when he was 16. This was the inspiration that began Eric Howk and Palmer, AK: the perspective that he had never taken the risk to strike out on his own. And with that, he wrote his first two songs.

Eric’s sweet and sentimental lyrics are accompanied by his extraordinary guitar playing. Initial recordings first took place in his bedroom when he was strictly a solo act. Now he is joined by fellow Lashes members, Jacob Hoffman on back-up vocals/guitar and Nate Mooter on drums. Jacob’s girlfriend and Ghost Gallery art curator, Laura Kearney plays bass. Phil Peterson, a touring member of Nada Surf, songwriter and string composer in Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground, recording studio owner and producer of The House of Breaking Glass; plays electric cello and will be co-producing Palmer, AK’s premier album. You can also find Jacob and Laurie together in their indie-shoegaze band, Ships. Not to be left out in the cold with only one or two bands to star in, Nate Mooter heads up punk rock sensation Strong Killings along with The Lashes drummer Mike Loggins.

Eric’s songs continue to tell the story of a great love that always seems to be just out of reach. It is in his thoughtful longing and wistful reflections that draw the listener’s emotions in. His singing and songwriting are soft spoken and full of passion, hope, and an un-cloying possibility of a bright outcome. With so many talented and experienced musicians accompanying him, deny yourself their next performance and new album, only if you deserve to be punished! I don’t think I’ve ever missed one of his performances and never tire of them. When I asked when the next one will be, he says he plans to work on his new album this summer. “Records sound better when they are done in the summer.”

I join them at local vintage Capitol Hill clothier, Pretty Parlor for their July open house and artwalk. The sidewalk is thick with friends and stylish hipsters and the ease of a warm summer evening is in the air. The sun is falling in sheets of gold outside the plate glass window while inside, amongst pastel colored dresses and cowboy hats, Eric Howk and Palmer, AK are playing to an adoring crowd listening under strings of garden lights and parasols. The songs are soft and slow and Phil’s electric cello rides along the song of Eric’s voice and he’s singing about love. Because from start to finish, this is a story about a love for music so great, that it led one small boy from the Alaskan wilderness, all around the world and back, to the city of Seattle- where his mammoth sized heart beats out a love that lives on.

http://www.myspace.com/palmerak  

written and photographed by January Fieldz

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Aboard ho!

10 - Lush - Hypocrite

Lush is not a shoegaze band as much as they are a pop/rock band that subtly adopts the genre's motifs. For a band with a name like Lush, you would expect them to sound a lot more like Slowdive and less like Garbage.

9 - The Magnetic Fields - California Girls

The Magnetic Fields are great theme based band, and one of their most affecting efforts, after the overwhelming epic 69 Love Songs, is Distortion. In 2008, they wrote a love letter to all shoegaze and dream pop fans, and we love the Fields for it.

8 - The Jesus and Mary Chain - Just Like Honey

The band's most recognizable single may not be their most dream-like, but if shoegaze is synonymous with the term "dream-pop," then Just like Honey fits the mantle perfectly. Its cameo at the end of Lost in Translation is perfect, and it reminds us why the genre exists in the first place.

7 - M83 - Kim & Jessie

Where Graveyard Girl is too loud wrap its listeners in a warm blanket of sound, Kim & Jessie is just perfect. The looping chorus in the song's last moments, coupled with Gonzales' perfectly composed soundscapes, give birth to a song that is almost impossible to dislike.

6 - Sigur Rós - Sæglópur

Sæglópur isn't exactly shoegaze until it bursts two minutes in, but it is dream-pop at its flawless. A lot has been said about Jonsi's falsetto, but one thing that is often universally agreed upon is its ability to take the listener away from their immediate setting and into somewhere ethereal and magical.

5 - A Sunny Day in Glasgow - 5:15 Train

Reminiscing on the days before shoegaze had been properly termed, A Sunny Day in Glasgow are a throwback to dream music before My Bloody Valentine made it pop. 5:15 Train is at once disorienting, frustrating, and haunting, but for people with a keen ear, it is a gem among the genre.

4 - Cocteau Twins - Lorelei

Very much in the same vein as A Sunny Day in Glasgow, Cocteau Twin's Lorelei is not immediately captivating, but perfectly mood setting. The entire record from which it originates is a very strong effort, and Lorelei is the track that stands out.

3 - Stars - Ageless Beauty

Stars dwell prominently in pop-orchestra, focusing on story driven lyrics, strings, and pop music outside shoegaze. In Ageless Beauty, they let go to wrap their listeners in a frantic blanket that at once smothers them while setting them free. It sounds like the effort of numerous angels as they accompany you to a sublime land.

2 - Slowdive - Alison

What is shoegaze without Slowdive, and what is Slowdive without Alison? The opening track of their most affecting record, Souvlaki, Alison is a song we all deserve.

1 - My Bloody Valentine - Only Shallow

I almost considered giving up on this list when I realized just how hard it was to select one song from My Bloody Valentine's Loveless to be number one. At last I decided on the song that any uninitiated listener is often subject to when the genre is introduced. Only Shallow is a song that you can listen to and say "I get it!" in regards to the genre as a whole, and as such it is number one. Really, could you have expected anything else?

You can listen to any of the above songs on Mixturtle: Just the most amazing website of the 21st century.

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