It's great. It's from the '80s-'90s and the reason why it's called that is because the musicians stand on stage when performing and stare at their shoes. The sound is sort of ambient, with guitar and soft vocals. To be politically correct, I think I'm supposed to call modern shoegazers "nu-gaze" but I don't feel like it. I don't like things that have "nu" in them on principal. Shoegaze has a lot of fuzzy distortion noise; it's liquid and ethereal like you're hearing it underwater. It's dreamy, yet garagey at times.
My favorite shoegazers are Blonde Redhead, Deerhunter, School of Sever Bells, Crystal Stilts, Broken Social Scene, Silversun Pickups, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Yo La Tengo, and The Raveonettes.
There are so many subsubgenres I don't want to get bogged down in, but I think all the names are funny. There are hints of psychedelic or dreampop, although I feel like we veer a little into Animal Collective territory with trip-hop and freak folk, although they are pretty shoe gazey. Sigur Ros are also in that territory. Anyway, I'm rambling. Is it because I want to avoid reading all the papers I have to read for APES this weekend? I think so.
Back to shoegaze.
My sleepy, sunny, trippy playlist:
Lover's Spit - Broken Social Scene
I love how sluggish the drum is. This song is soaked in honey.
Iamundernodisguise - School of Seven Bells
Discovered on KALX, School of Seven Bells is a new fave. For some reason this song is so pagan-sounding to me.
Never Stops - Deerhunter
This song was in a dream I had. "It haunts my days."
Aly, Walk With Me - The Raveonettes
I really like the distorted guitars in this. In between the drone of the vocals there's this cool little shimmery riff. Half way through, this song explodes with noise that continues for 2ish minutes. And then it drops back into the shimmery guitars.
Lazy Eye - Silversun Pickups
This is such a summer song for me. I like the softness of it, with the volume rising ever so slightly and a little bit of tension building. This song drifts between emotions beautifully.
SW - Blonde Redhead
I discovered Blonde Redhead at Hear Music on 4th Street (now deceased). They used to have a section called Your Next Favorite Album. It was right at least 50% of the time. Blonde Redhead is quintessential shoegaze. It sounds like a little murky in the best possible sense, like you're underwater.
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why
Even the sun-clouds this morning cannot manage such skirts.
Nor the woman in the ambulance
Whose red heart blooms through her coat so astoundingly--
A gift, a love gift
Utterly unasked for
By a sky
Palely and flamily
Igniting its carbon monoxide, by eyes
Dulled to a halt under bowlers.
O my God, what am I
That these late mouths should cry open
In a forest of frost, in a dawn of cornflowers.
- Poppies in October by Sylvia Plath
kaki king occasionally partakes in shoegazey behavior.
ReplyDeleteThat blonde redhead track is pretty cool. I've overlooked them.
ReplyDeleteI've got to recommend some older shoegaze though (or paleogaze, to use the greek prefix).
Souvlaki by Slowdive has some of the most layered and echoed sounds known to man.
Loveless by My Bloody Valentine is really the album that spawned the gaze-generation. They spent so much time in the studio refining the tones that they almost put their record company out of business. A classic.
Quique by Seefeel is a rather odd instrumentalgaze album by these guys no one has ever heard of. I found a used copy of it in the dollar bin at Amoeba and it has grown on me.
you're right about kaki king.
ReplyDeleteand i neglected the founders and true shoegazers. i don't know much about this genre actually, especially the original stuff. i love that slowdive song. and my bloody valentine definitely deserves a mention when we're talking about shoegaze.
lover's spit = favorite.
ReplyDelete