New Order – “Touched By The Hand Of God”

As mentioned, part of the promotion around the release of New Order’s Brotherhood: The Definitive Edition was the second season of the excellent Transmissions podcast that tracks the history of the band through the “World In Motion” single. One of the choice tidbits was the origins of the “Touched By The Hand Of God” single, […]

COLLAPSE – “Syrup”

Gig-going wasn’t the primary purpose of going to Japan earlier this year – it ranked somewhat below taking my son to see a giant Buddha statue an hour outside of Tokyo – but I was still thrilled to be able to manage both a huge arena show – Hitsujibungaku in Yokohama – and a little […]

Supercar – “Lucky”

The current explosion of Japanese shoegaze bands can usually be traced back to the early 2010s and the Kinoko Teikoku supernova, but if you go further back in time you’ll find the real big bang began in the late ’90s – not quite early enough to be contemporaries of the UK forebears, but certainly immediate […]

Fazerdaze – “So Easy”

Amelia Murray’s return as Fazerdaze is complete today with the release of her second album Soft Power, and she celebrated in advance by not only streaming the whole album a day early on YouTube – academic, since it’s available to stream everywhere now unless you don’t subscribe to any streaming services in which case have […]

World is Yours: The Inside Story of Japan’s Greatest Band – Mass Of The Fermenting Dregs

YouTube channel Angura is a pretty terrific English-language entry point to the world of Japanese indie rock, and they just dropped an excellent mini-documentary about arguably the most successful Japanese indie band in the west right now, Mass Of The Fermenting Dregs. After all, how many other Japanese indie acts can boast sold-out large-venue shows […]

Swiims – “All I Die For”

Returning to my intermittent series on quality dreampop from around the corner from me (I almost wrote “from the Six” but nope, can’t do it), we’ve got Toronto trio Swiims, who celebrated the one-year anniversary of their debut album Into The Blue Night yesterday. It’s an assured debut that doesn’t lag or get too samey […]