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 […]

KILDREN – “Sundance”

Just as Kinoko Teikoku spawned a generation of Japanese emo-shoegaze bands, I think we’re starting to see the legacy of For Tracy Hyde and their hyper-melodic, nostalgia-soaked ethos, manifest itself in a new wave of J-gaze bands. One of them is Tokyo’s KILDREN, whose debut single last year is a six-minute sugarblast of noise and […]

Guy Chadwick – “This Strength”

Guy Chadwick went to ground for a few years after The House Of Love’s initial dissolution in 1994, eventually resurfacing in 1997 as a solo artist and with the assistance of Cocteau Twins’ Robin Guthrie, released a solo record in Lazy, Soft & Slow in 1998. It’s a pretty low-key affair of originals and one […]

Cocteau Twins / Twinlights

I’ve been filling a few longstanding holes in my Cocteau Twins collection, most recently getting the Lullabies To Violaine, Vol. 1 compilation of all their 4AD-era EPs – easy enough, as it’s still in print in CD – but the second volume, which covers their Fontana years but was also released by 4AD, is somewhat […]