Beach House – “Alien”

I’m a little ashamed it’s taken over a year for me to acknowledge one of the best purveyors of dreampop in the business hereabouts, but with Beach House releasing their eighth – and maybe best? – new record Once Twice Melody out today, here’s some Beach House love. “Alien” dates to the sessions for 2018’s […]

Belly – “Now They’ll Sleep”

Yesterday, February 13, marked the 27th anniversary of the release of Belly‘s second album King, and this surprises me a little bit. I remember very clearly walking to the HMV at University Plaza during my freshman year at Waterloo and buying my copy on CD the day of release, but I always thought that it […]

Warpaint – “Champion”

For those keeping track, that’s three much-anticipated new records just announced in the past week coming out at the end of April/start of May. Following news of new releases from Hatchie and Melody’s Echo Chamber, Los Angeles’ Warpaint yesterday released details of their fourth full-length and first since 2016’s Heads Up. Radiate Like This will […]

January – “Falling In”

I imagine the early aughts were an odd time to be a small, independent band. On one hand, the internet and its potential to reach a massive audience, had largely arrived. On the other, the technological infrastructure to support media, e-commerce, and everything besides just words and pictures on a screen, had frustratingly not. All […]

Hatchie – “Quicksand”

I’ve been waiting for details on the sophomore effort from Hariette Pilbeam – aka Hatchie – since lead single “This Enchanted” dropped back in September, and that patience was rewarded yesterday with a flurry of good news from Brisbane’s dreampop queen. First, the new record is called Giving The World Away and it will be […]

Synthesizing Men I Trust

I guess there’s just something about Men I Trust’s smooth, synthetic sounds that makes you want to close your eyes, drift away, and then obsessively reverse-engineer their creative process. How else to explain why there’s not one but two pieces online deconstructing their songs down to the synthesizer settings. Not that I’m complaining – I […]

Robin Guthrie / Springtime

If it seems like there’s been a rush of new music from former Cocteaus guitarist Robin Guthrie… well it’s because there has been. Yesterday, to coincide with his 60th birthday, Guthrie released the Springtime EP – a set of four gossamer guitar instrumentals. This follows last year’s relative deluge of material, starting with the Mockingbird […]

Cocteau Twins / Snow

Let’s kick of the last week before Christmas with the lowest-hanging of fruit for the season. In December 1993, just a couple months from releasing their major-label debut Four-Calendar Cafe, Cocteau Twins got into the festive spirit with Snow, a two-song EP comprised of covers of Christmas standards, albeit secular ones. A strange choice from […]