Welsh trio The Joy Formidable offers up dense shoegaze textures with poppy hooks, sort of like a cross between between Siouxie and the Banshees and Adorable.
Since they’re been on Letterman, I guess they’re hardly a secret…
Archive for the ‘Music’ Category
Shoegazer Sunday: The Joy Formidable’s “The Greatest Light the Greatest Shade”
Sunday, March 25th, 2012Shoegazer Sunday: Lemon’s Chair’s “Sonar”
Sunday, March 18th, 2012Here’s a live version of Japanese threesome Lemon’s Chair song “Sonar.” It starts off as some very pleasant noodling, and then more than halfway in transforms into a sonic wall of sound that never quite loses the central groove.
They also have a nice solid slab of steady-state shoegazer sweetness called “Swallowtail” on iTunes, but there doesn’t seem to be a version of that on YouTube.
Shoegazer Sunday: Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You”
Sunday, March 11th, 2012Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You” is the music Bruce Sterling would put on at the end of the party after every Turkey City Writer’s Workshop held at his house, mainly so people would leave. It worked too, not because it was bad, but because the waltz tempo, echoey steel guitar and smoky vocals make it the perfect “chill out at the end of a long day and feel your eyelids getting heavy” song. I bought the single off iTunes, but I think I might need to pick up the entire album, So Tonight That I Might See, as I’ve developed a craving for Hope Sandoval’s voice, which combines that smokey, chill tone of a classic jazz/blues chanteuse with peak-period Sinatra’s last-second, end-of-the-measure timing.
Is Mazzy Star shoegazer? I think they’re more sui generis, but I’ve seen “Fade Into You” on several Best of Shoegazer lists, and that’s good enough for me…
Skynet Now Has Its Own Band
Sunday, March 4th, 2012Flying robot quadrotors perform the James Bond theme:
This was done at Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science‘s Vijay Kumar, Daniel Melligner and Alex Kushleyev. The quadrotors are under computer control.
It’s not a particularly good version, but I’m sure they’ll have time to improve before the final enslavement of humanity. Now you’ll have to excuse me, I have to write a quadrotor heist novel…
(Hat tip: Derek Johnson)
Shoegazer Sunday: Slowdive’s “Machine Gun”
Sunday, March 4th, 2012I’m not nearly as big a fan of Slowdive’s Souvlaki as I am of their debut album Just For A Day, but “Machine Gun” is my favorite off of Souvlaki.
Shoegazer Sunday: Soliness’ “Skygaze”
Sunday, February 26th, 2012This piece has a lot going for it, even beyond the alteration, though I could do without the bit of black metal growling in the middle. Solines evidently hails from Denmark.
It reminds me a bit of the half of System of a Downs’ “Toxicity” that didn’t suck.
Shoegazer Sunday: Ride’s “Vapour Trail”
Sunday, February 19th, 2012Just got back from a business trip, so it’s going to take me a few days to get up to speed. So here’s a tune from classic UK Shoegazer band Ride.
Shoegazer Sunday: Plastic Girl In Closet’s “Love is Fun”
Sunday, February 12th, 2012Like Supercar, Plastic Girl in Closet is another Japanese band treading the boundary between Shoegaze and J-Pop. Also like Supercar, their dress sense seems to come from The Beatles circa 1964.
Shoegazer Sunday: Dead Mellotron’s “I Hate The Way Things Are”
Sunday, February 5th, 2012I thought last week’s dose worked out so well that we should go back for a second helping.
Shoegazer Sunday: Dead Mellotron’s “I Woke Up”
Sunday, January 29th, 2012Love the band name.