Tag: Dream Pop

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Albums

Best albums of 1990: #3 Ride “Nowhere”

At album number three on this best albums of 1990 list, we are getting even more iconic.

Ride is the legendary original shoegaze quartet from Oxford, England. Mark Gardener, Andy Bell, Steve Queralt, and Loz Colbert first formed the band back in 1988 and created a buzz with a string of cool singles. They were extraordinary for the genre in that they were relatively commercially successful, even during the first go around, even performing on some of the hip TV music shows at the time. They released four albums but the last did them in and they split acrimoniously in 1996. Of course, they re-formed triumphantly almost twenty years later, in 2014, toured globally a number of times, and have released three more excellent albums.  And yeah, they are still a going concern.

“Nowhere” was Ride’s debut album. Originally released with a track listing of eight songs, the version I first heard was substantially longer with a bunch of bonus tracks from an earlier EP tacked on. This wasn’t my first exposure to Ride. I got a copy of it based on my love for their sophomore album, 1992’s “Going blank again”, which was passed to me on dubbed cassette from my friend Tim and I nearly wore out from playing. The debut by comparison was a lot more raw and immediate, with much less programming and a cleaner production. But I grew to love it just as much as the sophomore.

“Nowhere” was genre defining. It is a mass of swirling guitars, intense basslines, heavy drums, and the layered duo lead vocals of Mark and Andy just hanging out deep in the mix. Pure shoegaze perfection. Each of the eight tracks is now a classic but I’ve selected three for you to sample, just in case you’ve never had the pleasure before.

“Seagull“: “You gave me things I’d never seen. You made my life a waking dream.” The opening track on “Nowhere” is a six plus minute explosion of sounds. It is a miasma of four musicians playing the hell out of their instruments. Though somewhat buried in the haze, Loz is going full-on animal on the kit. Queralt’s bass line, though, refuses to be ignored, as muscle-bound as they come, relentless, hammering and holding up everything on a platter. Meanwhile, Bell and Gardener are punishing their guitars, playing against and with each other, conversing between jangle and feedback, and at the same time, their duo vocal attack adds yet another layer to the noise. All of it, like a tangled web to pick through, each line interesting to pull out and examine but all of it best taken together, like a tasty sugar pill that explodes in your mouth.

“Dreams burn down”: “Lying on the floor, the tears are falling down and more, her eyes speak loud but actions speak the best.” On “Dreams burn down”, Gardener takes the lead, singing about the breakup of a relationship, probably one-sided, evoking the despondency of endings. The verses are measured and even and melancholy. The drums laconic, the bass line warm and embracing, and the guitars chime, evoking a haunting, early hours feeling, where the question is raised on whether or not to finish the dregs of that last drink. But each of these verses are rudely interrupted by a burst of noise, as if each of the instruments are ripped away from their corresponding musicians and railed against by a demon intent on destroying them. The volume is flipped to eleven, matching the angst and flood of emotion. It’s almost too much. But just when you are thinking it might be a good idea to get up and adjust it, so as not to anger the neighbours, Andy, Mark, Loz, and Steve right the ship, and you settle back into your comfy spot in the bed of sound, sighing… until the next explosion and the next.

“Vapour trail”:* “Thirsty for your smile, I watch you for a while. You are a vapour trail in a deep blue sky.” “Vapour trail” is easily Ride’s most recognizable and popular tune for a reason. And even Andy Bell, who wrote this particular track, has been quoted as saying that this is the song of which he is most proud from that era. It closes “Nowhere” with a bang and an exclamation point. The funky drums that won’t quit and that string coda leads the listener reluctantly away from such an explosive mess of noise and begs for a click on the repeat button. There has been lots of conjecture over the use of effects to create that sweet guitar line that pulls the whole song together but Bell has been adamant that it came about naturally. They achieved it by twinning twelve string Rickenbackers and you can almost picture Bell looking at Mark Gardener with a nod and a smile, free and easy, embodying the whole mood of the song. It’s eyes closed on the dance floor, not quite dancing but shuffling, and not a care in the world, except for the fear that the song might end. Unfortunately, it does but the ecstasy stays, fading slowly, that beautiful, shimmering C-sharp minor–B–A–E chord progression reverbering in your eardrums.

*Pardon the bit of self-plagiarism here but I couldn’t help it. I don’t think I could have said it better than I did when I posted words for this song when it appeared at number three as part of my best tunes of 1990 list… so I didn’t…

We’ll be back in a handful of days with album #2. In the meantime, here are the previous albums in this list:

10. The Northern Pikes “Snow in June”
9. Jane’s Addiction “Ritual de lo habitual”
8. Sinéad O’Connor “I do not want what I haven’t got”
7. The La’s “The La’s”
6. Concrete Blonde “Bloodletting”
5. Spirit of the West “Save this house”
4. The Sisters of Mercy “Vision thing”

You can also check out my Best Albums page here if you’re interested in my other favourite albums lists.

