Tag: Shoegaze

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Playlists

Playlist: New tunes from 2024, part one

Well, hello there. Did you miss me?

Yes? No?

It’s been a minute (or over a month) since I last posted to these pages. This hiatus wasn’t planned. Life just happened to get in the way, as it has a habit of doing.

My intention was to post this first part of my annual playlist of new tunes just over six weeks ago. The playlist was put together, vetted, and reviewed near the beginning of April, and yet, I didn’t have the words to go with them.

Indeed, 2024 has been a mixed bag so far, good times and bad. Stuff has happened, life has moved on, and yet, I’m not sure I can point to anything specific or any detail anything of note for the first three months of the year. Nevertheless, if I look back at the previous year for comparison, I gotta say things are an improvement, right?

Right.

Well, at the very least I can point to music as a constant in the pro column. There has been some brand new discoveries, as well as new stuff from old faves. The music has definitely been there. And for that, I am grateful.

This will mark the sixth year running that I’ve done this exercise of sharing the best of the new music that has caught my ear during the year in playlist format. As I have for the last few years, I’ll be doing a separate part for each quarter of the upcoming year. This first part here is made up of twenty five songs from albums released between January and March and all things being equal, you ‘should’ see twenty-five more songs from the spring months at some point in late July.

So without further ado, I’ll present the music that has helped keep me going over the first three months of 2024. Highlights include:

  • Starting at the midway point in the playlist, we have “Caesar on a TV screen”, a single by British indie buzz band The Last Dinner Party and listening to it, it’s obvious that they are worthy of all the hype heaped upon them
  • Speaking of expectations, lots have been heaped upon the new album by Liam Gallagher (Oasis) and John Squire (The Stone Roses) and in my opinion, the results have been mixed but on certain singles, like “Just another rainbow”, we have seen these expectations realized
  • The Jesus and Mary Chain are a band that are revered for very good reason and their latest fits right in with some of their best, “JAMCOD” is just a perfect example of how excellent this band still is
  • Dan Boeckner has wowed the indie music world with the various projects he has unleashed over the years, like Wolf Parade, Divine Fits, Handsome Furs, and Operators, and “Don’t worry baby” is just one of the many great tracks on his debut solo album
  • Closing things off with “Peace sign”, the first single released off “Interplay”, the latest and very excellent album released by shoegaze icons Ride

Here is the entire playlist as I’ve created it:

1. “Literary mind” Sprints (from the album Letter to self)

2. “Sometimes, I swear” The Vaccines (from the album Pick-up full of pink carnations)

3. “No caffeine” Marika Hackman (from the album Big sigh)

4. “How lost” The Fauns (from the album How lost)

5. “Gone” The Umbrellas (from the album Fairweather friend)

6. “Say goodbye” Future Islands (from the album People who aren’t there anymore)

7. “I got the fear” Torres (from the album What an enormous room)

8. “Change my mind” NewDad (from the album Madra)

9. “Waves” Kula Shaker (from the album Natural magic)

10. “Language” New Model Army (from the album Unbroken)

11. “Caesar on a TV screen” The Last Dinner Party (from the album Prelude to ecstasy)

12. “Hollowed out” Ducks Ltd (from the album Harm’s way)

13. “House of self-undoing” Chelsea Wolfe (from the album She reaches out to she reaches out to she)

14. “Terrible news” Middle Kids (from the album Faith crisis pt 1)

15. “I want to be with you” Lime Garden (from the album One more thing)

16. “The spark” Elephant Stone (from the album Back into the dream)

17. “Water underground” Real Estate (from the album Daniel)

18. “Bubblegum dog” MGMT (from the album Loss of life)

19. “Just another rainbow” Liam Gallagher & John Squire (from the album Liam Gallagher & John Squire)

20. “JAMCOD” The Jesus & Mary Chain (from the album Glasgow eyes)

21. “The summer of hate” The Dandy Warhols (from the album Rockmaker)

22. “Don’t worry baby” Boeckner (from the album Boeckner!)

23. “Lover’s leap” Elbow (from the album Audio vertigo)

24. “Evil spawn” Waxahatchee (from the album Tiger’s blood)

25. “Peace sign” Ride (from the album Interplay)

Apple Music fans can click here to sample the above tracks as a whole playlist.

