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 no indication of why they’re splitting just months after dropping their wonderfully and well-received second album Sunlight Echoes. Up until yesterday they’d certainly seemed to be barrelling ahead with promoting it, having just made their North American debut last month at SXSW. Goodness knows I had thought they’d return for more shows eventually, but I guess not. Bands are hard and are not always compatible with real life, but man. It’s really too bad that some can’t live the dream just a little longer.
And because I guess I won’t be making many more Whitelands posts, here’s a short interview with bassist at What’s On Your Board? where she details… what’s on her pedalboard.
What’s on your board? …with Vanessa Govinden from Whitelands @ What’s On Your Board?
So as a farewell, I’m going back to “Setting Sun”, the appropriately-titled opening track of their 2024 debut Night-bound Eyes Are Blind To The Day, which was originally released in February 2023 and didn’t come with a video but did have a cool dub remix by A.R. Kane.
And a couple fan-shot live recordings of the song – one from a 2023 show in London and a Rough Trade East in-store in 2024.
Farewell, Whitelands.