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Tunes

Best tunes of 2013: #18 Daughter “Still”

<< #19    |    #17 >>

Daughter is a London-based indie pop trio that was formed back in 2010. Vocalist/guitarist Elena Tonra found herself needing a more full sound after starting out as a solo singer/songwriter and found exactly what she was looking for in multi-instrumentalist Igor Haefeli, whom she met in a songwriting course, and they later added drummer Remi Aguilella. A lineup stabilized, the group began recording and releasing music and performing live as word of mouth spread. They’re still a going concern and though their output has been meagre (3 LPs and a handful of EPs in fifteen years), it’s been quality stuff, all of it.

I got into the group shortly after the release of their debut album, “If you leave”, partially because of positive words that I’d read on the Internet and partially because I had seen their name added to the 2013 lineup of Osheaga and my friends and I had already purchased passes to go. That debut was on heavy rotation for me that spring and early summer (along with the other groups I was hoping to see at the festival) and I totally got into the heavy atmospherics and Tonra’s soft touch at the mike. Admittedly, I was a bit concerned seeing their set being scheduled so early in the afternoon on the second day of the festival. “If you leave” definitely has a late night/early morning feel to it, the kind of music that you can wrap yourself up in like a blanket and gulp down the dregs of your last glass of red wine, so I was unsure how it would translate under the bright and hot afternoon summer sun. Of course, any uncertainty was washed away by wave after wave of ethereal guitars and Tonra’s smiles and obvious glee and surprises at the amassed appreciate crowd for their early set.

“Two feet standing on a principle
Two hands digging in each others wounds
Cold smoke seeping out of colder throats
Darkness falling, leaves nowhere to move”

“Still” was released as an advanced promotional single for said debut album, but not quite a proper single. A crying shame, if you asked me because this song is a beast. It kicks off with a lonely guitar played in a vacuous space, a worthy accompaniment for Elena Tonra’s melancholy vocal delivery. Synths eventually wash in with a driving drum machine rhythm and it all feels like it continues to build, echoing crashes abound, an expectant explosion. But this epiphany never is truly realized. Daughter teases and taunts here, leaving you wanting, breathless and unsatiated, the song ending abruptly and forcing you to want to push the repeat button over and over again, just to see if, this time, they will grant that release.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2013 list, click here.

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Tunes

Best tunes of 2020: #11 The Reds, Pinks and Purples “Forgotten names”

<< #12    |    #10 >>

Memory is a funny thing. And it seems to have gotten an even more bizarre sense of humour over the past half decade or so.

I used to have a great memory, being able to recall the names of every actor and every director of all my favourite films, having the names of all the great musicians and bands I love at my fingertips at the odd chance that someone might ask for my opinion or any music recommendations. It hasn’t been quite as reliable of late, some of that being related to certain medical issues that I’ve been recovering from, but some of it might just be my age, and even just the age we’ve been living in, with all the collective insanity of the last five years. All in all, my relationship with and my thoughts about memory have definitely changed and so when I think about it, see references to it in films and hear raps on the theme in music lyrics, I take note and ponder.

And even though it may not be the case, it feels like Glenn Donaldson, frontman and driving force behind The Reds, Pinks & Purples, also seems to have a complicated relationship with memories and nostalgia. His songs (and there are a lot of them of late) mostly sound like they are ruminations on some memory or other, whether explicitly or implicitly, directly through narrative or hinted at through the dreamlike quality of his music. Whenever I put on his records, I know that my mood is going to be quite nostalgic by the end, whether I started out that way or not.

I got into The Reds, Pinks & Purples with their third release, 2021’s “Uncommon weather“, and immediately went digging for more of their tunes. There was already plenty to find and there’s been no lack of new output every year, given that Donaldson has been quite prolific with this project, releasing over 8 albums and just as many (if not more) EPs since his first release in 2019. And the tunes have been consistently great, and consistent in their dream pop sound that hearkens back to heyday of late 80s John Hughes soundtrack material.

“I always said you were the thief
you’ll be a star
with a red guitar
you took from better bands we used to see”

Track two on “You might be happy someday”, the 2020 mini-album by The Reds, Pinks & Purples, is a spritely three and half minute wistful guitar jangle wonder called “Forgotten names”. It’s held together by a jaunty but cheerful drum beat, seemingly content to just hang out, cool for cats, simply drifting in all the reverb, but it’s there to tempt your toes to tap. Donaldson’s voice is typically plaintive, like a memory of a dream faintly remembered from a lemon-light sunny Sunday afternoon nap, the kind where you dip in and out of consciousness, you’ll never know which was which later on. It feels like a song about those people that have made a mark on us, like it or not, something they said or did coming back to haunt us at random moments, even though they may have only passed through our lives for a short time and though their names are long lost to us.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2020 list, click here.