And as always, wherever you are in the world, I hope you are safe and continue to be well. Above all, enjoy the tunes.

If you’re interested in checking out any of the other playlists I’ve created and shared on these pages, you can peruse them here.

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2020: #15 Venus Furs “Chaos and confusion”

<< #16    |    #14 >>

“Paul Kasner is a perfectionist in the same way Kevin Shields, Anton Newcombe, and Thurston Moore are perfectionists. So, it’s probably befitting that all three of the aforementioned artists were among the many influences on Venus Furs, the self-titled debut from Kasner’s solo moniker of the same name.”

These are not my words but those of music writer Dom Gourlay conjured for one of my favourite music zines, Under the Radar. These are the words that he opened his eight out of ten review for “Venus Furs”, still the only album released by Paul Kasner’s project. And yes, these are the words that goaded me into checking out the album after I had missed its initial launch in July of 2020. I gave it a handful of spins on Spotify and found that it was indeed within my wheelhouse and was quickly on the website for Silk Screaming records, the label Kasner set up to release said album, and ordered a copy of it on vinyl for my record shelves*.

Paul Kasner is a Montreal-based songwriter, multi-instamentalist, and producer, who has toured with The Horrors and The Twilight Sad, and has worked by himself for many years on this one album, working to get it just right. Indeed, it is a lovely and tight 8-song cycle of guitar heavy, psych rock, toying with shoegaze and noise rock along the way.

“Chaos and confusion” is the five minute opener that layers acoustic strums with wispy reverb drenched electric licks. Meanwhile, the poltergeist on drums keeps time and space in check with a menacing leer and the bass line eases its way in and out of the miasma like a perfect stitch line sewing up eternity. And floating just above it all is Kasner’s vocal track, affecting his best Jim Reid/Peter Hayes impression, a woeful tale of gambling and loss.

*It later muscled its way into my top ten albums list for that year.

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

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 1993: #4 The Boo Radleys “Lazarus”

<< #5   |    #3 >>

Here’s a song with which I will always and forever connect with The Dance Cave.

Some of you who live, have lived in, or frequently visit Tarannah will likely have heard of or know of Lee’s Palace. It’s a long-standing concert venue in the Annex neighbourhood that has seen a great many alternative and rock acts grace its stage since opening in the mid 80s. If you’ve never been there, you likely remember its garish paint job that looked like a Ralph Bakshi cartoon exploded all over the face of the building, long since pared down to a mere memory of itself after years of weather did its worst. Upstairs from said venue, they had a big open space that served more as a rough and tumble looking club that often played alternative and indie rock, served $1.50 glasses of mystery draft, and was packed most days of the week throughout the 90s. This was The Dance Cave.

It was the first club I went to with any regularity because it played “my music”. Music I loved and music that I was destined to love. “Lazarus” by The Boo Radleys is one of these latter tunes that was played there pretty much any night that I attended and that I danced to every time, countless times before I even knew the name of the song or its performing artist.

The Boo Radleys formed in 1988 and broke up just over a decade later having released six full length albums. They started off firmly planted in the shoegaze realm for the first half of their career before embracing the inescapable wave of britpop for their last three albums and actually saw a modicum of commercial success during this latter period. And though I loved “Lazarus” through and through during the late 90s, I never really explored their catalogue into well after their break up. My first stop was, of course, 1993’s “Giant steps” and that album took me a long time to digest and fathom because it was so expansive and diverse in sound and scope. Some would call it an unheralded masterpiece of shoegaze and I couldn’t disagree.

In amongst the noise, “Lazarus” is lucky 13 of 17 tracks. It starts off with alien waves of guitars, strings fed through pedals charged with laser beams. This just sets the stage, allows you time to put down your beverage and rush out into the crush of sweaty bodies on the heaving dance floor and at the same time, plays the decoy for the incredible explosions yet to come. Then, everything vaults skyward and the dancing begins in earnest. And just when you think you might have to take a break, the vocals start in to calm the mood some, soothing the energy, allowing the spray of perspiration to settle, just before kicking it all up again. It’s the classic loud-quiet-loud, disruptive energy, a blurry anthem and cause for happiness and bliss for its entirety.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1993 list, click here.