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Archive for the ‘Music’ Category
Appropriate Music for Austin Right Now
Monday, May 25th, 2015Shoegazer Sunday: The Hope Slide’s “The Prince William Sound”
Sunday, May 17th, 2015The Hope Slide is a Canadian Band named after a natural disaster and, like Great Northern, has a name that make it hard to search for information about them on Google. Evidently the two principles were previously in a different Shoegaze band called Hinterland. Here’s “The Prince William Sound.” (Speaking of songs that are hard to Google…)
Shoegazer Sunday: Thee Heavenly Music Association’s “Trip Seat”
Sunday, May 10th, 2015The opening of “Trip Seat by Thee Heavenly Music Corporation (yes, two “E”s in Thee) reminds me of both REM’s “Finest Worksong” and A Beautiful Machine’s “Home.”
Shoegazer Sunday: Tears Run Rings’ “Mind the Wire”
Sunday, May 3rd, 2015It’s been a couple of years since I posted something from Tears Run Rings, so here’s “Mind the Wire.”
Shoegazer Sunday: Nothing’s “B & E”
Sunday, April 26th, 2015And here’s Philadelphia-based Nothing with “B & E.”
Shoegazer Sunday: Echodrone’s “Noisebed”
Sunday, April 19th, 2015Still grooving on Echodrone’s new album Five. My favorite piece from the album is “Noisebed,” which has some absolutely lovely harmonies:
So consistent is their sound that only after repeated listenings to Five did I notice that original lead singer Meredith Gibbons had left and been replaced by Rachel Lopez (who seems to have a bit higher range).
Shoegazer Sunday: Echodrone’s “Glacial Place”
Sunday, April 12th, 2015Echodrone’s new album Five is now out, which is cause enough for Shoegaze fans to celebrate.
The video below is for the song “Glacial Place”:
The footage in the video is taken from the Philco Ford Corporation’s 1967 industrial futurist film The Home Of The Future: Year 1999 A.D.:
As glimpses of retrofuturism go, it hits a lot closer to the mark than most, offering a central home computer (“which is secretary, librarian, banker, teacher, medical technician, bridge partner and/or all-around servant”), computerized learning, bookeeping, etc., and lots of glowing screens. It even predicts online shopping! As always, the hairstyles immediately tell you the film’s actual era.
Philco actually manufactured the Mission Control monitors NASA used well into the 1990s. Ford sold Philco to GTE, and since then the brand has been broken up and licensed to various companies around the world.
Shoegazer Sunday: The Casket Girls’ “The Chase”
Sunday, April 5th, 2015The Casket Girls are sisters Phaedra and Elsa Greene backed by the ubiquitous Ryan Graveface. Here’s “The Chase,” the concluding song on True Love Kills The Fairy Tale.
I picked up True Love Kills The Fairy Tale. If you like this, there’s more where that came from. The problem is, there’s a distinct sameness not to the songs themselves, but to the approach to the songs. Naive and slightly lazy female harmonies from the Greene sisters (a little like the Roaches but only two=part harmony, or the female harmony bits from Polyphonic Spree), a buzzy wall-of-sound backing electronic instrumentation from Graveface, some electronic percussion, and vey little else. A few more backing tracks and more varied harmonies would seem to be in order…
Shoegazer Sunday: Living Hour’s “Steady Glazed Eyes”
Sunday, March 29th, 2015Living Hour describe themselves as “a psychedelic dreampop band from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.” A Twitter user who recommended them described them as very Mazzy Star like, and they both share a certain breathy female twangyness.
Shoegazer Sunday: Life Model’s “Enough (To Know)”
Sunday, March 22nd, 2015Life Model hails from Glasgow, and “Enough (To Know)” hails from their debut EP.