RAY – “Bittersweet”

Japanese idol-gaze heroes RAY announced details of their fourth album yesterday, and after 2022’s Camellia, which took their album naming convention towards the floral, they’re back to colours – White will be out on October 1. They’ve expanded their influences since their 2020 debut Pink, which owed more than a debt to their former incarnation […]

Douglas Heart – “Komplex”

It’s a shame that Gothenburg’s Douglas Heart are so little-known that their Apple Music bio offers the most comprehensive backgrounder on the early aughts dreampop outfit, but at the same time, hats off to K. Ross Hoffman for managing to compile as much information as he did. I’ll refrain from repeating the whole bio, but […]

Kinoko Teikoku / The First Demo Album

Unofficial archival releases from beloved, departed bands is nothing new so at first I expected that this collection of early demos from Japanese shoegaze godheads Kinoko Teikoku was going to be some kind of sketchy, poor quality MySpace rip or something. Well colour me surprised to learn that The First Mini Demo Album is not […]