Pretty much no one described themselves as shoegaze in the early 2000s, so fans looking for their hazy, reverberated music fix had to look for more subtle hints as to like-minded souls… like including gorgeous Ride covers on your albums. That’s how I found California-then-Seattle’s Trespassers William, built around the duo of Anna-Lynne Williams and Matt Brown, and their still-unique brand of slow, spacey folk-rock.

The original 2002 pressing of their second album Different Stars originally included a version of U2’s “Love Is Blindness”, but it was exchanged for their outstanding take of “Vapour Trail” for Bella Union’s release of the album in the UK in 2003, who also released it as a single. It remained when the record was reissued in North America in 2004 after signing to Nettwerk.

But I’ve already talked about “Vapour Trail”. Today, I’m talking about their just-(digitally)-released Live in Paris (Cafe De La Danse, 2004), which appeared on the band’s Bandcamp last week in time for Bandcamp Friday, and which captures the band’s first appearance in Paris. As they say on Facebook:

Our complete performance in Paris in 2004 at Cafe de la Danse, opening for Feist at Les Femmes s’ent Melent music festival. Straight from the board (Anna-Lynne without reverb!) but sounds pretty much how it felt.

Trespassers William @ Facebook

It’s an exciting release because it sounds great – fan-shot footage of the show has been around for a while, but amateur video picture and sound quality was not great 21 years ago, to put it mildly. And anyways, Trespassers William split in 2012 so any kind of new music from the band, even very old, is a treat.

I’ve picked out one of my favourite songs from the record to focus in on, but obviously the whole record is worth listening to, and if you want to watch the whole thing, you can.