Softcult – “Haunt You Still”

There’s no interesting “how I found this local band” story for Softcult; the sister-duo of Phoenix and Mercedes Arn-Horn are the biggest local name for shoegaze right now, though if you’re being accurate they’re from Kitchener, not Toronto (me too!) and while some of their catalog definitely checks all the genre boxes, they could just […]

the neverminds – “melt”

And now, strange ways to discover local bands, part two. It shouldn’t be any surprise I follow a number of Japanese shoegaze concert promoters on socials; I find it a good way to discover new acts from that part of the world. Recently, I’d noticed a series of posts and ads from one of them, […]

Draag – “Orb Weaver”

Lots of things about Los Angeles’ Draag hint that they’d like to be perceived as darker/gothier/heavier than they are – album and song titles sound like they would talk at length about their level 30 half-elf figher-magic user, given the chance, but musically, they’re just too pretty to pull it off. That’s not a slight, […]

The Chameleons – “Where Are You?”

While fans have been blessed with a steady stream of archival releases, live documents, and reissues it has been almost a quarter-century since there’s been new music from The Chameleons proper: 2021’s Why Call It Anything?, which the band – reunited after after 15 years – managed to write, track, and tour before in-fighting and […]

Kurayamisaka – “Farewell”

One of the buzzier new acts in the Japanese shoegaze/dreampop world has been Tokyo’s Kurayamisaka, who stormed onto the scene with their remarkably confident and evolved 2022 debut mini-alubm kimi wo omotte iru. Picking a standout track from the five and a half options is hard – opener “theme” is just a one-minute build-up, but […]