Shoegaze

Record #962: A.R. Kane – Sixty-nine (1988)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

It’s said that there is a fine line between genius and madness. I’m not sure just how universally true that axiom is, but in the case of Sixty-nine, the debut full length from British dream pop duo (note: they coined that term themselves), they ride that line like Slim Pickens at the end of Dr. Strangelove.

The record is fiercely experimental—to the point that it’s almost a wonder that anyone agreed to release it. Nevertheless, the record became a huge influence on trip hop, post rock, and shoegaze.

I want to be clear that I love this record. There is nothing quite like it. But as is often the case with these sorts of artistic milestones, the scope of its influence may far outshine the record itself. Not everything thrown at the wall sticks. In fact, depending on my mood, this might strike me as completely transcendent, or as the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. Continue reading →

Record #959: Holy Fawn – Realms (2015)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

When Holy Fawn’s Death Spells made them the It Band of 2019, they were given a lot of praise for being one of the best new bands in the scene.

Problem there is that they weren’t exactly new. In fact, they had released their first album four years prior. But Realms sat in relative obscurity—even as Death Spells gathered them new fans. It sat as a sort of curiosity on their Spotify page, failing to offer the same crushing heaviness as the record we all came for.

However, as their star has continued to rise—thanks to tours with the likes of Thrice and Deafheaven—more and more fans found their way back to their debut. And while it might indeed lack the moments of black metal catharsis they’ve come to be known for, their trademark dazzling atmospheres and lush sonics were already in full bloom.

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Record #954: Lilys – In the Presence of Nothing (1992)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

There’s never been another record like Loveless. But that hasn’t stopped anyone from trying. The sonic sea change that My Bloody Valentine’s seminal masterpiece ushered in was as singular as it was influential, with bands still looking to its rose-tinted soundscape of guitars for guidance on their own sounds

And while it famously took Kevin Shields twenty-two years to release its follow up, it took Lilys about a year.

Granted, empires have risen and fallen as the debate between inspiration and derivativeness has raged on. And if I’m honest, I’m not interested in continuing it. While In the Presence of Nothing owes most of its sonic palette to Loveless, replicating those sounds are a feat in itself. I would also feel much differently if these songs weren’t so dang good.

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Record #953: Lift to Experience – The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads (2001)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

It seems no matter how deep I dig (and boy, do I dig deep sometimes), there’s always some seminal release I’ve missed—even in the exact scenes I’ve been trudging through. Take for example Lift to Experience, whom I had never heard of before a review referred to my own band as “We have Lift to Experience at home” (a favorable comparison, I hope).

I’m constantly fascinated by the points of reference other people have when they hear us, so I checked out this band that we were purportedly ripping off. Truth be told, it seems like the only immediate comparison is our shared devotion to overdriven guitars and reverb pedals. But when I divorced them from the comparison, I found a wonderfully idiosyncratic record that lands directly in that sweet spot between shoegaze and post rock that I love so much—bad hip hop parody artwork aside.

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Record #948: WHIMZ – PM226 (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

I’m going to break the (self-imposed) rules of the blog for the moment and skip way ahead in the alphabet because I’m worried I’ll never get to this if I wait, and I have some feelings about this record.

A couple weeks ago, I was browsing the used section at a local record store and found a bit of cover art that intrigued me. After some quick googling and about thirty seconds on Spotify, I took a gamble on this record—largely driven by the term “sludge pop” that I saw in a review.

And boy, does this disc live up to every possibility that phrase put in my head.

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Record #945: Drowse – Wane Into It (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

When Kyle Bates holed himself up in his Pacific Northwest apartment to record an album about isolation, grief, and personal trauma, he had no way of knowing how universal those feelings would become by its release. On the other side of lockdowns, protests, and relationships frayed by the above, Bates’ examinations are endlessly relatable—however, they still sound deeply personal, almost as if he never intended to release it.

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Record #938: Anchors – Adult Decisions (2019)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Go to local shows.

I cannot emphasize this point enough. Beneath the glimmer of mainstream music is a thriving ecosystem of artists who are just as good (or better!) than anything you might find on on the radio. And while some folks might scoff and say, “but I don’t know any of those bands!”, the discovery is the point.

A few weeks ago, my band played a show in a city we’d never been, and we were delighted by both the reception we received and the quality of the bands we played with. For the point of this post, I’ll draw special attention to Anchors, playing that night as a solo act on electric guitar. I got a copy of the album and found that while the stripped-down arrangements helped to highlight David Black’s clever songwriting, the full band versions on record don’t obscure it any.

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Record #923: Blanket – Modern Escapism (2021)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Kids today don’t appreciate how good they’ve got it. Back in my day (groans), it would take hours to download a single song, so you would have to carefully weigh what you were interested in hearing so you could make the most of your download time. If you just discovered a new emo band, you would typically spend your precious time downloading other emo bands, only rarely straying beyond that.

Now, thanks to streaming platforms and high speed internet speeds, you can jump from Sunny Day Real Estate to My Bloody Valentine to Slayer to Body Count to 100 Gecs instantly. The floodgates are open.

One of the most interesting byproducts of this unfettered access to the whole of recorded music is the widespread cross-pollination of scenes and genres. I’ve been around long enough to see how shoegaze, metal, and hardcore have interbred to create heavier shoegaze (or gazier metal?).

I listen to a lot of that sort of stuff, so it takes a bit for me to be impressed anymore. And “impressed” is a weak word for my reaction to Blanket, whose second LP Modern Escapism recently grabbed me by the lapels and demanded my attention.

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Record #911: Fotoform – Horizons (2021)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

As a music reviewer, my inbox is constantly bombarded with press packs. The unfortunate truth is that most of this goes ignored, buried amid the insurmountable pile of album streams and press releases.

But every once in a while, something will leap from the murky stream of promos and glisten like an iridescent marlin in the sun, catching my attention and holding it. A couple years ago, one of those records was Horizons, the sophomore record of Seattle’s Fotoform, a shining bit of post-punky shoegaze that’s as emotionally stirring as it is urgent.

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Record #906: The Cure – Bloodflowers (2000)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald / 1 Comment

Let me start by explaining that my recent Cure obsession isn’t totally aimless: my podcast cohost and I decided to take an episode to do a deep dive through the legendary Goths’ discography—a daunting task for anyone, but especially for someone who had largely ignored their legacy for most of their life (namely, me).

While I’d already spent a decent amount of time with some of their most celebrated releases, I set off to familiarize myself with everything I was unfamiliar with. I’ve spent the last couple weeks binging their albums, reading Wikipedia and album reviews like I was cramming for college finals, and filling in the gaps in my Cure collection.

One thing that I learned during this time is that usually, the general consensus about each Cure album is mostly trustworthy. If an album is good, everyone says it’s good. If it’s bad, everyone says it’s bad.

But there is one blindingly glaring exception to that rule: 2000s Bloodflowers, a brilliant and understated record that is almost universally maligned. And while I’ll admit that its artwork does it no favors, this is one case where the collective music historian consciousness is very mistaken.

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