Luna – “Dear Paulina”

I’ve been a committed Luna fan for about 30 years now, starting from the day I bought a copy of Bewitched during university at the Kitchener location of The Beat Goes On when I probably should have been studying instead of cruising the used CD bins of the Kitchener-Waterloo region. And, from those very first […]

COLLAPSE – “Path”

Amidst the flurry of band dissolution announcements last week, I was alarmed to see this Twitter thread from Tokyo shoegazers COLLAPSE (not to be confused with Tokyo Shoegazer, although singer Shoko Inoue was once part of Tokyo Shoegazer, as you know), announcing: “As of April 2026, Gt.YU will be leaving the band, and going forward, […]

Swallow – “Blow”

I was a teenager in the ’90s, fully immersed in the Alternative Nation explosion at the time, reading every music magazine I could get my hands on and exploring the wild, weird corners of the internet of the time for new sounds, and to my recollection I had never heard of Swallow. If I squint, […]

Whitelands – “Setting Sun”

And the hits just keep coming, but not the good kind of hits – more the body blow sort. Proving that shoegazers disbanding isn’t a phenomenon restricted to Japan, one of the bright new lights of the shoegaze scene – London’s Whitelands – abruptly announced their dissolution yesterday, effective immediately. Beyond the band’s statement, there’s […]

AprilBlue -『言の葉の国』

A couple weeks ago while bemoaning the hiatus-ing/disbanding of Shirotsume after a final gig in July, I mentioned a second body blow for fans of the poppier end of J-gaze and that’s because on that same day, AprilBlue announced they too would be splitting up following a final show in August. AprilBlue, of course, was […]

Cocteau Twins – “Cico Buff”

I don’t use Spotify or TikTok but apparently Cocteau Twins’ song “Cico Buff” is now the most popular song in their catalog on the former thanks to the latter. In investigating this little bit of trivia, I learned a few other things about the song. One, it was never released as an official single from […]